The Long, Hot Days of Homeschool Summer

It's that time of year again! The season of, "How do your kids get their socialization?" will now be replaced with, "Are your kids 'out' for the summer?" Yippee, I'm already getting this question and school in my district just let "out" today! I CAN'T WAIT to hear this question all summer long! By the way, when does school go back "in" so I know when to get back into socialization mode? Alrighty then . . . here is yet another mystery uncovered...

As we know, the lunar calendar gave way to the Roman calendar, which gave way to the Julian calendar, which gave way to the Gregorian calendar, which gave way to the Public School calendar, and all soccer games Shall Be on Saturdays and church on Sundays (regardless of the parents' work schedules, but that is another blog post...) I digress.

Our current American school calendar of about 180 days with the summer months off, started around the 1900's so that rural kids could be home to harvest crops, and urban kids could be spared from sweltering in un-air-conditioned school buildings. I find it interesting that we are asking our kids to learn a TON more than kids in the 1900's had to learn, and we are asking our poor over-worked and under-paid teachers to teach a TON more than teachers of the 1900's, but we are using the same goofy school calendar. I know many parents fight the thought of ever changing the school calendar because they like having beach vacations in the summer (I'm one of them), and sending their kids to all the great enrichment camps (also guilty of that), but what about the other kids that spend their unsupervised summers watching TV, getting into trouble, and forgetting the previous school year? Here's where I ask myself, do we send American kids to school to get an education or to occupy their time while parents work? I don't have an answer for that. I can only speak for myself, which is: I send my kids to "school," whether "school" is to the dining room table, the couch, a museum, or yes... to the TV, to get an education. Therefore, "school" is not "out" for the summer around here. It's not a grueling schedule, (learning really shouldn't be grueling) and we pretty much lost most of May to all their various projects, but I'm okay with that because there was value in what they were doing. The beauty of homeschooling is that you can stop and start and re-adjust plans as needed. I can tell you that Rebecca has announced that she wants to learn Latin this summer (despite the fact that the three of us started French lessons earlier this year), we will continue with Fred and his Algebra, we're hacking away at America: The Story of Us on the DVR, we're immersed in Ansel Adams and his photography and getting ready to visit his exhibit and do something with Patrick's photos, we have a new-found interest in oceanography and oil drilling (hmmm... wonder why?), and we will blog. I'm sure other things will come up. We have a couple of vacations planned, but who knows... maybe they will be part of their education!

So to answer the question: "Are your kids 'out' for the summer?" No, they are not -- unless you consider that they were never "in." Hope this clears it up :)