by GABRIELLE LENSCH
Private school students miss school a lot. No, I don’t mean that all of them miss school a lot, but there is a trend that I have noticed where at private schools, parents feel much more comfortable taking their children out of school for extended periods of time.
For instance, when I was student teaching, one of my students was gone for the two weeks preceding winter break because his family took a cruise around Argentina and then chartered a small plane to Antarctica. Not all absences are quite so extreme, but there are a good number of students who miss because of family vacations and commitments to sports like ice skating and swimming that involve a decent amount of travel. There are also the parents who take their kids out of school for “other educational opportunities,” like traveling to Antarctica.
Many private school teachers understandably gripe about these absences. They are frequently planned in advance, so the teacher has to prepare materials for the student before he/she leaves that the student will most likely not complete because of (pick one) family engagements, too hectic a schedule, a hitch in the plans, or even because the student loses the work. In addition, giving the student the work ahead of time implies at some level that doing the work is the equivalent of being in class, which it certainly is not. The thing that really seems to get underneath a teacher’s skin is when a parent is a repeat offender. Here the annoyance shifts to the parent(s). It makes our job harder to have students in and out all of the time, especially if we have students work with partners or in groups; as such, we don’t like absences—planned or not.
I appreciate and understand this philosophy. I also have come to see its one-sidedness. We are teachers because we care about the education of young people, or at least I am. Some of these absences are spectacular educational opportunities. A family trip to Greece will teach a student a lot more about Greek architecture than drawing pictures in art class and reading a history book. Travel is an important part of a complete education, but not all teachers are willing to recognize it as such. Furthermore, being dedicated to a sport or instrument that requires discipline and hard work teaches so many important life lessons that it seems impossible to deny the educational value of such extra-curricular excursions.
I am not saying that I relish doing the extra work to help these students make up work that they will miss, but I am trying to value the family and community’s role in shaping each child’s education. The students who have the opportunity to travel or immerse themselves and excel in an activity will be more well-rounded students than those who always attend school and never experience anything other than school.
The school my children are zoned to attend actually has the nerve to charge parents $50/day for missing school for non-medical reasons. I can see fining families of truant children, because those kids are not doing anything worthwhile with their out-of-school time (and are in fact likely up to no good). Perhaps the fine would encourage the parents to make an effort to make sure their kids actually go to class when they’re supposed to.
But I absolutely disagree with fining families whose children are absent because of travel or other good reasons.
I’ve never heard of such a thing. I wonder how they got that past the school board.
My, that’s harsh, Crimson. $50.00 a day for non-medical reasons?
I confess I sometimes have to let my daughter sleep in because she’s been up half the night with homework. We try not to abuse that, it’s a rare occasion, but the solution is less homework, not forcing an exhausted child to sit through classes that day. And no, she wasn’t goofing off on Facebook because I stayed up with her and checked on her all the time.
I have no choice. She’d get nothing out of the day and wouldn’t be able to attack her relentless work load the next night. I never thought I would do this in earlier years. I knew parents who did. The whole notion of staying up way past bedtime to get yet more homework done never made sense to me. Wouldn’t common sense dictate we give kids a reasonable amount of homework so they can come to school refreshed and eager to learn? But common sense seems to allude the school system.
Gabrielle, I enjoyed this post and your open-mindedness about something that might be very annoying to teachers and perceived as an insult (“In addition, giving the student the work ahead of time implies at some level that doing the work is the equivalent of being in class, which it certainly is not.”). Reading Jesse’s posts on homeschooling and the comments received has made me very aware of defensiveness on both sides of that issue.
To the comments so far: my mom (a former and future teacher at the time) was a pretty easy touch about letting me miss school. It worked for me because I loved school and only missed if maybe I was feeling really down or unwell (but not quite sick). Perhaps she recognized that on days like that I was not likely to learn nor be a contribution to the classroom. Or maybe she just relished a day of having me home. Of course, I took that to the extreme when I became a parent of school-aged kids by homeschooling.
Gabrielle, your open-mindedness about the value of outside the classroom experience does give me the comfort and ability to critically consider what positives my children are missing by not being in the classroom. Thank you.
I am so glad that we are learning from each other. I’m about to enter my fourth full year teaching, and I finally feel like I have enough experience to be reflective about these larger issues, not just my lessons and my students’.
What sort of trips/activities do you feel have been the most rewarding for your homeschooled kids?
It probably sounds a like a cop-out to say the most rewarding trips and activities are the ones my kids want to do. My kids are elementary school-aged, they most enjoy interactive, hands-on activities. They also love history; Colonial Williamsburg and Smithsonian Museums have programs and/or areas with hands-on activities that they’ve enjoyed. They’ve also enjoyed seeing performances such as those by Billy B (he’s a talented performer and gifted science teacher).
I teach at a private elementary school, and regularly have students gone on extended absences. Because these absences usually add more work to my already-full plate (as you mentioned), it’s easy to be really negative and critical. Reading this was really humbling – thank you! It’s important for teachers (and parents, in some circumstances) to remember that life isn’t ALL about school.
My summer school students try to remind me of that everyday!
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for reading.
How dare parents actually make decisions concerning their own children? What possible benefit could there be to actually traveling and seeing a place first hand that they couldn’t get in a classroom from a text book. How inconsiderate to keep the family together rather than consider the teacher’s desire to not make some copies? The nerve… Just think, if those pesky parents would stop deciding what’s best for their minor children and listen to the public school experts, our nanny state could be closer than we ever thought possible.
Funny though… if school were so effective, why are we graduating the most ignorant young people in American history? On a world stage, American students fall short on many standards and everyone knows that. Is the solution more time in the classroom that is failing them already? Is it possible that young people have the capacity to learn outside of the tutelage of the American public school teacher or the elite university professor? As a teacher, you can always say “Screw it, we’re pulling out a video” like your esteemed colleague, Mr. Scaccia. As parents, we are deeply invested in the succeess of our children, academic and all other realms of their lives. They are not names on a roster to us. Don’t think that you can possibly know what is better for any child (that lives in a happy, productive home) than their own parent. It does NOT take a village to raise a child and teachers are NOT the new parents.
This is a thought-provoking topic which raises an interesting Catch-22. I teach English in a large, urban, public high school and we have many students who are absent for long periods of time: days, weeks, even months. Sometimes there are valid medical or personal reasons, but often there are not; we are supposed to offer all of them make-up work. However, this is where the Catch-22 comes in. Over the last few years (and I’ve be teaching for over 30 years), there has been increased pressure on secondary school teachers to get away from traditional tools and practices: grammar/vocabulary books or handouts, the use of outlines for specific types of essays, even the use of the blackboard. In NYC, it is is now considered a bad practice to have too many notes on the board, even when they are an important outgrowth of a class lesson. Instead, we (the teachers) are supposed to limit ourselves to a 10 minute “mini-lesson”. and then break the class into small groups so that the students can work together to teach themselves the rest of the material. We are urged to come up with more creative ways to teach relevant material; mock trials, literature circles, artsy projects, and lots of group work. Many of these techniques are effective and fun, but they do not translate well into make-up work for absentee students. Most of the work that we do in class could not be put on a handout or made up outside of class. And, if a series of self-directed reading, writing, grammar or vocabulary lessons are not considered proper content for the rest of the class, why are they acceptable for absentees? Should this programmed make-up work carry the same weight (in terms of grades) as major projects or assignments that were done as part of regular class. Should the absentee students still be held responsible for work done (including discussion topics) while they were gone? Should the absentee students be judged by the same standards and given the same grades as students who were present and able to participate in all activities? So many questions, and after all these years, I still don’t know the answers
I just read a study (sorry can’t find the link anymore) about how something like 25% of British parents think it is ok to take their children out of school for a family vacation (to take advantage of lower travel prices during the school year). I think traveling is the most educational experience a child can have… if done right. Kids learn best by doing and a week touring Roman or Greek archaeological sites is worth a semester worth of history classes. That said, if the child is being taken out of class to go sit on a Caribbean beach in a closed off resort where they wont learn anything about the local culture, history, or people — that should be highly discouraged by schools.