Jack Knox
Slightly Skewed
Went back to work a couple of days ago. Wore long pants for the first time in two weeks. Cried.
One more week, I would have forgotten my pants altogether. This is what happens after a vacation. We forget things, get stupid.
A few years ago, the Daily Telegraph reported on a German study that found that "long, lazy holidays devoid of mental exertion lead to dramatic, if temporary, losses of intelligence and sluggish performance on return to work."
According to the German research, three weeks lolling on the beach (or, for those on staycation, the couch) equal a 20-point drop in IQ. Good thing I was only gone for two. As it was, I came back duller than an airline magazine. The brain was in Skype mode, with a three-second delay. Couldn't remember how to retrieve phone messages. Couldn't remember my computer password, the one I haven't changed in a dozen years (in case you're wondering, it's J-A-C-K).
This is what happens after two weeks. Imagine the decline after two months, which is how long school has been out.
Indeed, Time Magazine just ran a cover story titled "The Case Against Summer Vacation," in which it argued that U.S. kids (and, by extension, their less well-armed cousins to the north) suffer from an overabundance of idle, Huck Finn holidays: "When American students are competing with children around the world, who are in many cases spending four weeks longer in school each year, larking through summer is a luxury we can't afford. What's more, for many children -- especially children of low-income families -- summer is a season of boredom, inactivity and isolation."
Deprived of healthy stimulation, young people forget what they learned in school, Time contended. Less-affluent kids, who don't have the same opportunities to exercise their minds in organized activities during the summer, suffer most.
"All students lose about a month of progress in math skills each summer, while low-income students slip as many as three months in reading comprehension, compared with middle-income students." One study found low-income students fall three grade levels behind by the end of grammar school. "By ninth grade, summer learning loss could be blamed for roughly two-thirds of the achievement gap separating income groups."
The solution? The Time piece quoted a number of people who advocate summer enrichment programs specifically for low-income kids.
Which sounds good, though the cynical among us might suspect "summer enrichment" is just code for "national service," with otherwise happily indolent children spending their holidays either a) scrubbing graffiti off inner city brickwork, b) being hired by Haliburton to clear minefields in Iraq, or c) getting shipped to Nam for old times' sake.
This would make some quite happy. They argue that rather than lying around the rumpus room, sucking their Slurpees and eating their deep-fried Ecstasy, what today's youth need (adults always refer to young people as "today's youth," the connotation being that, like JPEG photos, they are a poor imitation of their predecessors, losing quality with each generation) is a steady diet of bully beef, hardtack and back-breaking toil. Think of Meatballs, only with Sheriff Joe Arpaio in the Bill Murray role.
Parents who think this way conveniently ignore the slothful summers of their own youth: Once, while sprawled in front of the TV, I made the mistake of telling my dad, who was still streaming sweat after rototilling the garden, that I was bored -- forgetting that the word "bored" was easily confused with "high on glue" or "joining the Hitler Youth" or "cheering for the Maple Leafs."
"Bored?" he repeated, nostrils flaring. "I've got a cure for bored." I briefly harboured the hope that his cure would involve a fishing rod, but no, no, what he had in mind was a shovel.
But I digress.
The problem with organized summer activities is that they are, well, organized. The beauty of summer vacation is the lack of structure. No clocks, no rules, no pressure, no shoes. Instead of providing summer enrichment programs for the poor, perhaps they should ban them for the rich instead, so that everyone loses brain cells -- and ground -- together.
Just don't force Huck Finn into long pants in the summer. That would be stupid.
