Why We're Not Going Back to School

by Valorie Delp | More from this Blogger

27 Aug 2006 04:44 AM

We never stopped schooling in June. My kids' school year runs from July 1st to June 30th. This may seem like a curious practice to someone who is schooled out of the home. But actually, skipping the summer break and opting for a year long academic calendar makes a lot of sense for us. . .and for other people too.

Review, Review, Review Do you remember public school? When you spent the first 6 weeks reviewing what you should've learned last year and the last month reviewing for tests and dreaming of summer vacation? In December we didn't do a lot of learning either--just review. I suppose the teachers figured it too hard to teach something new when so many kids were excited about Christmas break. If we do all the math, this comes out to about 6 months of actually learning something new. By schooling year round it allows me to help my kids keep their skills sharp and we spend almost no time reviewing, unless it's a subject that they actually struggle with.

More School Days in a Year By home schooling year round there are more school days in a year. You likely realize this and may be thinking, "And your point?" In standardized testing, the United States scores dead last in areas such as math and science. Experts point out that one reason may be because we have one of the shortest school years than anywhere else in the world.

Another reason it is good to have more school days, is it allows you to take more field trips, do more hands on activities, and have more "flex" in your curriculum. Students have the time to explore something they are really interested in, do an internship or whatever else may be considered school.

Relieving Stress Homeschooling year round does help take pressure off of trying to get everything done in one school year. Interestingly, public school teachers are not required to finish the text book (at least here), but homeschoolers are expected to finish much of what they say they will. Actually this isn't difficult to do when you only have one student. However, schooling year round allows us to take more days off in the midst of the year, rather than concentrating them all in the summer. For us, this works much better than running a home schooling marathon between September to June.

The bottom line is that you should do whatever works best for your family. However, if home schooling year round is a growing trend and if you've never considered it before and you find yourself perpetually stressed, maybe a year round school is for you!

Related Articles:

The Elusive Homeschooling Schedule

My Very Excited Mother Just Ate Nine. . .: Living History and Homeschooling

Keeping Up With the Jones

Learn more about Valorie Delp

Hello everybody! My name is Valorie and I am one busy lady! When I'm not writing or editing for families, I am busy trying to get my brood of 5 in line.

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Jaime Egan (2178) 27 Aug 2006 04:53 AM

You make very interesting points. There are a couple of public schools around here that are year-round, but I don't know much about them.

Valorie Delp (49340) 27 Aug 2006 05:45 AM

LOL--as a former teacher I would never, ever in a gazillion years work for a year round school unless the salary was fairly substantial. Teaching in a classroom is stressful--I love teaching--but it's stressful. However, homeschooling I find to be much less stressful and going year round lets me adapt to my own kids. I know plenty of families who don't do it this way--but I know lots who are starting to, too. Thanks for your comments.

dpenna (542) 07 Sep 2006 06:15 PM

Year round schools actually don't teach year round (at least in California). They school for three, then have a month off, and repeat that a few times. So really, the time spent in school is the same, only the schedule is different. Weird. LOL

Brandie (1720) 07 Sep 2006 10:26 PM

I said we would do year round homeschooling. Adn then I had a baby and that kind of threw us off this last year. But we started up this fall with everyone else, and I'm hoping this summer to be able to do a lot more during the summer with the kids. Although, I think even when we aren't doing "school books" we are still learning, but I want to keep the skills sharp all summer too!