Summertime then and now ...

[Bushman]

Human society, especially western society, has this tendency to see "play" and look at it like it's some childhood activity we grow out of, but we don't. Play, that is leisure time where people can socially interact with each other in non-structured activities, is essential not just to people, but all social animals. Deer, dogs, lions, all of them require play even as adults.

A major problem is most towns these days aren't designed around play/entertainment. They're designed around businesses. A well designed town has a dedicated downtown center with restaurants, public parks, theaters, and other entertainment venues that allows the people in that town to congregate socially while being provided entertainment. When you lose that, people, especially younger people, tend towards destructive self-entertainment. They get in trouble because there's literally nothing else to do.

That's what happened in my town. Between the 2008 recession and Wal-Mart coming to town, we've lost that real dedicated downtown area, and the kids have nowhere to do anything after a certain age. No comic book shops, no collectible stores, no arcades. Their choices seem to be either stay inside, or go looking for trouble, because we've become another unfriendly suburb.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My town's even worse. We have a nice, walkable downtown area -- but the gentrification movement since the 1990s has driven away anything and everything that might appeal to a kid. What kid has any interest in upscale restaurants, art galleries, and overpriced boutique clothing? What kid even wants to live in a town where you can't even get a cheap slice of pizza?

 

[Bushman]

What kid even wants to live in a town where you can't even get a cheap slice of pizza?

We have plenty of cheap pizza places, but there's no way for a kid to get to any of them without crossing a four-lane highway with no crosswalks like the one pictured above. Our town is not pedestrian friendly. In fact, it's barely automobile friendly.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Your points, all of them, are very well taken.

A built environment dedicated to personal automobiles and commercial enterprise is by design unwelcoming to kids who don’t drive and have little if any money.

Some longer-term residents in this nondescript suburban neighborhood (you’ve been here, even if you haven’t been here) bemoan the recent additions of a light rail station and a pair of apartment developments on what had been 15 acres of open land less than half a mile from my living room couch.

I am not in that number. There are now businesses oriented to local residents, the kinds of businesses that before that development a person had to drive to. I can walk there, over mostly level terrain. I’ve gotten to know this neighborhood — the good and less-than-good of it — far better from the sidewalk than I ever did driving through it at 20 mph.

“Take your pleasure seriously,” Charles Eames said. The pursuit of pleasure can bleed over from leisure to work and back again. Life needn’t be miserable. Of course we aren’t always gonna love all we gotta do to bring in a buck, but if we have to do it, it’s far better to take at least some pleasure in it. But that won’t happen to a person who isn’t open to the possibilities.

 

[GHT]

It is amazing how many people cannot grasp this concept.

One of my friends at school went on to teacher training college. "What inspired you to teach?" I asked him. "Two things," he replied, "July & August."

 

[Tiki Tom]

Kids went back to school today in Hawaii. Seems insanely early to me. Of course, in Hawaii, the weather is more-or-less the same all year, so it doesn’t really matter when you have summer vacation. A few years back they experimented with year-round school; giving an extra week off on a regular schedule. Everyone hated it and was confused by it, so they went back to the old model, but with a shorter summer.

 

[Edward]

We have plenty of cheap pizza places, but there's no way for a kid to get to any of them without crossing a four-lane highway with no crosswalks like the one pictured above. Our town is not pedestrian friendly. In fact, it's barely automobile friendly.

I remember some years ago going to a DIY place out of town on the train. Getting to the big mall beside it was fine - there was a tunnel from the station - but the DIY place was across a four-lane road with no crossings at all. Totally designed on the assumption everyone who would go there would drive. Of course, these days most places like that I can now arrange home delivery via the interwebz, but it did make me realise just how much of a disadvantage it must be for folks who live places where everything is car-access only, if you can't afford or just really don't want to run a car. I expect it's one of the major reasons I've always liked cities with good public transport infrastructure: they're simply much more pedestrian friendly.

Kids went back to school today in Hawaii. Seems insanely early to me. Of course, in Hawaii, the weather is more-or-less the same all year, so it doesn’t really matter when you have summer vacation. A few years back they experimented with year-round school; giving an extra week off on a regular schedule. Everyone hated it and was confused by it, so they went back to the old model, but with a shorter summer.

When I was at school in Northern Ireland, we had all of July and August off; always back to school on the 1st September, even if the first fell on a Friday... It used to amuse us that the English schools went on well into July, though they of course had more frequent holidays than us, as we had only two days at Halloween, two weeks at Christmas and Easter, and two days for a half term in the Spring. The first May bank holiday we also got - not the second, and no Summer term half term. Same day amount, differently spread out. As an adult, I'd prefer more frequent, if shorter breaks. The big problem I have is that my teaching, assessment, and preparation year is now so spread out that it's increasingly difficult to use my leave at all, or to get confirmation of key dates so I can actually book a holiday away early enough in the year that I can still afford it...

 

[tonyb]

I’ve seen some “back to school”-themed ad campaigns in recent days, but it seems they aren’t as ubiquitous as they were in the past, when kids were away from school long enough to get used to it. Now they’re going back to a place they never really left.

 

[Who?]

Every time they threaten to shorten or eliminate the “little vacations” the teachers all raise hell, shrieking that the kids “can’t learn” without the time off.

In truth, they have all scheduled skiing trips etc, so without the vacation, they would have to work.

 

[Edward]

Every time they threaten to shorten or eliminate the “little vacations” the teachers all raise hell, shrieking that the kids “can’t learn” without the time off.

In truth, they have all scheduled skiing trips etc, so without the vacation, they would have to work.

Can't blame them, tbh. My mother was a teacher for many years, and it was entirely normal for her to be marking homeworks and other work until close to midnight most of the week, and often well into holidays as well.

 

[Edward]

I’ve seen some “back to school”-themed ad campaigns in recent days, but it seems they aren’t as ubiquitous as they were in the past, when kids were away from school long enough to get used to it. Now they’re going back to a place they never really left.

I remember going on holiday to Scotland in July many years running and seeing those in early August - we hated them! The Scottish schools of course used to go back much earlier than us, mid-August normally.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I often had the Sunday afternoon blues for much the same reason. It was the reminders (“you better get ready for school tomorrow”) and the generally subdued atmosphere the grownups imposed upon us that had it feeling like a punishment.

I still harbor unpleasant memories of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Even the TV on Sunday afternoon was depressing.

 

[tonyb]

According to the display on the dashboard, it was 97 degrees Fahrenheit this afternoon as I witnessed youngsters walking home (or wherever) from school.

 

[Edward]

I still get that "back to school in the morning" sense with work - indeed, the phrase "it's a school night" is part of our regular vocabulary. The funny thing is, though, that as an academic of some nearly twenty-four years now, while I still have that "new term" feeling every September / October, it's a positive one for me. I love the teaching part of my job the most, so Summer months at work can drag (almost as much of a drag as the weird perception so many people have that if the students are away, I must be on holiday.....). I also really don't care for the heat, so for me, like Scott Fitzgerald, "Life begins anew in the Fall." I'm not sure if that's a sign of age, but...

 

[tonyb]

 

[Who?]

It is amazing how many people cannot grasp this concept.

It is amazing that so many people with 16+ years of education can’t manage money well enough to survive if they dont get twelve checks. (But they get the same total amount during that year)

 

[scottyrocks]

Every time they threaten to shorten or eliminate the “little vacations” the teachers all raise hell, shrieking that the kids “can’t learn” without the time off.

In truth, they have all scheduled skiing trips etc, so without the vacation, they would have to work.

It's all relative. Despite the disparaging nature of your argument, if you take a job to work X number of hours/days/whatever for Y amount of pay, you don't just roll over and play dead when you are told you have to work longer hours/days/whatever with no increase in pay, whatever those numbers happen to actually be.

If an employee is hired to work 180-some-odd days a year for Y amount of dollars per year, with the time off dictated and split up by the local Board of Education, then that's the deal. Every employee knows what they've gotten into and accepted the terms. You want them to work more hours? Then offer up more pay. That's fair and is generally how it goes in many working environments.

 

[tonyb]

At a local high school today …

 

[ChazfromCali]

There should be year around school.

Having said that it could be arranged in a satisfactory manner on the calendar so that kids get a summer.

To me it's crazy to have anyone go back to school before Labor Day.

 

[tonyb]

I saw a TV commercial a few minutes ago advertising “back to school” swag from Walmart.

It’s July 11.

Let me repeat that.

It’s July 11.