August 17, 2009 / Perspective / Parenting / Smartmom

School gets in the way of OSFO’s summer reading fun

By Louise Crawford

for The Brooklyn Paper

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Smartmom doesn’t get the point of summer homework. Isn’t summer supposed to be about recreation, relaxation and fun? Isn’t it a time to do things other than school work? Smartmom thinks there’s plenty of time for school work during the other 10 months of the year.

But Smartmom has nothing against summer reading. And the Oh So Feisty One has been reading quite a bit this summer. At the moment, she’s hooked on a book called “Peace, Love & Baby Ducks” by Lauren Myracle.

But every day she whines, “I have to find ‘Tangerine.’”

That’s the young adult book by Edward Bloor that is assigned to all the incoming seventh graders at her middle school. It sounds like a decent book. But why does she have to read it this summer?

In addition to “Tangerine,” OSFO has to pick from a list of approved books for another reading selection.

Unfortunately, none of the books she has read this summer are on that list. Sure, the list includes a great group of books. But she’s read a bunch of them and some of them don’t interest her at all. At least that’s what she tells Smartmom, who knows that the very fact that they’re on the list makes them less interesting to OSFO because she’s got that anti-authoritarian streak she inherited from Hepcat.

Whatever. Smartmom wondered if “Peace, Love & Baby Ducks” could be substituted for her summer reading book. Why not? It’s a perfectly fine book, maybe even a tad literary.

“No, it’s not on the list,” said OSFO, the oh so literal one.

“Well, maybe we should call the principal to get special dispensation …”

OSFO wasn’t having it. Finally, she did pick a book from that list, “The Cat Ate My Gymsuit” by Paula Danzinger, something she’s already read.

From Smartmom’s experience with summer reading (and she’s had plenty), it’s not like the books are integrated into the curriculum even though the kids are required to write a two-page essay about each book.

In fact, Smartmom has never heard about those essays once they’re handed in. Smartmom wonders what happens to those essays. Do they go into some gigantic folder called Summer Reading? Are they sent to the recycling?

More important, why do the schools insist on insinuating themselves into the lives of their students 24/7? OSFO’s life already revolves around school. So does Smartmom’s. But like OSFO, she enjoys the two-month break from school schedules and homework.

Sure, the American educational system is way behind other countries, which have longer school days and school years. But what’s wrong with letting life be the educator for a few months of the year?

That’s what summer is all about. It’s a chance to spend time with family and friends and to experience new people, places and things.

It’s also a time to discover the pleasure of unassigned reading.

Smartmom doesn’t remember any summer homework when she was a kid. But that was back in the 1970s when progressive education was in vogue. Summer meant family vacations on Fire Island, Maine or Martha’s Vineyard. During one memorable summer vacation, the family visited the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.

For years, Smartmom went to sleepaway camp, where she had the chance to exist outside of the strictures of family and school. There she learned to folk dance, to play the guitar and the lyrics to every protest song imaginable.

It was a great time — and a welcome break from school and family.

This summer, Smartmom decided to read Dostoyevsky. During the rainy days of June, she read “The Idiot,” the story of the epileptic Prince Myshkin (and Dumb Editor’s favorite of the enigmatic Russian’s doorstop books).

On Block Island, she dove into “Crime and Punishment,” the great novel about Raskolnikov’s remorseless crime. And in the bright California sun, she read “The Brothers Karamazov.”

It’s been a heavy summer full of nihilism, human psychology and the spiritual, political and social world of 19th-century Russia

What if Smartmom had required reading? She’d never get a chance to wrap her head around The Brothers K.

Luckily, Smartmom doesn’t have to write a two-page essay on her summer reading. But OSFO does and she better get going. It’s mid-August and it’s time for OSFO to get cracking.

Anyone have a copy of “Tangerine”?

©2009 Community Newspaper Group