Summer Is Here, Again

Summer is here and city children will soon be spotted wearing agency tee shirts and filling parks and recreational places. Other children will be enrolled in arts camps, band camps, and other camps where the tee shirt is optional or non-extant. Leaders will again discuss key issues about where children and youth go for the summer and what they should be engaged in. There is a great deal of discussion on "summer learning loss" and how summer programs geared towards academics can prevent this loss from occurring. These discussions are generally aimed at urban children and youth, since the data suggests the loss is greatest in urban minority populations. That there is a loss over the summer for children may be true for all children but the effects of this impact those who struggle the most at school or have language or cultural barriers. What to do about this, is less clear.

It may be that all children benefit from great activities that make them think, meet new friends or engage with others in structured an unstructured ways. It would be a shame if inner-city children get a version of summer school while others get:

Trips to a zoo or visits by a nature program
Getting away to a camp for the day or a sleep away
Engaging in a project that involves trips to museums or cultural centers
Cleaning up a neighborhood park or other service projects
Sports programs and athletics

It seems that there is a great deal of discussion between those who want to see summer as an extension of the school process - think "summer school" and those who want to see youth be active in recreation - the "send this kid to camp" tradition. There are those who are looking to meld the two into a hybrid form where children and youth learn formal topics but do so in a more active and participatory learning format. There are many programs that already do participatory learning, however, the press is filled with more conversations about childrens' "time" or following "youth outcomes" (these more than not include events outside the control of the out-of-school program like attendance in school over attendance in the program) or looking at links to this or that curriculum.

Again, summer is here. Children are growing, their minds changing and the road to adulthood is set according to a calendar. We seem to know we want to do something positive with our kids, but as in summers past, we may not agree on what this positive thing looks like.