Last month President Barack Obama announced in a speech his opinion that the American primary school year should be extended to better prepare today's children for competition with tirelessly educated foreigners.
Countries such as Japan and South Korea have academic years that are at minimum 10 days longer than the United States', and our educational standings have been steadily eroding in the past few decades in spite of the fact that the U.S. has access to more resources than any other country.
The current system, in which students are released in the early afternoon each day and given the summer off, was adopted due to the fact that many students were needed on the family farm; academic responsibilities took a back seat to those of survival and agrarian life.
Things have changed, however, and it would be foolish of us to not change with them. Currently there simply isn't a high demand for child labor on farms, so it makes no sense to adhere to a system designed with that in mind.
The advantages to constant or near-constant education are many-fold. First of all, more time in the classroom means more time learning, and a surplus of days on means that random days off are not as threatening to the educational infrastructure.
Next, by not having to reinforce old lessons after long breaks teachers would be able to make better use of class time in general; less backtracking is more efficient education.
Finally, there's really something to be said for not giving kids such a long summer vacation. It sounds cruel until one realizes that a lot of time over the summer is wasted. Not fun-wasted or leisure-wasted; just killed-wasted. By making the school year just a little longer, these kids might appreciate their (slightly) diminished free time more than they would have otherwise, and they'll certainly be more productive.
The downsides, such as the fact that the whole shebang will be a bitter pill to swallow and will cost a lot of money, are pretty easy to accept. Bitter pills typically contain powerful curatives, and we need to re-establish America as a leader in all respects instead of wallowing as a meteoric has-been.
It's time that we made education our top priority. In order to predict the future one needs only examine how the people who will be running that world are being educated. It's time we took a serious interest in what is to come.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
