Spring Break

Spring Break. For a substitute teacher, this often means no work for the week. For me it means just less work as I continue to tutor and teach ESL. Unfortunately, for some kids the break isn’t really a break for them, either. Keeping up with their busy schedules that the rest of the school year dictates, many kids are fortified with more tutoring sessions, more swim, dance, or math classes and no time for unstructured play. Some parents are seemingly unwilling, or perhaps, afraid, to let their kids just be kids – that is, there seems to be less time, if any during the week, that children have to really play. Unstructured free time for children appears to be the opposite of what is happening to modern kids. Recently, while tutoring a kindergarten student in English, the five year old informed me that she had to eat dinner in the car on the way to the school. Why, I wondered, didn’t she eat at home? She began to list off her day’s activities. Here is what she told me: “First, I go to Kindergarten in the morning, and sometimes eat lunch in the car on the way to art class. After art class, I go to my swimming lessons then ballet. And then I come here.” I was shocked. This little girl is 5 years old and she has a busier schedule than I do! What are we doing to our children? Have we forgotten that they are indeed just children? The trend is frightening. In a recent paper I was researching for one of my education classes, I came across some interesting literature regarding recess time in the American school system. Apparently, some schools are scaling back, or cutting recess altogether in favour of having more time for test preparation. Instead of exercising their developing muscles, socializing, playing and most importantly, learning invaluable lessons that cannot be taught inside the classroom, they are sitting to write tests. Standardized testing is a hot topic of debate among educators - its evil twin, the lack of time available for children to have unstructured play. In Vivian Gussin Paley’s book ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play she offers her “manifesto against the decline of children’s creative time”. For those who are concerned about the present state of affairs with regards to children and their education, this is a fantastic read. But back to Spring Break….I’ve realized that being an educator is a lot more philosophical than I had imagined it would be. It means thinking about things like children’s free time over vacations and becoming concerned with the current movement towards standardized testing. It means questioning my own position as an after school tutor and ESL teacher and wondering if I’m not contributing to the movement I find so disturbing.