NEUSTAETER: One Week or Two – the Great Spring Break Debate Lives On

No matter what the specific topic of conversation, any time we make parenting a competition between or judgement of other families we miss the mark. A parent who wants a 1 week break does not love or want to spend time with their children any less. It’s a disparaging oversimplification of the conversation.

Like the vast majority of other parents, my children are my favourite people to be with and my highest priority, but that does not mean it is either practical or beneficial for them to spend an inordinate amount of possible instructional time during the school year not actually attending school.

We minimize and polarize the conversation when we imply that one side of the argument is superior when it comes to parental love and investment.

2. Parents who want a 1 week Spring Break want to use school as daycare.

Wanting a 1 week Spring Break because it is tremendously difficult to constantly find childcare when you can’t provide supervision yourself is not using the school system as a glorified daycare, it is just a practical and very real concern for families where all adults work outside of the home, as so many do in our current society. Again, judging or belittling the need of those families does not benefit the reality of the conversation.

Additionally, there’s a reason we have set calendars with sufficient instructional time for children when it comes to structured education. Predictable and regular schedules improve learning, encourage consistency and set reasonable standards and expectations for children while supporting a student’s ability to both retain information and build upon their learning. Interrupting that time with scattered and prolonged breaks while sacrificing instructional or play time has consequences for the learning of students.

3. Teachers who advocate for a 2 week Spring Break are lazy and just want more time off.

I imagine anyone who believes this line of thinking has never spent a whole day in a kindergarten classroom, because no lazy human ever signed on for that gig. The vast majority of teachers are dedicated, hardworking, committed and put in more hours than any of us see on paper. Because my mom is a primary teacher I know that time during those holiday weeks is often spent prepping classroom resources, grading papers, emailing parents, reorganizing classrooms and a million other small but significant tasks.

Teachers are under an enormous amount of pressure, from many sides, at all times and diminishing the devotion and passion they have for both their careers and their students is detrimental to both this conversation and all others surrounding our education system.

While a lot of teachers advocate for a 2 week Spring Break the bulk are not doing so strictly for personal gain (although I don’t blame them for finding a 2 week Spring Break attractive).

So let’s just put those three things aside when examining the question of a 1 or 2 week Spring Break in our school district and examine other considerations instead.

Like the fact that kids need lunch breaks and we sacrifice some of that critical recovery and play time when we have a 2 week Spring Break. Lunch time is a critical time for kids to move their bodies, have a mental break and actually eat their lunches. It was a recurring theme for my kids during their primary years when we asked about their day for them to respond that they did not have time to actually eat. When Spring Break is extended to 2 weeks we compensate by sacrificing time that kids need in the every-day.

Kids are already out of school a lot during the calendar year – like, a whole lot.

In addition to stat holidays, a 2 week Winter break, a 4 day Easter break and a 10 week summer break, kids also have 7 non instructional days in a school calendar year. While some people argue that kids need more time to run free, I would argue that the number of no instructional days they have are already bordering on excessive.

Call me crazy, but it doesn’t seem like a huge mystery why teachers often struggle to cram the curriculum into such limited instructional time, working parents are constantly living in a frustrated state of childcare juggling and students fight to repeatedly get back into the rhythms of their academic learning.

The honest truth is that I would love to see School District 73 take a good, hard look at a balanced, 4 term school year that would provide sufficient breaks for families and learning blocks for students, but until then while a 2 week Spring Break sounds lovely it is neither practical for many families nor does it appear to be ultimately beneficial for students.

At the end of the day when deciding anything related to education we should be honestly asking ourselves, “Does this decision serve the education of children or accommodate the preferences of the adults?”

I think the answer to the 1 or 2 week Spring Break gets simpler when we do.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

by Refraction

NEUSTAETER: One Week or Two – the Great Spring Break Debate Lives On

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