If there’s one thing that schools learned last year, it’s to have many contingency plans to choose from in the event we need to shut down and move to e-learning. Part of those plans includes the possibility of shifting school vacation dates as needed or eliminating some breaks entirely to compensate for missed time in person. In fact, when it was announced that Shunyi schools would start online, many chose to extend the Chinese New Year break and forego spring break in an attempt to maximize how much time students will spend together in the classroom. Other schools are keeping this option in their back pocket.
School vacations, and especially the Spring Festival, are usually times that families travel out of Beijing. But with guidelines discouraging travel and most people staying put, it’s possible that school breaks aren’t as necessary while we still have Covid outbreaks, even small and controlled ones. Rather than seeing a school year as starting on a fixed day and ending at a set time with scheduled breaks, maybe it’s time to consider a more flexible timeframe.
Summer vacations, after all, evolved mostly out of convenience over the years. In some areas, it was too hot during those summer months to even be inside a classroom. Summers have since come to mean downtime, summer jobs, and a chance to see family or go on vacations, or for some students, it’s considered a forth semester to continue studies elsewhere.
What do you think we should do? Take this year a few weeks at a time or rethink our idea of vacations entirely? Scan the QR code to let us know!
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