The debate over year-round schools has always struck me as an example of
how poorly people analyze, debate, and resolve complex issues. For
instance:
1. The traditional American school calendar AND year-round schedules are
only two of hundreds of education options available.
2. Even if the debate was limited to these two options, they are not
mutually exclusive.
3. The issue in the debate is really about scheduling time for school
children to be in a specific place. This is an argument about form, not
function.
4. The current decades-old schedule has, among other things, deeply
influenced our workplace culture, our leisure concepts, our definitions of
maturity and adulthood, our definitions of class, our perception of the
role of government, and our view of human learning potential - all of
which have profound system effects on our culture - yet the effects of
which are so subtle as to make them nearly invisible to most participants
in the debate.
5. The topic stirs violent discussion but little dialogue, and most
participants are unaware of the distinction between the two.
-- Lon Badgett lonbadgett@aol.com"A School Board Member recently told me that the only thing standing in the way of progress was the idiots who stand up at board meetings and make unsubtantiated generalizations about everything. I smiled politely at the insight he provided about idiots..." Emil Gobersneke
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>