Let's start with "Spring Fever" in the context of school: Teachers know that when spring arrives, the pupils tend to become restless, and lose whatever tendency they had to learn. Probably the teachers themselves are affected by the light, sounds and scents of spring, and by their knowledge that the school-year is coming to an end. Sometimes schools use stricter methods of coercion. Sometimes they give up and start preparing for the end-of-year shows and ceremonies. For 3 months. Some educators try to change the way of teaching a bit, to get the kids' attention.
Here's a great idea that sadly is not originally mine: Send the kids to work in the real world. Outside the school. This will provide a good relief from that restlessness. It won't do much damage to the academic learning - which doesn't get far in the spring anyway. And best of all, working in the real world has some educational value that we usually skip throughout the school age:
Perspective and context for what is being taught at schools, where and how it is being used by people outside the school. How it might eventually be used by the kids themselves
Familiarity with the idea of working, together with ideas of real life responsibility, necessity, achievement and earning
Familiarity with being in the the position of giving real contribution to society. How is that going to work for building self esteem on a real, rather than artificial foundation?
Familiarity with different real vocations, as a basis for future choices
Tapping into an almost forgotten educational method - apprenticeship, with all the advantages we lost when we moved to industrialized education
We regularly underestimate the ability of children to contribute, and undermine their own sense of such capability. Then we expect them to suddenly, upon graduation, become responsible contributors to society, to build a life. It's quite amazing any of them (us) eventually does take responsibility, and it is not surprising that it takes a long time.
Some practicalities:
Examples for school children's work in the first tier of include gardening, agriculture, postal work, cleaning and maintenance, ushering, restaurant work (ok, not as chef), etc. In the next tier, we can put more specialized work, such as clerical work, helping professionals such as plumbers, electricians, etc. Giving private lessons to children and adults, etc. The goal is to be able to include as many types of jobs as possible in the list of venues available to school children. One type of job - possibly compulsory, but not the only job for any kid, is to do teaching-related work for school: Teach smaller kids, teach peers with difficulties, prepare teaching materials, be a teacher’s assistant, administrative work, and more.
How to select the work for every kid? Give the kids a choice of work to do – not just a single job, but more than one. If the kid can only select one, they will almost always try to select something fun. But if they can select 3, they can be motivated to select 2 fun things, and one difficult choice. This is true for any learning choice, but also specifically for work choice. There will probably be more popular jobs (e.g., helping your local rocket scientist) and less popular jobs (e.g., cleaning the soot after launching a rocket). This difference can be offset by using incentives - more money, less hours, special favors, projects, extra studies - a bit like the method described in Walden Two for addressing the same issue.
One can expect many objections from parents. Below are a few that need to be addressed carefully and at length, but to keep some cohesion of this article, they are addressed here very briefly.
“Waste of time” - Actually, it's salvaging time
“Dishonorable work” - No such thing, as long as the job needs to be done
“It’s too much effort for the kids” - Being overprotective. Effort is ok
“The kids will fail” - The jobs need to suit the kids' abilities, so they don't fail too often. Sometimes they will fail. Failing is ok
“The system is trying to make money off the kids” - Oversight is necessary to relieve this concern
Legalities - Isn't that nice? These issues will need to be addressed
Safety - This will have to be addressed on a job-by-job basis
All of the above is not totally new. Sometimes schools send kids to perform various tasks as volunteers (forced volunteering). Some - usually older - kids go and do some work to earn pocket money. Some kids need to help in supporting their families. But I am not aware of any education system that created a comprehensive framework to reap all the possible educational benefits from an organized experience of work. This article started with spring fever, but sending school-kids to work in the real world is so useful to them, that it should be thought of not as a last-ditch solution to a problem, but as an opportunity not to be missed.
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