Bridging the Gap between the School Year and Summer Break
As classes draw to a close for the summer across the country this week, parents and students are making their curricular and extracurricular plans with hopes of striking a nice balance between summer fun and summer enrichment. Summertime is not only synonymous with vacations and leisure for our youth, but it has slowly become a strategic time for parents and educators to develop activities for those youth who may need remediation in certain academic areas or for those who choose to pursue advanced and specialized instruction. I’m not sure when the change occurred, but somehow the summer break is being utilized more and more by schools and families to fill gaps in teaching and learning that did not seem to exist in years past. Either teaching professionals were more effective in the past and were able to accomplish their goals and those of their students, or the teacher and student failures that are currently plaguing public education are so bad that it’s taking every school break available just to keep pace. Whatever has happened or changed concerning the effectiveness of teaching and learning during the course of the traditional school year, it’s apparent that the holes and inadequacies that are the result of classroom and school ineffectiveness are being addressed during the summer break.
Even though summer classes and summer tutoring and enrichment have always been a part of the landscape at the K-12 level, today’s public school climate during June, July, and August has taken on a life of its own. This expansion might be attributable to the cultural, social, political, and technological changes occurring globally, or you could simply call it a natural progression for a civilization. Not only have the academic and intellectual requirements increased for 21st century young people to stay globally competitive, but the incorporation of technology and the cross-disciplinary aspects of learning also warrant new and creative methods of engagement and teaching by classroom professionals. To accommodate this elevation of elementary and secondary education, partnerships among schools, churches, libraries, community centers, businesses, philanthropists, and municipalities are laying the foundation for summer camps and programs that fill the educational gaps in the lives of America’s youth. These collaborations are proving to be critical especially for lower income households that cannot afford the fees that are often associated with the supplementary and remediation programs that are being offered during summer break. The evolution of K-12 teaching and learning coupled with the curriculum downsizing due to budget constraints reinforce the usefulness of summer programs for families and schools, as they pursue the best academic preparation available for their students across the spectrum.
Even though summer classes and summer tutoring and enrichment have always been a part of the landscape at the K-12 level, today’s public school climate during June, July, and August has taken on a life of its own. This expansion might be attributable to the cultural, social, political, and technological changes occurring globally, or you could simply call it a natural progression for a civilization. Not only have the academic and intellectual requirements increased for 21st century young people to stay globally competitive, but the incorporation of technology and the cross-disciplinary aspects of learning also warrant new and creative methods of engagement and teaching by classroom professionals. To accommodate this elevation of elementary and secondary education, partnerships among schools, churches, libraries, community centers, businesses, philanthropists, and municipalities are laying the foundation for summer camps and programs that fill the educational gaps in the lives of America’s youth. These collaborations are proving to be critical especially for lower income households that cannot afford the fees that are often associated with the supplementary and remediation programs that are being offered during summer break. The evolution of K-12 teaching and learning coupled with the curriculum downsizing due to budget constraints reinforce the usefulness of summer programs for families and schools, as they pursue the best academic preparation available for their students across the spectrum.
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