I don’t know the precise history of summer vacation, but it has to do with an agricultural mode of living that Sunday visits to the local farmers’ market don’t quite track. Isn’t it time we questioned why we sentence our kids (and ourselves!) to, let’s face it, no learning for 1/4 of every year? Does that seem a good approach during the years their brains are in rapid-fire mode? And who is not sick of the struggle to get their kids off their butts and away from screens?

Not only are kids missing development time, it is well known that they backslide over the summer, actually losing some of the previous year’s learning. Teachers are then faced with spending time in the fall reteaching old material, thus setting back kids’ development further. [Read more…]