The World's Common Tater

Last weekend, The Washington Post ran an op/ed piece extolling the virtues of year around school. Today there was a small piece in the same paper about what activities to do with your kids to keep them from falling behind or apparently being “lazy” over the summer. I guess the summer days of riding bikes, playing baseball or just hanging out with your friends like I had as a kid are now a bad thing that will prevent our kids from getting a good education and will lead to them being stupid, lazy and poor. I guess me and my friends were just lucky that we survived these horrible summers, made it to college and have good jobs.

What we are creating is a generation of kids who will not know relax or have fun. We will have a new generation of Type A, stressed out people and then we will wonder why road rage is getting worse, the suicide rate is up and people are snapping and lashing out at each other. Lazy summer days are not a waste of time. Lazy summer days are a time for kids to use their imagination, explore their world and learn how to relax. That’s just as important as what they learn in school.

There is also a push for year round school as a way to alleviate the daycare costs for people. When did school become free daycare? Why are we expecting the schools to raise our children? Free daycare is not a good reason to take away summer vacation.