Why can't school be six months and summer be six months? Is it just to keep us locked in a room for eight hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year? Discuss this topic here.
Because summer is a season. Four seasons in a year Each roughly three months long Twelve months in a year 4 times 3 makes 12. I personally support year round schools (though I've never been in one.) Kids generally forget a lot of information in three months -my high school actually had less than that because they shortened the break more every year to drift into year round eventually- six months would just make kids forget more. In my opinion, 9 months is barely long enough to teach kids all they need to know in one year/grade. If they went to 6 months, I would say add a couple more years into the system (USA system anyway) and make it a really intense six months.
It's not always three months. It depends on the school you go to. I usually get two and a half. I'll be recovering from a surgery for most of my summer vacation, so it won't even feel like a vacation to me. My sister is on her summer break from university and she gets more than four months. Three months isn't bad at all. Plus, the shorter your break is, the more you'll remember from school when you go back.
Because an education is important. Because you completely lose your "rhythm" and most of your knowledge if summer break would last 6 months. Because school too is a social gathering. I was tired of school too when I was young and dumb(er), but in retrospect high school was an awesome period. I learned many new things and I had fun too. Grow up and bite the bullet. You'll learn to enjoy high school when you're past it.
Have you noticed that everyone that replyed so far is already out of high school? Year round schools leave nothing to be anticipated (Such as summer Breaks) and I would imagine that it seems to drag on and on....and besides,If yoy study at least a little bit you wont really forget much ^^
I would take their opinions more seriously than someone who's in school and just doesn't want to go to school as much because they think it's boring and just wants to have fun. Of course education is important, and it's taken more seriously in other counties verses the U.S. I say no to more vacation, and I would have said the same even if I wasn't already done with high school.
Education is important and people take things like this for granted. Kids forget things during summer break and six months is just way too long. and 6 months of school is not nearly enough time. If anything summer should be shortened and schools should be able to teach more for a longer amount of time. Well, we should fix the incredibly flawed education system first, but still. I find it infuriating that I can't take more classes in the summer >.> (coming from a fifteen year old, if it means anything).
Mine is way worse. I need to take C++, it's a very important class for my major, but my school only offers in online. My school has a reputation for really bad online classes. In the spring, however, they're having their first in-house C++ class, but there's a problem. I just finished with Survey of Computer Science, the next classes i need to take are Java, Data Structures, and C++ in that order. If I follow this order, I'll miss the in-house C++, which is the only one they're having that year. If i could take Java in the summer this would all be fine, but I can't. I'm just taking Spanish. Luckily you don't HAVE to finish Data Structures to do C++, only Java, so I'm just going to skip Data Structures and then go back to it after C++. But that means I'll be missing a lot of info for C++, and it'll just be weird >.> Oh well, could be worse I guess.
I would say no to more vacation and I'm in still in high school(though I'll be done with it this year). Most people, like many others have said, tend to forget things while they're out on vacation and some of the stuff that they learned in the previous year could be important for things that they will learn in the next (Math for example. Stuff that is learned in the Geometry is also used in Algebra 2 and it would be somewhat confusing if you forget it). Second, your internal clock and rhythm would get messed up drastically. Try going from 6 months of sleeping in and being lazy to 6 months of having to wake up early and go to school and learn. It would be pretty hard. Third, if you actually take classes that you might enjoy and that you can actually handle and you participate in some of the fun things that your school offers, school becomes less of a huge burden on your shoulder. Coming from a person who will graduate in December, I can honestly say that I enjoyed my high school years.(after my freshman year of course)
Excuse me, you tink you have it hard. At my school we only get six weeks of summer holiday before we have to go back to school. We get the occasional in-service day where we don't have to go to school because the teachers are doing training and we get two weeks at christmas, october and easter. And that's it. And it's is definately enough. Plus, I doubt it's eight hours, more like six or seven. I'd be happy if I had a three month long break!
I know I would go insane from being in a room eight hours, it's bad enough six hours. It takes time away from being an actual kid, not a robot that just goes through the motions. Three months gives us a freedom to do whatever we want, and to be worry free until classes start again. It also gives our brains a rest, for whatever other reason you need. I know that would help kids learn a lot, there probably would be less hours a day, but I wouldn't be able to stand that. Not only that, teachers would need to be paid more, books would be either added to, reprinted, and/or more needed of them. School would be a lot more expensive, in the long run, and they might have to start charging for normally free activities.
Not really. Year round schools, like those in scotland, get the same amount of education time as you do in the US, just the fact that you get one really big holiday of 3 months and a few smaller ones, whereas, we get 6 weeks of summer and 2 weeks at October, Easter and Christmas. It adds up in the end to about the same amount of holiday, so you wouldn't need to pay teachers more or re-print books with more information etc. Therefor, it wouldn't get any more expensive.
Since there would be less school hours a day, I don't think the differences would be that big. The learning pace can be adjusted in such a way that there will be no need to reprint textbooks, and teachers can get paid per hour. I don't support year round schools though. Kids and teenagers need something to look forward to. Look at all the adults who suffer from stress because their daily lives have become a drag. We don't want to increase this number or intensify the stress level by letting things become a drag at an earlier age. I say keep the current system. It's good enough as it is, even though many pubescent boys and girls may disagree.
I asked the teachers that at my school they said to help us learn more when it's near summer we can have fun and tehy have summer schools if people wanna learn more but still I think it's beacuse their trying to help us becom better at school be fore we have fun on summer.
like styx said i rather dislike the idea of year round school (i'm out of school and in college now) and year round would make high school all blur into one big mess of doldrums with the occasional spike of drama. your brain can't handle being assailed with info so often it would leave no room for creativity due to needing to make space. look at the japanese can't walk down the street without seeing the obligatory band of robots. and yes sometimes this creates really intelligent and creative individuals but they also probably had an aptitude for this sort of thing. An aptitude i might add which is very rare.
what about kids who dont have 3 months off hmm? I have 2 weeks off in April, July and October, then 6 weeks in December. I dont have a 3 month summer break. Honestly, by the end of the 6 week break I get really bored. Be grateful for what you have, trust me.
You know what's amused me the most? All of my internet contacts might have started summer holidays... but I'm in college. And I'm younger than them. Isn't the difference between UK and US schooling systems just simply hilarious?
your a fellow englishman? personally i find the UKs idea of schooling pathetic...we have some of out GCSE's at the moment...we havent been taught half the stuff on the exams...our school cant even get the time table right...every year we've been expected in at least 2 places at once...its so pointless