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More magical thinking from the usual suspects
Today’s Globe and Mail has an article that harks back to Rousseau, with a wistful, romantic tone to it. The article advocates for eschewing formal schooling during the summer months, implying that the hiatus will enhance kids’ cognitive performance in the rest of the year.
This is obvious nonsense. These people probably think that their wish will come true when they blow out their birthday candles.
If there is one thing that the research tells us, not to mention common sense, it’s that kids learn what they’re taught. Of course, kids benefit from unstructured enriching experiences like boating or dressing up as a child from 1910. And kids who are already doing well in school will not suffer much of a setback if they take the summer off doing this stuff.
But for kids who are struggling in school, a summer off will cause their learning deficits to snowball even more. There are 24 hours in a day. If kids sleep 10 of those hours and devote 2 hours to schoolwork, that still leaves 12 hours for the unstructured learning and play advocated by the Globe article. In fact, depending on how severe the child’s learning deficits are, I might go for 3 hours of schoolwork and only 11 hours of unstructured learning and play….