The cliche is that students nationwide will settle in and be assigned a “What did you do on summer vacation?” essay on their first day back. I have never been asked to write, nor asked anyone to write, such a letter, but it remains a staple of shows and cartoons. It has been used in movies and television as a conceit to begin a narration, leading to an extended flashback that contains the main story. At times, the reader (the teacher) doesn’t believe the tale, while other times he or she is flabbergasted that so much has happened to a young child, during the innocence of summer.
That innocence is childhood, and it is summer. As adults, we lose it (except for teachers). At contract time, I wonder if the ire teachers receive–“AND THEY HAVE SUMMERS OFF!!!”–is as much a longing for that childlike innocence of youth as an issue of pay? Probably not.
We are at war with idle. We are a nation of efficiency, our legacy of the industrial revolution. Ford. Time-motion studies. Read “Cheaper by the Dozen”.
And we extend it to school. Anyone who’s seen the opening theme to “Phineas and Ferb” knows that the catalyst for every episode is that there is nothing to do (except to sit around and watch television shows like “Phineas and Ferb”). I’ve argued elsewhere that
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What is life? Toil? I hope not. An epic. Again, I hope not; too exhausting for me. So then what? That’s the question for your students. A major league scout will not show up at the Little League game and offer a contract. So what is life? And how do we achieve our hopes and dreams?
And what do we do with our idle time? Enjoy it?
And, if life is neither Idyll or Epic, why do books and movies and stories portray it as such? What is the purpose of life? What, you ask, are their favorite stories and why?
Now that’s how you start the year; not with a reflection, but with hopes and dreams. Discuss.
Thomas Carlyle
To Anna D. B. Montagu
Hoddam Hill, Ecclefechan, 18th July,
Summer break after a long year of tortuous academics, teachers, classes and the gleaming light of the summer just an arm's length away. T. Coraghessan Boyle elaborates on the adventure of the bad boy imagines. Although their deceptions of their characters will be
John Taylor Gatto wrote about the topic of boredom in his story “Against School.” He was an award-winning educator, so most believed his statements about education to be true because he was such a credible source. Gatto discusses his belief of having children learn more of what they will need to live on their own in the real world. He wants students to take their education with them out into the world instead of learning pointless material in public school that will never be applied to the real world. Gatto references this to boredom and uses it as an example of why some children do not enjoy school. Material that is required to be taught bores students easily, and does not expand their minds to subjects they are interested in. He asks, “Do we really need school? I don’t mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years” (Gatto, page 148-149). Students are trained to become addicts of everyday school and it strips them of responsibility and independence. Eventually, once we can understand the tricks and traps of public schooling, we can avoid them.
How did you spend your summer? This summer I spent half of my time focusing on the book When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. When You Reach Me is a novel that takes place in the late 1970’s. The main character, Miranda, receives letters from a mystery man. She is frightened at first, but when she kept getting them, she was interested in who was sending them and why. Throughout the story, Miranda gets in conflicts with her classmates that lead to misinterpretations. Each conflict helps find out who the mystery man is, though. Three of Miranda’s classmates are Sal, her best friend, Marcus, and Julia. All three get into a misunderstanding with Miranda and they are all able to resolve the problems in different ways.
Summer break picture collage – Getting the attention of kids who are still in ‘summer break ‘mode is hard. Well, why not use it to your advantage, right? Teachers should come up with assignments that are summer break ‘inspired’! Ask students to produce a picture collage with the theme - “What I did last summer!” Once made, they can show it in class. Let them have a few minutes to describe their awesome summer
Ringggggggg. There it was, that sweet sound of the high pitched scream yelling that school is finally out for break. John Ross, who had just graduated 8th grade, lived in St. Augustine, Florida, and well he planned on making this the summer of his life. Nothing was going to stop him from achieving the ultimate level of fun this summer. His bucket list was made out already, and the second he got off his bus he was going to start knocking some of those goals off.
The two essays I have chosen to compare are Peter Jon Lindberg’s “Summerland”, and E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake.” In these two essays both authors talk about their experiences that started when both men were young (child and teenager) and evolved into a vacation spot that would become home for many summers. Each essay describes both the similarities of their summer trips from past to present and the differences of their trips as well. In White’s essay in the first paragraph he talks about the good ole’ days when he was just a kid going to the lake with his dad. He talks about how this lake was one of a kind and there were no other lakes like this one in the world.
For twelve years’ students do the same thing over and over again Monday through Friday for nine months out of the year, which is wake up early to go to school, take five to six classes a day, do homework, and take tests. John Gatto has taught for thirty years in many school some good and some bad, and with so many years of experience he’s learned that boredom is everywhere. Many kids where asked why they felt bored and they all pretty much answered the same way saying that the work was dumb and it made no sense or that they already knew about it. According to Gatto,” They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subject, and clearly weren’t interested in learning
Starting off with a picture of how days were when she experienced her fifth-grade summer, the author adds in details that seem so minuscule, and unimportant to set the setting. The information about the cost of riding a trolley and the ice truck driving around on a hot day with blocks of ice provides the readers with the background of her story. In addition, by using diction that the author used as a child, such as “that-old-thing” and “help-him-out,” she brings the story to life as if it were still the 1900s. Every tiny detail that the author remembers about her childhood shown in this passage proves to the readers how important her fifth-grade summer was to her.
Obviously, school is boring when it’s too peaceful and quiet. Students need assemblies and teams to rally around to boost moral! Just last week the school cancelled our pep assembly. We had such an important game and I just wasn't feeling ‘peppy.’ Reports from other students at school were not feeling the joy of the first football game either. The assembly would have given us a reason to have school spirit and isn't that something that the school always wants us to
The clock finally reaches 3:15 and the bell goes off. Everybody runs outside into the warmth of the sun. It is the end of the school year and time for summer break. An entire 3 months of break time ahead of them. This is the way it is supposed to be, not just 3 weeks.
Spring break, a time to unwind, a marking of the end of the third quarter. So, in this essay I’m going to tell the reader all about mine. I’m kidding, I can’t say half the stuff I did. Why the reader wants to know what I did over spring break in a shitty essay is beyond me. So, I got a new bed, watched a lot of horror movies, and I spent the night down at the police department. There, that should be enough to fill a page.
It's a new year; I'm eager for an higher success rate, but what's paramount that I'm halcyon to see another year. There's no doubt that I won't experience hiatus, nevertheless I must acknowledge the paused and continue through. Moreover, what a relieve-feels good to espouse the critics-and understand that greatest comes with blockers. Will Smith stated, ''Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.'' The only things aberrant is to not fulfill your ambitions, and don't abjure that inner voice or repudiate your cells from changing old habits. This year be honest and direct no euphemism needed. You know the vocabulary that is adequate
The course was a vacation for me because of my prior experience as a maintenance officer and test pilot in the aircraft we were flying. At first, it was summer vacation for Sarah and the kids as they spent time in the pool. But as time went on, the room shrunk and after a month, we were all glad to
It was a beautiful day of summer and the sun shone brilliant. The air felt warm and inviting, all signs that I was going to learn an important lesson about how to live in a more passionate and gratifying way. My uncles and cousins were visiting form New York. It had been two years since I last saw them. We were all really excited that finally we were going to the beach and none of us thought of tragedy and dying. It was never a subject of conversation among teenagers because we felt invincible, immortal, and eternal, but those convictions were about to be shaken.
Consequently, each person at some point in life asks some question about life. Some ask if they actually want to live the kind of life they are experiencing, while some will ask other questions like “who am I” or “The importance of their