An agricultural anachronism

Why do we have summer vacation?

Our tutoring consultant reminds us that a vast shift in the daily lives of his students is shortly to occur: school lets out for summer vacation.  It was already clear to us from such signs as the ads in local papers for summer camps, for everything from soccer to theater.  We needn’t go into the cultural mythology that has grown up around the phenomenon; it’s hard to imagine it any other way.

But—why?

We’ve all been told that school lets out for the summer because back in the days when America was a mostly agricultural nation, the children had to be available to work on their family farms then.  None of us is a farmer, but that reason doesn’t hold water on inspection.  There is probably more intense work to be done in the spring sowing and the fall harvest.  And the University of Cambridge has its Long Vacation over the summer, an institution that was never operated for the children of agricultural laborers.  The actual historical reason is no doubt more complicated.  You might find it among all the information on the net.

At any rate, we have it.  Should we change it?  It’s certainly something of a waste to have school buildings unused for many weeks.  And students are masters of forgetting things over the summer; perhaps they’d do better with a smaller break between classes.  Colleges and universities have summer-term classes.  The working world in general doesn’t stop for summer (though European offices tend to be deserted for August).  If the teaching load were spread out over the whole year, it’s possible that a better job could be done, with smaller classes or longer periods for the students to absorb a given amount of material.  At the very least, there wouldn’t be the problem of finding something for the children to do, which can be very important if both parents work full-time.

On the other hand, summer is when families go on their major expeditions.  Spending a week or two at Disneyland or some camp in the mountains as a family can be a very important activity, howevermuch the reality may fall short of our expectations.  It would be very difficult for most students to miss two weeks of classes in the middle of the year without falling far behind (indeed, in Britain it’s illegal).  And, in general, it is a chance for the students to do something different for a while; to break up the routine of classroom and after-school, perhaps to try something that they would never schedule otherwise.

Not only for the students.  Teaching in the classroom can be an intense experience, and teaching the same subject again and again can tire the teachers in more ways than one.  (One of our consultants had to teach the same class three times in quick succession, without a break, and he was ready for anything different after that.)

Perhaps the system could be shifted to something of a compromise, with students and teachers given long breaks at different times of the year.  That would still make use of the buidlings year-round and allow them a breathing space sometime.  There would still be difficulties: it’s hard to swim in a mountain lake when it’s covered with ice, and a beach vacation in winter would not allow much sunbathing.

We still believe that a break in the school routine has important value, whether for expeditions or theater camps or just doing nothing for a while.  Maybe especially for just doing nothing.