Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
The 10 month school year was instituted long before any teacher's union existed and was at least partially designed to accommodate kids who lived (and worked) on farms. I don't think we can pin it on them.
And I don't think the teacher's union is quite so powerful that they can stop us, society as a whole, from changing the school calendar. They may (or may not) be too powerful, but they don't control everything.
Anyway, is there any reason you can think of why we might not put children as young as five in school for 49 weeks a year? Any reason at all? Because if you can, it just might poke a hole in that "in the interests of anyone but the teachers" theory.
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Because children need the time to be children.
Because children of that age don't need that much structure in their life.
Because all too often, they burn out later on.
It's the same with sports. When children are young, sports should be fun and a means to keep fit instead of being a couch potato. They have all the time in the world to decide if they want to pursue sports on a more serious level at which time, you can introduce more structure.
As far as in classroom days in a school year, that has changed dramatically from when I taught. At that time, students had to be in class for 190 to 200 days a year. Those were in class days...professional days were not counted in that number. As far as professional days, I had 3 per year and then Teacher's Convention.
Although my children are no longer in school, I still check on in school days, more recently in the Foothills School Division as that is where I used to live. Last year they had 179 in class school days and 13 professional days. That is a minimum of 11 fewer in class days from when I taught. I don't think that bodes well for our education system.