On summer camps and the wind.

I have never really felt more disconnected from current society as I did when I read this article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/back-to-school/students-in-year-round-schools-do-better-study-shows/article1663859/

Essentially, this article reports that children do better at school if they stay in school (or school-like activities) all year around.  Why?  The children don't have two months to forget their lessons.  Subsequently, teachers don't have to waste time on review and can pick up immediately in September as they left off in June.  Okay.  So all those parents who paid thousands of dollars putting their children into enrichment camps all summer can heave a sigh of relief and feel that they are, truly, giving their children a better start.  Funny, I always thought summer camps were glorified baby sitting services.  Well, perhaps I was wrong.

But I can't help asking myself this question:  Are schooling scores a true test of a great education?

Similarly, I often ask myself if money is really a true test of the wealth of a human being.  The answer to this questions is no, of course not.  Some of the greatest human beings in history were as poor as the wind and the grass but they managed to make real, positive, and lasting contributions to society.

So, summer vacation.  Does it have a real, positive, and lasting contribution to make to childhood and, subsequently adulthood?  Who knows?  It's never really been studied.  But I remember those long, long summer days and how I invented myself over and over in imaginative play.  How I was free to make my own way in the world, to make my own decisions, my own rules. And I cannot imagine what kind of person I would have become had I been told what to do all the time.  Would I be this independent, this creative, this bloody minded?

Well, I expect I would be more docile, more likely to do what I was told by whatever expert has an opinion.  Perhaps, instead of writing this blog, I would be watching TV.


I have chosen to let my child run freely as much as possible.  She has done exactly no summer camps in the last three years.  She's over at the park right now with her friends.  Right now in the wind and the grass.  Inventing herself.

I'll take my chances.