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Archive 1

History section?

I'd be interested to see how summer vacation evolved over the years. I have a suspicion that in the days when the majority of people lived and worked on farms, the reason children didn't go to school in the summer is that they had to work on the farm. They couldn't take the time off to go to school until after the harvest was in, and could only go to school until spring planting began again, at which time they'd have to be home all day to help. If this is right, then summer vacation wasn't much of a "vacation" at all, and probably lasted a lot longer (6 months maybe). But I have no idea where to start researching this. —Angr 08:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the history of this subject is important (and probably pretty interesting). Here are some places we can use to get started

The book listed above looks like it would be a very good resource. Setitup (talk) 21:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Also http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pric/is_200305/ai_1210958620/ Setitup (talk) 21:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Deliberate falsifications

There seems to have been some attempts by anonymous editors (IPs 68.64.227.196 and 76.178.59.235) to introduce false information. In some cases, this is mixed in with apparently genuine edits, so possibly it is based on misunderstandings. We need references for much of the information presented here. Could these anon editors please discuss their changes? Dbfirs 09:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Criticisms

The criticism and support section is very opinionated with no sources or citing for any comments. I recommend finding some way to put criticisms and support in a non-opinionated manner and to find sources for statements that need them.Catmoongirl 06:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to add, as a criticism, it mentions things like getting a job, taking a vacation and hanging out with friends. Then it says 'These activities are far less common in the UK.' I'm sorry what do kids in the UK not work, or hang with friends or go on vacation? I think that's grossly misinformed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom4manu (talk • contribs) 12:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't edit Wikipedia much so I won't change this as I'm not sure how to make it work, but this passage: "but Asian students are in school for 240 to 250 days. This is consistent with the conclusions of researchers[4] who suggest that advanced abilities are in proportion to the time spent learning. However, many foreign countries also believe in child labor and abuse." This passage seems to insinuate that Asian countries and their method of education constitutes or approaches child labor and abuse. That sentence is certainly true in some sense, but it seems to imply something else entirely. Maybe we can replace it with an equally valid statement like, "However, many foreign countries also endorse the eating of dogs and other cute animals." :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.206.129.115 (talk) 01:49, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Coming across this page for looking something up I read this following part, I quote:

"Other education reformers believed that children were overstimulated in a system which required 48 weeks of schooling. They believe that over-schooling could lead to nervous disorders, depression, and insanity.[3]"

I understand this is a relevant part of the subject of criticism regarding summer vacations. But the resource that's added here doesn't have an added value. The Time magazine article mentions it in one sentence, which is too briefly. Does anyone happen to know better resource for this theory?

--86.86.197.39 (talk) 12:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I would question the claim that Asian pupils have only two (or four) weeks of non-teaching time in a year. Where did it come from? This article suggests that the maximum is Hong Kong with 201 days, compared with 190 days in the UK and 180 days in the USA. The article also suggests that schools in the USA have 6 hours 20 minutes of timetabled instruction each day. If true, this is significantly longer than in the UK and most Asian schools which typically have only five hours of actual lessons (plus up to an hour and a half of breaks, registration, tutor time etc). Is this claim true, or is Fox News just looking at the average length of a school day? Dbfirs 08:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

... (later) The average length of the teaching day in the USA is more than the five hours minimum in most UK state schools, but certainly less than six hours. I see that some states specify the total hours of instruction per year, so perhaps schools in some states have to teach for more than six hours per day to achieve the required total in 180 days or less. Dbfirs 23:52, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

A week for Thanksgiving?

I've never heard of that. I grew up in and still live in BC and have only ever known it as a long weekend (Monday off).

We have: Thanksgiving (3 day) and Easter (4 day) long weekends, 2 weeks for Christmas, and one (now two) weeks spring break in March for elementary - secondary school, one week reading week in February for universities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.180.199.227 (talk) 19:06, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Bold text

i like summer because its hot — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.63.221.16 (talk) 18:35, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Israel

An IP-hopping anon keeps altering the following paragraph:

* In Israel, summer vacation for junior high schools (7th-9th grade) and high school (10th-12th grade) begins around late June and ends in late August.[1][2] Elementary schools, preschools and kindergartens (1st-6th grade) start their summer vacation one week after middle and high school students. The length of the vacation was shortened by one week from 2012 onwards by the education minister in 2011. There are lengthy vacations during the school year: two weeks for the holidays in mid/late September-early October, one week for Hanukkah, 3 weeks for Passover at the beginning of spring (roughly the same time as Easter), and a few more vacation days for other holidays such as Purim, Shavuot, Lag Baomer and Independence Day. The school week in Israel covers six days of the week (Sunday to Friday).

I've removed it from the article so that we can check its accuracy before putting it back. Comments are welcomed. Dbfirs 07:12, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

... later ... I see that the bad grammar was put back, but then improved by another editor. I've left the anon's wording (almost) but moved it to alphabetical order and restored the references, so I hope we can agree on that compromise. Dbfirs 20:46, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Dates for 2012
  2. ^ Dates for 2013

Notes

This page seems not to be neutral due to it focusing on the United States public education system instead of other nations, as well as incomplete since it lacks critisisms of the summer break, of which there are many. (A gap forms between what is "lost" over the period between students of different race, socioeconomic standing, etc.) --Demonesque 23:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

You are welcome to add criticisms and information about summer vacations in other countries, but please include references to avoid original research. I've heard of children "loosing information" over the three month summer vacation, but I don't see how differences in race or socioeconomic standing could possibly affect this. IMHO, I think 'differences in race and socioeconomic standing' is overused, misused, and exaggerated by critics of the educational system. Also remember that these are children, and there are criticisms of expecting too much of and overworking children in our society. Captain Jackson 19:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this conforms fully to an encyclopedic style of writing, either. 80.41.6.233 17:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. For example, one of the paragraphs in the U S of A section begins, "As our nation expanded and grew...". "Our" nation? So this whole article is relative to the notion of the U S of A being "us" and, presumably, the rest of the world being "them"? Yanks really have little comprehension of how parochial their limited world understanding is, seeing themselves as being somehow central to the planet, whereas most of the Earth's population probably sees them as a sort of strange young country that makes a lot of noise and trouble somewhat like an over-hormonal adolescent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.101.202 (talk) 22:18, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't go quite that far in criticism, and at least that essay was under the heading United States, but I've changed "our" to "the" for international readership. Were these paragraphs copied from somewhere? Dbfirs 22:31, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Iraq section vandalized

Someone vandalized the Iraq section of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.239.70.252 (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Content Structure

Considering that there are currently 90 subsections in the "By Country" section, would it be a good idea to further sub-divide the countries by continent? Omnighost547 (talk) 21:14, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Revisions

Did some major edits to page for clarity purposes. I removed references to school breaks other than summer vacation, corrected typos and grammatical errors and clarified the United States section. I also added more research related to the impact of vacation in the second section.

EdHistory101 (talk) 16:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

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