The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of once-and-future students on my way to work these summer mornings.
These kids are not old enough for jobs. Nor are they rich enough for camp. They are school children without school. The calendar(年历) called the school year ran out on them a few weeks ago. Once looked after by teachers and headmasters, they now appear to be in "self care."
For much of our history, however, Americans framed the school year around the needs of work and family. In 19th-century cities, schools were open seven or eight hours a day, 11 months a year. In rural America, the year was arranged around the growing seasons. Now, only 3 percent of families follow the agricultural model, but nearly all schools are scheduled as if our children went home early to milk cows and took months off to work the crops. Now, three-quarters of the mothers of school-age children work, but the calendar is written as if they were home waiting for the school bus.
The six-hour day, the 180-day school year is regarded as somehow sacred(神圣的). But when parents work an eight-hour day and a 240-day year, it means something different. It means that many kids go home to empty houses. It means that, in the summer, they hang out.
"We have a huge mismatch between the school calendar and the realities of family life," says educator Dr. Ernest Boyer.
Dr. Boyer is one of many who believe that a radical revision of the school calendar is necessary. "School, whether we like it or not, is custodial(监管的) and educational. It always has been."