Don’t Ask That Question

 “What did you do on your summer vacation?”

Do you remember a time when the first days back to school in the fall were centered around that question? Classroom discussions and possibly the first essay assignment of the year were often rooted in the recounting of seeing fireworks or a family trip to the beach. 

These days it has become painfully clear that a question like this makes an assumption: of privilege. Many families struggle to get through the summer if both parents must work. Childcare is cobbled together or sometimes the older children are put in charge of the younger ones. Families who rely on school food programs during the school year face additional hardship.

When I was growing up the assumption in my neighborhood was that the kids “stayed home” and had fun playing during the summer. This really meant that the family could afford for Mom to be the full time caregiver during the summer months. In recent years I’ve seen that assumption grow to include a summer spent going to fun, themed camps - - not only for enrichment but also because both parents work. Still there is an assumption: that the family income will cover the cost of the camps. 

So the days when teachers routinely asked the summer vacation question are pretty much over (I hope) because it’s widely known that asking how a kid spends the summer can be shining a big and unwelcome spotlight on their family’s financial resources. It’s unkind and it’s unhelpful. There are plenty of other ways to break the ice and better prompts to elicit student writing. 

I’m thinking about this today because I came across a piece I wrote ten years ago about the best, most significant learning our youngest experienced every year. It was at summer camp.

Summer School, Village Green/Town², July 28, 2014

It is truly the high point of her year. She thrives in a total immersion environment of music, drama, art, and dance. Of all the worlds she must function in, this is the most meaningful.

To be blunt, our kid learned better at Summer Camp than in school.

She talks with us about what she is learning. She gets ideas. Creative ideas. She writes about them on the ipad. She gets ideas for other musicals, ideas for short stories based on musicals. The other evening she was excited about what you would need to do to adapt the musical "Bye Bye Birdie" to the present day. It led to a fascinating discussion about changes in our culture and in the popular music scene.

I think we tend to think that the academic year is all about “education” and that the summer is for “fun”. Not everyone is comfortable with that, however. There’s an entire industry that creates summer learning work books and educational summer camps lest all the learning drain out of our children during June, July, and August. 

I think it’s a mistake to assume that things that replicate the typical classroom experience are “real” learning. We miss the boat if we don’t understand how much kids are learning in summer camps that look nothing like “school” to us.

Project based learning. Hands-on learning. Multi-sensory learning. This is the most meaningful way for my child to learn, and for most of us, I think. Finding topics that truly interest students and allowing some choice in how to explore the subject matter is what fosters the creation of a self-directed learner. That should be our goal--self-motivation, learning how to learn, and the joy inherent in true, deep learning.

Within Howard County the next few months will contain many different kinds of summer vacations. I don’t presume to know what is best for every kid and I certainly don’t know what works for every family. 

I do hope that, in some way, our kids get to connect with something meaningful to them, something that makes them laugh, something that brings them joy. 

Because that’s learning, too.

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