vacation with children
Do you think that Obama’s plan to destroy summer vacation for school children will be carried out?
I don’t even know what to say about all of this. Personally, I think it’s one of the ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. Making children work practically as much (if not more than) their parents do… What a sad thought. Kids are stressed out enough as it is, now you’re going to put this on them too? Does anyone actually agree with this idea?
I think it is a terrible idea. I went to grade school in the 50s and also was an elementary school teacher.
Personally I feel that our children are not given enough time to be children and live lives stressed with too many organized activities and not enough time for free play.
I learned a lot in my free time just doing things kid’s do like playing, watching bugs and being in nature etc and so did my children.
It is not in my opinion right to trap children in school all the time as this is a time to be free, carefree, and to explore and have fun. For me personally having had a very difficult life, the only truly happy time in my life is when I was a child and I feel the large amount of time kids already spend in school is enough.
In my era, the teachers were strict and spent a lot of time on teaching and because of the expectations, children learned a lot more than they do nowadays. We did, however, have 2-7 hours of homework and I do think today’s students need a lot more homework. I was shocked when student teaching t how little homework kid’s received.
I feel the answers lie more in not teaching to the test, using more whole language., open classrooms, less structured classrooms and other teaching methods where learning is fun, relevant and kids come to love learning sometimes by picking their own topics of interest and sometimes with fun, engaging and deep whole language units that make learning engaging and interesting so that children come to love learning and it becomes intrinsic and then they do it on their own cause they love it. This is always more effective than forced education and leads to people like myself with a lifetime love of learning. I am almost 60 and love to read and learn still.
My underlying teaching philosophy was always to make it very fun to learn and the kids told me often I was fun, funny, interesting, nice and they “liked the way I teach” I knew it is was exciting and motivating and kid appropriate fun but advanced at the same time so it is challenging too, they would come to love learning and according to what their parents said I apparently succeeded in this. I saw their interest, participation and grades go up.
I also was nurturing, kind and loving and fair. I modeled a love of learning and I noticed when kids like you, they also try harder. I feel more of the problem lies with the teacher, teaching methods and the overloaded administrator mandatory curriculum allowing little time for teacher creativity and insight and little input from the students themselves. It is all too regulated.
In my classroom, it was fun and kid’s loved being in school. My lessons for the young grades were dense and some whole units covered over 2 dozen subject areas from geography to history to math and anthropology and all in between..they were relevant and they made connections among subject areas and they stimulated language and conversations. Participation in class discussions was high. The kid’s were highly motivated due to the exciting and fun way, I presented every unit and topic. I cat tell you how many parents told me their kid’s hated school before and thought it was boring and now loved it so much they talked on and on about all the things we did for hours each night..
I think this way of teaching was, in part, because I am in the top 2% IQ wise and I loved all topics and the children too and I was willing to spend huge amounts of time out of the classroom preparing. Among the best teachers I knew were the highly gifted ones.
Consequently, I also feel teachers should be paid higher and better respected and that both teachers and students be held to higher standards and expectations. I feel higher salaries are necessary to attract the people in the highest IQ areas or with the most creativity/talent, so they do not go to other fields. This way, we can attract the best of the best for teachers.
We also need teachers on board and kid’s for what the curriculum is and not put this all in the hands of administrators who do not really have classroom experience.
I feel parents need to be involved in their children’s learning and at home look for teachable moments and opportunities which abound in the average household in order to enhance the learning from school and to give one on one attention sadly missing in today’s schools due to high student teacher ratios.
I feel kid’s need to be allowed to keep summer vacation very strongly and if fact, this push by Obama greatly angered me and made me wonder if voting for him was a mistake.
Vacation Nation at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
