Forget
rain, mosquitoes and mice who get into the marshmallows. The fastest
and most effective way to ruin this glorious season is to open up the
packet marked "Summer Homework." Oh, yes, teachers, I know; kids who
don't do homework over the summer are apt to slide back, and then it is
your job to push them back up to speed in the fall. To which Sara
Bennett and Nancy Kalish, co-authors of the book "The Case Against
Homework," have asked: "If those skills are so fragile, what kind of
education are (kids) really getting?" There's no doubt that a summer
spent away from book reports and flashcards can result in some skills
getting a little rusty. But what about the skills that get rusty during
the school year? The skill of figuring out how to have fun when there's
no teacher, coach or parent telling you what to do? The skill of
drawing or making paper airplanes or (does anybody do this anymore?)
whittling just for the heck of it? The skill of remembering how to
enjoy life and not just fill in the bubbles on another worksheet? In
fact, how about substituting REAL bubbles for worksheet bubbles for one
sunny season? Considering how far and fast my stomach plunges when
anyone mentions the dreaded words "reading log" -- a ledger of every
book a child reads, along with the author's name, a question the child
would "like" (ha!) to ask, and the number of pages read per night -- I
can think of no more effective way to turn kids off from reading
forever than to make book logging mandatory during the summer. Oh,
wait! There IS one more way: Make kids stop every few pages to write a
Post-it note about the book: "Harry is in danger. I wonder whether
Voldemort will win." That kind of thing. As if anyone in the grips of a
great read EVER stopped to jot a Post-it note. It's like scrapbooking during sex. Not
that I don't think kids should read during the summer. Of course they
should! It's a question of how and why: For fun, in the shade? Or for
school, at the table, with Post-it notes and reading log at hand? A
three-year study by University of Tennessee education professors
Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen found that by giving kids a
dozen books from a list of their OWN making -- the kids' wish list,
that is -- children's reading scores went up as high as they would have
(SET ITAL) if they had attended summer school (END ITAL). No muss, no
fuss -- no book reports necessary. Just a bunch of good books on the
nightstand plus that other special summer ingredient: time. So much
of the school year is spent in frantic pursuit of test scores and
grades. Summer, which already has shrunk to two months from the three
months of my youth, is the hammock of the year. Kids deserve to climb
in it with a book and read, sway, nap and, if they've got Post-it notes
nearby, make mini paper airplanes.
Lenore
Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe,
Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)" and "Who's the
Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue
Test of Everything You Know You Know -- But Can't Remember Right Now."
To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read
features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
