I was in the supermarket yesterday and couldn't help noticing the huge displays proclaiming, "Back to School" and the accompanying crate-loads of stationery and school shoes. How dreadful. The school holidays have barely started and already shops are reminding kids everywhere that their holidays are a finite quantity.
I remember the feeling of desolation when the back to school displays went up in my local supermarket. The feeling of the holidays stretching ahead of me came to a rather abrupt end and the intricately crafted sense of denial about going back to school was shattered. I was lucky. I grew up in Scotland where the school holidays start several weeks before the English ones. For some reason, shops never quite worked this out and as a result, I had an amnesty from the lurid stationery and the clumpy shoes for a few weeks.
Don't get me wrong; I had quite a good time at school. I don't buy into the "best time of your life" crap but on the whole, it wasn't too bad. However, like almost every other kid out there, I would have far preferred to be doing anything else. Double maths just isn't going to be as exciting as watching paint dry!
Why then do shops persist in ruining children's school holidays by putting up the "back to school" displays at the earliest possible opportunity. Everyone knows that kids go back to school and I'm sure most will stock up on the essentials in plenty time for term starting. We don't need two months of prior notice. Shops; stop this cruelty now!
Similarly annoying is the products shops try and flog under the back to school banner. Notebooks are a good example. I can only think of one occasion where I might have needed a notebook in my everyday school activity. Even then, there were jotters or loose paper available. So why the hell do shops flog a variety of hideously coloured and even more hideously expensive notebooks? Equally, most children I have encountered aren't allowed to use ink until they reach secondary school. Why therefore do shops stock pens covered in images of primary school level cartoon characters etc? The answer is profit of course. We all know kids are suckers for anything shiny, brightly coloured and/or bearing the image of their favourite TV character. Even so the cynicism annoys me. Not half as much as ruining school holidays does though.
To continue the rant at a slight tangent (I've built up a slight head of steam so bear with me); you have probably guessed I'm quite protective of the idea of free time, especially for kids. Therefore, up there with the premature 'back to school' displays has to be Kumon maths. A correspondence maths course that aims to improve numeracy in kids (and which has rather gratifyingly been discredited fairly recently). Although I have never been subjected to this particular torture (thanks Mum and Dad), I have been aware of it since some school friends were sentenced to it. How soul-destroying. You finish your (ample) school homework, piano practice, etc and then rather than kicking back and doing something fun you get a new set of homework to wade through. And just to add insult to injury, it's maths!
Interestingly, I've spoken to a couple of maths teachers who really don't rate it. But what do they know? They're only teachers. The testimonials on the website are far more reliable.
My most recent encounter with Kumon was when I was a student. During my summer holidays I worked as an English teacher for foreign kids. They came over to Britain and lived in boarding schools or university halls of residence with a load of students who taught them English (a bit) and generally introduced them to Britain and it's culture. This was done both in lessons and through day trips to historical and interesting cities (where predictably the kids were frog-marched round a couple of "educational" attractions being cajoled into making admiring comments while playing their gameboys before making a bee line for the kind of chain stores that are found on any high street in any country on any continent on any planet). Down time in the centres was usually spent doing sports or crafts in the afternoon then some form of activity in the evening, usually designed to make the leaders look silly (macarena sober anyone?).
We encouraged (forced) all the kids to get involved in these activities and put their dormitories out of bounds for the duration to aid this. This was to ensure nothing went missing/got broken (or if it did, the kids couldn't be blamed), stop anyone getting pregnant (unlikely but best play safe) and most importantly of ll, try to tire the little darlings out a bit so they went to sleep at night. One day, after the afternoon activities had started, I was doing a check of all the rooms to ensure nobody had slipped away in the chaos that was getting things started. When checking one room, I struck gold. One of the lads was in his room quietly occupied. Except it wasn't with a gameboy or an ipersonalitysubstitute (that's another rant!). On closer inspection it was a Kumon maths book. The poor kid had been packed off on holiday with homework.
The kid in question was genuinely upset. On one hand, he wanted to be out in the sun playing with his mates. On the other, he was afraid of the wrath of his mother if he didn't do his daily quota of sums.
My solution? I confiscated the books and told him that he could have them back at the end of the course. When he protested, saying he would get into trouble, I told him that if he did, he could pass the phone to me and I would take full responsibility. Much relieved, he legged it outside to join his mates chatting up the French girls. Sorry. I mean swimming!
Sure enough the next day his mother did call. Fortunately, rather than giving the lad an ear-bashing she called the office. I had pre-warned my manager that this might happen so when the call came through, he gave me a shout to have a chat to her. She was very reasonable in the end. After the obligatory burst of hostility, I pointed out that she had shelled out not an insignificant amount of money for her son to come on this holiday the stated purpose of which was to improve his English, introduce him to British culture first hand and let him make new friends. I reminded her that her son was getting three hours a day of fairly structured English teaching . In addition to that, the activities we provided were designed to mix up the nationalities so that communicating in English was often the only option and did far more for their conversational abilities than reciting platitudes in the class room (this kid's new best mate was from a different country so they were both improving their speaking by leaps and bounds by getting to know each other). Finally, I told her that her son was miserable as he was trapped inside while all his mates were outside having fun. All that sounded fairly confrontational. I promise I was much more diplomatic when I was speaking to the parent. Either way, the net result was that the mother came round and agreed that the Kumon could wait for another day.
Right, that's my spleen well and truly vented for now. I'm sure something else will make me grumpy soon and another rant will follow. Until then, I'm off to enjoy the sun.
JR
I remember the feeling of desolation when the back to school displays went up in my local supermarket. The feeling of the holidays stretching ahead of me came to a rather abrupt end and the intricately crafted sense of denial about going back to school was shattered. I was lucky. I grew up in Scotland where the school holidays start several weeks before the English ones. For some reason, shops never quite worked this out and as a result, I had an amnesty from the lurid stationery and the clumpy shoes for a few weeks.
Don't get me wrong; I had quite a good time at school. I don't buy into the "best time of your life" crap but on the whole, it wasn't too bad. However, like almost every other kid out there, I would have far preferred to be doing anything else. Double maths just isn't going to be as exciting as watching paint dry!
Why then do shops persist in ruining children's school holidays by putting up the "back to school" displays at the earliest possible opportunity. Everyone knows that kids go back to school and I'm sure most will stock up on the essentials in plenty time for term starting. We don't need two months of prior notice. Shops; stop this cruelty now!
Similarly annoying is the products shops try and flog under the back to school banner. Notebooks are a good example. I can only think of one occasion where I might have needed a notebook in my everyday school activity. Even then, there were jotters or loose paper available. So why the hell do shops flog a variety of hideously coloured and even more hideously expensive notebooks? Equally, most children I have encountered aren't allowed to use ink until they reach secondary school. Why therefore do shops stock pens covered in images of primary school level cartoon characters etc? The answer is profit of course. We all know kids are suckers for anything shiny, brightly coloured and/or bearing the image of their favourite TV character. Even so the cynicism annoys me. Not half as much as ruining school holidays does though.
To continue the rant at a slight tangent (I've built up a slight head of steam so bear with me); you have probably guessed I'm quite protective of the idea of free time, especially for kids. Therefore, up there with the premature 'back to school' displays has to be Kumon maths. A correspondence maths course that aims to improve numeracy in kids (and which has rather gratifyingly been discredited fairly recently). Although I have never been subjected to this particular torture (thanks Mum and Dad), I have been aware of it since some school friends were sentenced to it. How soul-destroying. You finish your (ample) school homework, piano practice, etc and then rather than kicking back and doing something fun you get a new set of homework to wade through. And just to add insult to injury, it's maths!
Interestingly, I've spoken to a couple of maths teachers who really don't rate it. But what do they know? They're only teachers. The testimonials on the website are far more reliable.
My most recent encounter with Kumon was when I was a student. During my summer holidays I worked as an English teacher for foreign kids. They came over to Britain and lived in boarding schools or university halls of residence with a load of students who taught them English (a bit) and generally introduced them to Britain and it's culture. This was done both in lessons and through day trips to historical and interesting cities (where predictably the kids were frog-marched round a couple of "educational" attractions being cajoled into making admiring comments while playing their gameboys before making a bee line for the kind of chain stores that are found on any high street in any country on any continent on any planet). Down time in the centres was usually spent doing sports or crafts in the afternoon then some form of activity in the evening, usually designed to make the leaders look silly (macarena sober anyone?).
We encouraged (forced) all the kids to get involved in these activities and put their dormitories out of bounds for the duration to aid this. This was to ensure nothing went missing/got broken (or if it did, the kids couldn't be blamed), stop anyone getting pregnant (unlikely but best play safe) and most importantly of ll, try to tire the little darlings out a bit so they went to sleep at night. One day, after the afternoon activities had started, I was doing a check of all the rooms to ensure nobody had slipped away in the chaos that was getting things started. When checking one room, I struck gold. One of the lads was in his room quietly occupied. Except it wasn't with a gameboy or an ipersonalitysubstitute (that's another rant!). On closer inspection it was a Kumon maths book. The poor kid had been packed off on holiday with homework.
The kid in question was genuinely upset. On one hand, he wanted to be out in the sun playing with his mates. On the other, he was afraid of the wrath of his mother if he didn't do his daily quota of sums.
My solution? I confiscated the books and told him that he could have them back at the end of the course. When he protested, saying he would get into trouble, I told him that if he did, he could pass the phone to me and I would take full responsibility. Much relieved, he legged it outside to join his mates chatting up the French girls. Sorry. I mean swimming!
Sure enough the next day his mother did call. Fortunately, rather than giving the lad an ear-bashing she called the office. I had pre-warned my manager that this might happen so when the call came through, he gave me a shout to have a chat to her. She was very reasonable in the end. After the obligatory burst of hostility, I pointed out that she had shelled out not an insignificant amount of money for her son to come on this holiday the stated purpose of which was to improve his English, introduce him to British culture first hand and let him make new friends. I reminded her that her son was getting three hours a day of fairly structured English teaching . In addition to that, the activities we provided were designed to mix up the nationalities so that communicating in English was often the only option and did far more for their conversational abilities than reciting platitudes in the class room (this kid's new best mate was from a different country so they were both improving their speaking by leaps and bounds by getting to know each other). Finally, I told her that her son was miserable as he was trapped inside while all his mates were outside having fun. All that sounded fairly confrontational. I promise I was much more diplomatic when I was speaking to the parent. Either way, the net result was that the mother came round and agreed that the Kumon could wait for another day.
Right, that's my spleen well and truly vented for now. I'm sure something else will make me grumpy soon and another rant will follow. Until then, I'm off to enjoy the sun.
JR
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