As a math teacher I strongly take the opposite side. I have seen students come back from missing only one day and are lost. They cannot do the new work because doing it depends upon what they learned the previous day. After a week of vacation it is almost impossible to get back on track.
Family vacations are great but they have a time and a place. If parents cannot take off when school is not in session parents must find other ways to bond with their children. There are always weekends and evening. Even before all the testing, the stakes were just too high and no one will convince me that vacations should take place on school days.
4 comments:
Average parents who struggle to help their child learn to subtract multiple digit numbers - I would agree with you. Trips just to King's Island or Disney World - agreed.
However, when parents are capable of helping their child/grandchild keep up with materials, I think there is a lot to be gained when trips are centered around opportunities such as Civil War Trails, ecologically important areas, unusual activities (space shuttle launches...) and such that are just impossible to replicate in the classroom and when you have willing adults to take youngsters on such trips (that could be a once in a lifetime chance to spend time like that with), I'm all for it. Luckily, my parents were able to provide such an opportunity for my girls when they were in elementary school once. My dad is now gone but my girls have memories from that wonderful trip with history & biology teacher grandparents spending a week with them going through a half dozen states. But my parents had lessons every day and they worked on what their teachers had sent with them. They also had presentations to give to their classes when they got back about where they went and what they did. Because they did all that their principal excused the absences.
Even if they weren't excused...I would have let the girls go anyway and dealt with the truancy court later (and hubbie and I are both teachers too).
Most parents, even the most educated ones, can't remember most of the math and science.
I loved the kids who spent 2 weeks in their country of origin to attend a lengthy funeral.
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