Eight Feet Deep

 Pres­i­dent Obama has likely added to the list of those who aren’t very happy with him. This time it is the small fry.

 Obama wants kids to spend more time in the class­room. This includes longer school days and open­ing on week­ends to give kids a safe place to go. The idea is that U.S. stu­dents are behind those in other coun­tries because of the fewer hours Amer­i­can kids spend in class.

 Arne Dun­can, Obama’s edu­ca­tion sec­re­tary, pointed out that today’s edu­ca­tional sys­tem is based on an agrar­ian soci­ety and that not many kids are work­ing the fields. While some stud­ies have shown that more hours is con­ducive to bet­ter learn­ing in cer­tain sub­jects, adding hours — and how they are added — is some­thing that is wrapped in mul­ti­ple social and eco­nomic issues.

 It’s true not a lot of fam­i­lies can be found out work­ing the fields these days. Like­wise, not a lot of cou­ples raise a slew of kids just because the extra help is needed in the fields.

 But some fam­i­lies do work the fields both those that are des­per­ate for money and the fam­ily farm­ers who would like to pass their way of life and assets to their offspring.

 Then one must con­sider fam­ily vaca­tions — for those that take them. I can’t recall hav­ing ever taken one as a kid unless you con­sider load­ing the fam­ily up in a pickup one Sun­day and vis­it­ing Hous­ton. I don’t men­tion that with resent­ment because it is sim­ply some­thing I didn’t dwell on as a kid, so I see no rea­son to do so now. That doesn’t mean my sum­mers were void of fun.

 The point is that no one fam­ily is the same and the time schools now give more for fam­ily and stu­dent recre­ation is used in a host of dif­fer­ent ways.

 Speak­ing of recre­ation, I won­der how Dis­ney­world and Six Flags would make out should kids have short­ened vaca­tions? And what about day care busi­nesses if schools days were length­ened? The par­ents might come out bet­ter finan­cially not hav­ing to shell out a lot of bucks for day care. Who knows?

 This is not the first time such a sub­ject has sur­faced. I remem­ber it being talked about more than 40 years ago when I was a kid. I wasn’t the idea’s biggest fan back then. The idea has also been renewed sev­eral times in my more recent years.

 Per­son­ally, I like the struc­ture of classes and school cal­en­dar one finds in col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties. I refer to tak­ing classes at dif­fer­ent times of the day with class hours vary­ing in length and days, and hav­ing the abil­ity to either take or not take a vaca­tion, or take one-half of the sum­mer off. I am sure that would require way too many kinks to work out.

 But imple­ment­ing the types of changes Obama is talk­ing about would also require quite a bit of upheaval. The social and eco­nomic ram­i­fi­ca­tion are such that it seems the only way it could be effec­tive would be mak­ing such changes on a national basis. And Amer­i­cans are pretty pro­tec­tive when it comes to local con­trol in school matters.

 While there is merit in more hours of school there sim­i­larly can be great value in time off. Spend­ing time  with one’s fam­ily or just chillin’ and recharg­ing the bat­ter­ies or even play­ing with your imag­i­nary friends thus devel­op­ing a bet­ter sense of imag­i­na­tion can all be worth­while. It just depends on how it all is being done and ensur­ing par­ents are ensur­ing the kids are respon­si­bly overseen.

 The pres­i­dent has got a lot on his plate. This is one area he should leave for the local schools.