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  3. School Is Out Too Many Us Kids Fall To "self-care" The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of students, on my way to wo

School Is Out Too Many Us Kids Fall To "self-care" The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of students, on my way to wo

admin2013-07-11  61
问题                 School Is Out Too Many Us Kids Fall To "self-care"
    The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of students, on my way to work these mornings. They have become a familiar part of the summer landscape. These kids are not old enough for jobs. Nor are they rich enough for camp. They are school children without school. The calendar called the school year ran out on them a few weeks ago. Once supervised by teachers and principals, they now appear to be "self-care".
    Passing them is like passing through a time zone. For much of our history, after all, Americans arranged the school year around the needs of work and family. In 19th-century cities, schools were open seven or eight hours a day, 11 months a year. In rural America, the year was arranged around the growing season. Now, only 3 percent of families follow the agricultural model, but nearly all schools are scheduled as if our children went home early to milk the cows and took months off to work the crops. Now, three-quarters of the mothers of school-age children work, but the calendar is written as if they were home waiting for the school bus.
    The six-hour day, the 180-day school year is regarded as something holy. But when parents work an eight-hour day and a 240 day year, it means something different. It means that many kids go home to empty houses. It means that, in the summer, they hang out. "We have a huge mismatch between the school calendar and realities of family life," says Dr. Ernest Boyer, head of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
    Dr. Boyer is one of many who believe that a radical revision of the school calendar is inevitable. "School, whether we like it or not, is educational. It always has been." His is not popular idea. Schools are routinely burdened with the job of solving all our social problems. Can they be asked to meet the needs of our work and family lives?
    It may be easier to promote a longer school year on its educational merits and, indeed, the educational case is compelling. Despite the complaints and studies about our kids’ lack of learning, the United States still has a shorter school year than any industrial nation. In most of Europe, the school year is 220 days. In Japan, it is 240 days long. While classroom time alone doesn’t produce a well-educated child, learning takes time and more learning takes more time. The long summers of forgetting take a toll.
    The opposition to a longer school year comes from families that want to and can provide other experiences for their children. It comes from teachers. It comes from tradition. And surely from kids. But the most important part of the conflict has been over the money.
In the author’s opinion, the current school calendar______.
选项 A、is still valid
B、is old fashioned
C、lacks general approval
D、is to blame for educational failure
答案B
解析 本题考查作者观点。第二段作者指出现行校历和家庭生活的现实脱钩；第三段提到，当父母每天工作8个小时，每年工作240天时，现行校历意味着许多孩子回到空无一人的家里，在夏天出来闲逛。可见，作者对现行校历是持批判态度的，认为其不符合现代生活的需求，因此[B]正确，同时排除[A]。第四段提到，博耶博士有关对校历进行彻底修改的观点并不广受推崇，可见，很多人还是赞同现行校历。另外，最后一段还提到了不同人对延长学年做法的反对，因此[C]不正确。第四段作者从教育角度出发，提出延长学年可以让孩子们将更多的时间花在学习上。但作者没有提到“教育失败”，更没有将之归结为现行校历的过错，排除[D]。
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