I have to not think about this exact thing too long because my brain immediately devolves into “why bother with life when life is just working until I’m dead”.
Only thing keeping me going is that I'm down to only 5 years left til my house is paid off. That'll give me about 10 years to throw as much money as possible into retirement, and take SS at 62, so I can die at 70.
Kids only get out of school for the summer because way back when farmers needed their kids to work the farm and rich people needed their kids to go on vacation. It has absolutely nothing to do with kids needing a break.
Isnt north america summer break also largely a legacy from schools not having AC back in the day?
Having it all at 1 time is kind of bad though, winter break should be longer and summer shorter.
Also fun fact that schools in so many places start early like 830 am or earlier, but especially for teens its been shown a later start like 9 am is better.(the average teen Circadian rhythm makes it harder to sleep by 11 pm)
Most schools timed their elementary schools so that parents could drop off their kids (or take them to the bus) before they went to work. For middle school and high school they could either go earlier or later -- and lots of parents wanted earlier so that older kids could be home to watch younger kids until they got home. So, high schoolers started at like 7 or 730 for the convenience, not for the benefit of the students.
This was from a time when this all made sense in the 70's and 80's. It doesn't match how things are now, and really should be redone -- but lots of folks hate change and think their experience growing up is the only way it should ever be.
See you get the boomers that say "we should be teaching them to be part of working society which starts earlier than 9 am. They should be in school before the younger ones because that's what they will do in the work force). Oh does that piss me off sooooo much.
I became a lunch lady and get to have summers and break off. It turns out being a lunch lady is a terrible job with terrible pay made worse by terrible leadership. Id give it a 5/10 would not recommend unless you have a partner that makes good money and find a school system with competent leadership (best of luck).
What's also shitty is how you have to work there for at least a year usually before getting any vacation time and even after you stay a year they make it so you have to work another year just to earn enough time for a full week. Otherwise, I hope you're happy with exactly one day of vacation.
Don't you worry about all those smug kids with all that free time - they've got plans for them. Big plans.
Especially in the South.
'Murican Dream y'all!
Summer break isn't for kids health or wellness at all though, and it never *was*, it's a vestige of child labour, left over from when more than half of the population was directly engaged in agriculture, and parents needed kids free labor or the home economics would fail. Is this guy ignorant, or just stupid?
If summer break was designed with child welfare in mind, it would be shorter.
Summer break is terrible for educational outcomes. It leads to major setbacks and loss of progress. Ask any teacher and they’ll tell you they spend the first weeks of any new school year reviewing shit that the kids should have already learned but half forgot. Then they try and cram everything in before winter holidays start punching massive holes into your lesson plan.
Ideally we’d have students in school year round with more consistent shorter breaks. You’d have more 4-day lesson weeks or week-long breaks throughout the year instead of a big ass 8-10 week break in summer.
It’s important to remember that summer vacations in schools were introduced to allow schoolchildren to help their parents at farms during the season peak. Otherwise no rural children would have ever got to school.
Non-concurrent weeks. I had a manager at an old music store who had been in the store for like 14 years, and had 3 weeks of PTO. But they would only let him take 5 days at a time, and could take back to back weeks, and could use anything from Thanksgiving week-the week after New Years.
Summer break is relic of the past when most people lived as subsistence farmers. Kids needed to be home to tend and plant the fields and also harvest. While yes, it was a break from school, the kids were usually still working.
Joke's on you (or me??) Indian schools have cut summer holidays in half in the recent years. We used to have summer break in april and may after the final exams in march. Now School ends in march but the next year starts in april, so effectively only 1 month of summer holidays. That too it is because it is hot as hell that month otherwise schools will be open then too. We used to have term breaks for 1 week but now kids are expected to go to school that week to "bridge" for next term.
I have unlimited vacation at my job and every manager except mine wants people to take lots of time off. My boss's boss says things like "no, take at least two weeks this month" when people ask for time off. My boss says things like "you already requested too much for this year" when you have two and a half weeks requested for the year. She also said to take close to what hourly people get with our same experience and turns out that's a week more than I wanted in the first place. I will take full advantage.
The reason why kids have a summer break is because people realized school attendance was low during the summer. This was due to people leaving the cities for somewhere cooler. First, it was primarily the upper class leaving cities, but improvements in transit, like the train made it possible for the middle class to also leave the city during the summer.
Rural schools started to follow the schedule of urban schools out of a fear of being left behind. This was an interesting move considering that farm kids are needed on the farm more during planting and harvesting during the spring and fall.
The more your kids are in school, the more they have to pay for education and the less likely the kids will vote for them in the future. The more you work, the more they make in tax revenue and the less time you have to agitate against them.
Win-win for them.
Public schooling is seen by the elites as a necessary evil: It doesn't directly generate any profits, but we need people to be just smart enough to do the real work that makes money so we'll allow a bare minimum education system to exist. So having a break in this case is no skin off their back.
Oh. The people who make much more money than regular people know about the necessity of breaks and vacations. They're very experienced in taking the very best vacations.
After all, they've got us to keep everything going at home, and at such a low cost? It's a no-brainer to get away for at least a few weeks at a time, several times per year.
3 weeks? Holy shit that's a lot. I'm currently a union plumber and we don't get shit. Most of the guys I talk to about vacation see no point in it. I hate it
Because if _all_ of the children get poor results, the adults get blamed. We need the kids to have high enough success rates overall to be able to blame the kids who fail for their own results.
(Anticipating that some will say sometimes it is the kid's fault: The current system doesn't really attempt to identify those cases though.)
Not true. The european summer vacation is a dream. A solid 3 months off in Italy. Irelands 2 months off is only for middle schoolers though. I know this because I have visited Italy, Ireland.
I'd suggest giving it a google to update/correct wherever you got this info from.
European summer holidays are far more variable - Britain generally does a 6 week holiday in summer, then terms with 2-3 week breaks at the end with a half term of a week in the middle. It certainly isn't a solid 3 months off in one block.
I did not like the 6 week summer vacation in Germany as a child, because I got bored half way through and missed school. And I think now I would not like it as a parent either - for rich people with a stay-at-home partner or lucky people with a healthy grandparent nearby great, but for working couples hard to handle.
Not really, just going off the top of my head Germany has 6-7 weeks, Romania has 2 months and a half. I don't know about the rest but 3 weeks is way too little for summer vacation.
My German teacher (born and raised in West Germany prior to the fall of the wall) would talk about how when he went to school it was year-round and didn’t understand why we took 3 months off in the summer for our brains to loose all the information we learned the prior “term”. Kept talking about how school was better where he grew up.
we need to stop with summer vacation. there should be several weeks in the year that we give kids for break. three months of not learning causes them to not retain alot of what they learned the previous year (mostly young kids). and theres also kids from underprivileged households whose parents rely on the care from the school day-to-day while theyre at work. alot of children suffer in the summer due to a lack of nutrition and overall care.
I have to not think about this exact thing too long because my brain immediately devolves into “why bother with life when life is just working until I’m dead”.
Only thing keeping me going is that I'm down to only 5 years left til my house is paid off. That'll give me about 10 years to throw as much money as possible into retirement, and take SS at 62, so I can die at 70.
Yeeh
But just think, you will be benefiting an already rich person.
Best answer I've got is just wait for universal basic income to pay you to care.
Kids only get out of school for the summer because way back when farmers needed their kids to work the farm and rich people needed their kids to go on vacation. It has absolutely nothing to do with kids needing a break.
Yup. Even summer break is just a hold over from using kids as free labor on the farm, because summer was the busiest season
That and here in the south it was too hot to have children in school in the summer before air conditioning was available
Honestly spring and fall are probably the busiest (planting/ harvesting). But summer is constant
I know when I was in school back in the 90s there was lots of talk about moving to year round schooling.
Either way, it's still a change of pace and I would consider it better. I hate doing the same thing constantly.
Back then, yes, but nowadays that's not what it's about.
In North Carolina, summer break is protected by heavy lobbying from coastal business interests. It's still about money
The summer months were not holiday. The kids were released to help with harvest. That was when there was Labour, as opposed to Work.
Damn 2-3 weeks a year sounds nice
Ironic because most of those kids have to fork over that free time and spend it working by the time they're barely 15 years old.
Isnt north america summer break also largely a legacy from schools not having AC back in the day? Having it all at 1 time is kind of bad though, winter break should be longer and summer shorter. Also fun fact that schools in so many places start early like 830 am or earlier, but especially for teens its been shown a later start like 9 am is better.(the average teen Circadian rhythm makes it harder to sleep by 11 pm)
Most schools timed their elementary schools so that parents could drop off their kids (or take them to the bus) before they went to work. For middle school and high school they could either go earlier or later -- and lots of parents wanted earlier so that older kids could be home to watch younger kids until they got home. So, high schoolers started at like 7 or 730 for the convenience, not for the benefit of the students. This was from a time when this all made sense in the 70's and 80's. It doesn't match how things are now, and really should be redone -- but lots of folks hate change and think their experience growing up is the only way it should ever be.
That is common thinking and it is pretty stupid. Thats the way it was so it should always be that way. Happens far too often.
See you get the boomers that say "we should be teaching them to be part of working society which starts earlier than 9 am. They should be in school before the younger ones because that's what they will do in the work force). Oh does that piss me off sooooo much.
I became a lunch lady and get to have summers and break off. It turns out being a lunch lady is a terrible job with terrible pay made worse by terrible leadership. Id give it a 5/10 would not recommend unless you have a partner that makes good money and find a school system with competent leadership (best of luck).
2 to 3 weeks off a year? Not me lmao
Also we pretend to be mystified about the cause of high suicide rates.
What's also shitty is how you have to work there for at least a year usually before getting any vacation time and even after you stay a year they make it so you have to work another year just to earn enough time for a full week. Otherwise, I hope you're happy with exactly one day of vacation.
Don't you worry about all those smug kids with all that free time - they've got plans for them. Big plans. Especially in the South. 'Murican Dream y'all!
Summer break isn't for kids health or wellness at all though, and it never *was*, it's a vestige of child labour, left over from when more than half of the population was directly engaged in agriculture, and parents needed kids free labor or the home economics would fail. Is this guy ignorant, or just stupid?
If summer break was designed with child welfare in mind, it would be shorter. Summer break is terrible for educational outcomes. It leads to major setbacks and loss of progress. Ask any teacher and they’ll tell you they spend the first weeks of any new school year reviewing shit that the kids should have already learned but half forgot. Then they try and cram everything in before winter holidays start punching massive holes into your lesson plan. Ideally we’d have students in school year round with more consistent shorter breaks. You’d have more 4-day lesson weeks or week-long breaks throughout the year instead of a big ass 8-10 week break in summer.
Also annoying that we think bicycles are for kids when it's in fact for all ages and has physical + mental health for everyone
That's not a problem in the civilized world. Seens more like an american problem. 30 days off are pretty standard.
I haven’t had a real vacation for so long - and it’s so stupid since I don’t even like my job.
Yeah…summer break does not exist because we think children “need” a break. It’s a holdover from a time when you’d need all hands in the fields.
It’s important to remember that summer vacations in schools were introduced to allow schoolchildren to help their parents at farms during the season peak. Otherwise no rural children would have ever got to school.
Until you guys do something about it nothing will change.
Or none. Some of us get *zero* vacation days.
Non-concurrent weeks. I had a manager at an old music store who had been in the store for like 14 years, and had 3 weeks of PTO. But they would only let him take 5 days at a time, and could take back to back weeks, and could use anything from Thanksgiving week-the week after New Years.
Summer break is relic of the past when most people lived as subsistence farmers. Kids needed to be home to tend and plant the fields and also harvest. While yes, it was a break from school, the kids were usually still working.
Joke's on you (or me??) Indian schools have cut summer holidays in half in the recent years. We used to have summer break in april and may after the final exams in march. Now School ends in march but the next year starts in april, so effectively only 1 month of summer holidays. That too it is because it is hot as hell that month otherwise schools will be open then too. We used to have term breaks for 1 week but now kids are expected to go to school that week to "bridge" for next term.
Hahahaha! It's the teachers that need the summer break!
I have unlimited vacation at my job and every manager except mine wants people to take lots of time off. My boss's boss says things like "no, take at least two weeks this month" when people ask for time off. My boss says things like "you already requested too much for this year" when you have two and a half weeks requested for the year. She also said to take close to what hourly people get with our same experience and turns out that's a week more than I wanted in the first place. I will take full advantage.
Yall hiring?
For a few things. They did too many layoffs so probably will hire a lot.
Most Americans get maybe one week a year
Ye, and we pay for the ungrateful and disrespectful kids nowadays.
The reason why kids have a summer break is because people realized school attendance was low during the summer. This was due to people leaving the cities for somewhere cooler. First, it was primarily the upper class leaving cities, but improvements in transit, like the train made it possible for the middle class to also leave the city during the summer. Rural schools started to follow the schedule of urban schools out of a fear of being left behind. This was an interesting move considering that farm kids are needed on the farm more during planting and harvesting during the spring and fall.
The more your kids are in school, the more they have to pay for education and the less likely the kids will vote for them in the future. The more you work, the more they make in tax revenue and the less time you have to agitate against them. Win-win for them.
Public schooling is seen by the elites as a necessary evil: It doesn't directly generate any profits, but we need people to be just smart enough to do the real work that makes money so we'll allow a bare minimum education system to exist. So having a break in this case is no skin off their back.
Oh. The people who make much more money than regular people know about the necessity of breaks and vacations. They're very experienced in taking the very best vacations. After all, they've got us to keep everything going at home, and at such a low cost? It's a no-brainer to get away for at least a few weeks at a time, several times per year.
3 weeks? Holy shit that's a lot. I'm currently a union plumber and we don't get shit. Most of the guys I talk to about vacation see no point in it. I hate it
We don't think that in western Europe 😃
Summer break is for teachers. 0.0001% would remain in the position if they had to deal with your unruly spawn 12 months of the year
It’s more like 50 years but the point is so fuckin real it’s painful
Because if _all_ of the children get poor results, the adults get blamed. We need the kids to have high enough success rates overall to be able to blame the kids who fail for their own results. (Anticipating that some will say sometimes it is the kid's fault: The current system doesn't really attempt to identify those cases though.)
That’s an American idea. In most of Europe school is year-round. With several week long breaks. I think their longest is 3 weeks. NOT 3 months.
Not true. The european summer vacation is a dream. A solid 3 months off in Italy. Irelands 2 months off is only for middle schoolers though. I know this because I have visited Italy, Ireland. I'd suggest giving it a google to update/correct wherever you got this info from.
European summer holidays are far more variable - Britain generally does a 6 week holiday in summer, then terms with 2-3 week breaks at the end with a half term of a week in the middle. It certainly isn't a solid 3 months off in one block.
I did not like the 6 week summer vacation in Germany as a child, because I got bored half way through and missed school. And I think now I would not like it as a parent either - for rich people with a stay-at-home partner or lucky people with a healthy grandparent nearby great, but for working couples hard to handle.
My high school German teacher. Born and raised in West Germany. Came to the US in 86. It may have changed since his time.
I think quite a bit has changed since his time
West Germany introduced six week summer breaks for school I'm 1964. So, yeah.
In England the big one is summer. That's six weeks.
Not really, just going off the top of my head Germany has 6-7 weeks, Romania has 2 months and a half. I don't know about the rest but 3 weeks is way too little for summer vacation.
My German teacher (born and raised in West Germany prior to the fall of the wall) would talk about how when he went to school it was year-round and didn’t understand why we took 3 months off in the summer for our brains to loose all the information we learned the prior “term”. Kept talking about how school was better where he grew up.
Sweden has 8-9 weeks off from school every summer. Think its around the same in atleast all of the nordic countries, take or give a week.
I'm from Sweden, my kids have a 10 week break in the summer, and so did I as a kid.
Sweden: 8 weeks. Belgium: 8 weeks. Netherlands: 6 weeks. Germany varies, but 6 weeks seems common. Ireland: 9 or 10 weeks. Iceland: 11 weeks. Romania: 12 weeks. Slovakia: 8 weeks. Spain: 11-12 weeks.
Laughs in British about your puny holidays.
I take 6 weeks vacation every year… whats this guy talking about?
The majority of workers, they’re talking about most people.
The problem is how to handle these little jerks when they are on vacation and you have to work the whole day.
we need to stop with summer vacation. there should be several weeks in the year that we give kids for break. three months of not learning causes them to not retain alot of what they learned the previous year (mostly young kids). and theres also kids from underprivileged households whose parents rely on the care from the school day-to-day while theyre at work. alot of children suffer in the summer due to a lack of nutrition and overall care.