[Source: Author, Elliot Shi
[Source: Author, Elliot Shin]
Most American children attend a traditional school, one with 9 months of straight school with occasional holiday, and summer vacation. There are some benefits of attending a traditional school. One benefit is that traditional schooling allows kids to attend summer camps. These camps can give students resiliency skills, like self-esteem, life-skills, and prosocial behaviors. Not only do these camps sharpen these skills, kids can also choose between many camps to brighten their minds and to push them into something they are passionate about.
Traditional schools also have some cons. The major setback is how much information the children loose during this 3 month break. Nayre.org states that children after summer lose an average of 2.6 months of learning during vacation, while a local high school counselor says, “It takes me roughly 3-4 weeks to get back on track, remembering what happened the previous year.” Teachers end up spending too much time re-teaching information. Students that are serious about learning have to spend time working in the summer, rather than having fun like those could at year-round schools.
Ten percent of American children attend a year-round school. These schools have major benefits that may outway the advantages of traditional schools. With occasional 2-3 week vacations, students are able to retain more information, thus making them more successful on tests. This also makes these schools more efficient since the teacher won’t have to re-teach.
Year-round schools have one significant con. The teachers, custodians, cafeteria, and maintenance will be year-round too. This will raise the prices that the parents will have to pay, and this will make it so not all kids can attend this kind of school. If someone had the money and they wanted the best for their child, how could they say no?
There are two tough choices to make in terms of school. If a kid wants to be successful and they have the money, send them to a year-round school. If a parent wants to spend more time with their child vacationing, then send them to a traditional school. In the end the decision is yours and both of these schools come with unique benefits and downsides.
