School's Out!
Today is the first day of my vacation. Yesterday classes ended and so did mine. But only until the first of July. Then, my summer classes begin until September, my true vacation month.
So now I am free for a week and a half. Summer vacation! Whooping, running, jumping for summer joy as we would leave primary school on the last day. A summer of doing whatever you want, almost, with the exception of parental rules. Getting up at twelve if you wanted, staying out until dark, playing if you felt like it, reading if you didn't. Just lying on the porch, looking up at the leaves dancing in the breeze, watching the cloud formations and imagining until you fell asleep. I feel the expectation of such a summer right now, but it's only a childhood memory. Vacation as an adult is not so carefree. It only means I don't have to work. I still have all the chores to do and all the things associated with living as an adult. I'll truly be free for only one day, when I plan to go out for the entire day on my own. Every few months I do that to get away from everything completely.
But Spanish children have more freedom in summer than American children. School gets out just before the first day of summer, in time to celebrate St. John's Eve, and resumes in the last half of September, generally during the week before fall begins. I remember getting out in the middle of June because I went to a parochial school, but public schools finished toward the end of the month. And then school would begin for everyone a day or two after Labor Day at the beginning of September. Since my childhood years, I believe certain districts now begin even earlier, in August.
In Spain, however, summer is not always carefree. If a child fails a subject, they try to recuperate it at the beginning of September in the recuperation exams. So, in Spain, summertime academies proliferate. Unfortunately, now the norm seems to be to fail some subjects in June. One year my daughter and I passed in front of her high school the first day of September and we were confused. We had understood that the first day of school was going to be around the twentieth, but the school was overrunning with students. It turned out that all those teenagers were going to sit recuperation exams. More than three quarters of the entire student body. Doesn't say much for the system.
But even if some have to study, it's still summer. Those magical days of summer vacation that will never be quite the same again as they once were.
So now I am free for a week and a half. Summer vacation! Whooping, running, jumping for summer joy as we would leave primary school on the last day. A summer of doing whatever you want, almost, with the exception of parental rules. Getting up at twelve if you wanted, staying out until dark, playing if you felt like it, reading if you didn't. Just lying on the porch, looking up at the leaves dancing in the breeze, watching the cloud formations and imagining until you fell asleep. I feel the expectation of such a summer right now, but it's only a childhood memory. Vacation as an adult is not so carefree. It only means I don't have to work. I still have all the chores to do and all the things associated with living as an adult. I'll truly be free for only one day, when I plan to go out for the entire day on my own. Every few months I do that to get away from everything completely.
But Spanish children have more freedom in summer than American children. School gets out just before the first day of summer, in time to celebrate St. John's Eve, and resumes in the last half of September, generally during the week before fall begins. I remember getting out in the middle of June because I went to a parochial school, but public schools finished toward the end of the month. And then school would begin for everyone a day or two after Labor Day at the beginning of September. Since my childhood years, I believe certain districts now begin even earlier, in August.
In Spain, however, summer is not always carefree. If a child fails a subject, they try to recuperate it at the beginning of September in the recuperation exams. So, in Spain, summertime academies proliferate. Unfortunately, now the norm seems to be to fail some subjects in June. One year my daughter and I passed in front of her high school the first day of September and we were confused. We had understood that the first day of school was going to be around the twentieth, but the school was overrunning with students. It turned out that all those teenagers were going to sit recuperation exams. More than three quarters of the entire student body. Doesn't say much for the system.
But even if some have to study, it's still summer. Those magical days of summer vacation that will never be quite the same again as they once were.
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