It’s time to free the children

Spring is officially over (although we’re already had a month or more of summertime temperatures) and summer is officially here. Glorious sunshine. Everything is green. Mosquitoes are ready to hatch. The outdoors beckon.

So tell me this … why are kids still in school? Why are we still torturing our children by keeping them in school?

In the first two weeks of June, you can make the case that there are finals to be, well, finalized. But right now? Nothing. 

Most teachers, I believe, will privately admit that they’re just running out the clock in the month of June. By this point of the over-long school calendar, teachers know that they’re talking to kids who are even more checked out than usual. Also, a lot of schools are not air-conditioned, so trying to keep kids entertained – and at this stage, that’s all teachers are trying to do – is well nigh impossible.

If you don’t agree, just cast your mind back, gentle readers, to the halcyon days of your youth. It’s June, and while your teacher, Miss Havershom, the old maid with her hair in a bun, is droning on and on about God only knows what, you’re staring out the window, just itching to get out to the ol’ fishing hole. This fanciful memory might only exist for those in their 90s, but you get the idea. We all hated to be in school in June.

So, why are we committing kids and teachers to a pointless month inside the prisons that are schools in the late spring? Americans always seem to be out of school no later than mid-June, or at least that’s the way I understood it from the comics. We Canucks were stuck in school, but were we any smarter than Americans? Did that extra two-to-four weeks of ‘education’ make us better?

I think most people would agree that kids should be let out no later than the second week of June. So why don’t we? Two reasons, I think. 

Let’s be honest, folks. Schools waste an awful lot of time. There’s a week off for spring, two weeks off at Christmas, every conceivable holiday, teachers’ convention, and innumerable ‘professional development’ (PD) days, where schools are shut down so teachers can, I assume, professionally develop. Cut out teachers’ convention and PD days, tack on a few minutes to the school day, and presto! You’re out of school by June 15th.

Reason no. 2: We kind of don’t want to give teachers any more time off. Most of us who have (or had) regular working hours jobs with two or three weeks off are envious of teachers with their two-month holiday (and two weeks off at Christmas, and spring break, etc.). Teachers are well paid, so let’s make them earn their money until the last possible minute of the last possible day in June, right? 

But perhaps the main reason why we haven’t shortened the school year is parents. When the kids are in school, parents can finally be something other than a parent. Let teachers take care of your little brats so you can be a human being. So keep them in school for as long as possible, right?

Wrong. With our climate changing and summer coming sooner and hotter, it’s time to free the children.