"The Case Against Summer Vacation"

Believe it or not, I am sick and tired of being super lazy and not having a job to go do every day. The crazy thing is that I know for a fact that our students feel the same way. These are not the families and the community that goes on big summer vacations or goes to summer camps. Instead, they are bored out of their mind in Richmond - a few perhaps with summer jobs - waiting for school to start up again. It is interesting then to consider the fact that the "summer vacation" system for public education creates serious problems for our students retaining information year to year. For less impoverished communities, parents usually pick up the slack over summer, and the effect is not as clear; for our students here, who are possibly the first generation to go to high school in America, I doubt they have heard a word of math since June 10. I could go on, but my thoughts are in agreement with a Time article from earlier this month that I'm sure you would rather read: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2005654,00.html

Only three days until school starts and I have found that it is just as stressful knowing exactly what I am getting myself into than not knowing at all. I've got a lot to do before Tuesday. At least I can say that I have a better grasp of things than our new teachers (we have 12 this year). Speaking of which, I got my classroom key yesterday and took advantage of it by trying to claim all of the good desks from a vacant class across the hall. Unfortunately one of our new math teachers caught me in the act of stealing desks from what was apparently her new room. Oops. I don't feel THAT bad since I know that's how I got all of my wonderfully broken desks last year. But don't worry - our administration assured us that the new desks would be here in December. Ha.