Raising the Bar: Stopping the Summer Slide

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - Students are just weeks away from the start of summer vacation.

Educators know it’s also a time known as the “summer slide”, when students can lose some of what they learned in the classroom. But there are things parents can do to help prevent that summer slide.

In this week’s Raising the Bar segment, 13News’ Valerie Cavazos speaks with Michael Bryan, a counselor at Catalina Foothills High School, for some suggestions.

I think sometimes parents see the summertime as a different thing than what kids see, as what they want the summer to be. So, I guess there’s a balance here. Bryan explains why the summer period is a perfect time for kids to really reflect.

“I mean,, the kids are out of school and so they get to do something different,” he said. “They get to do more things that they may want to do, but they are transitioning from a structured environment to maybe a non-structured environment, and that can be chaotic and it can stop the learning, and we want students to be critical thinkers. So we want them engaging in things over the summer that can keep that critical thinking going, like volunteering at workplaces, finding a part-time job, maybe shadowing, finding out what a career really does.”

With the 21st century skills, critical thinking is one at the top of the list.

“Well, critical thinking means that students are able to take all different facts and situations, put them together and synthesize and come up with a solution to a problem,” Bryan said. “So, for example, if they have a part-time job and that they have to perform a duty, they’re gonna have to put all the information they’ve learned throughout the school year, then they’re gonna have to actually apply it to solve a problem to make themselves valuable to an employer or just to get the job done. So, we want students that don’t just repeat things through rote memory. We want ones that can apply the knowledge to the real world.”

Critical thinking skills come into play with those home projects, anything that is done as a family, because that reflects time management, thinking skills, that type of thing. Does that help?

“Oh, sure,” Bryan said. “Involve your children in planning vacations or planning activities. Too many parents maybe say, ‘Hey, you go play with your friends or get online and play video games.’ That’s not really a critical thinking. That’s just kind of spending time. Involve them, get them up, have them plan an activity with a goal in mind. You know, ‘Hey, we’re gonna visit a museum or we’re gonna go learn something about part of our state and our history and our culture.’ Include them, challenge them to come up with something and then go do it together. There’s no better time than the time spent as a family.”

Cavazos brings these local “Raising the Bar” segments on various topics every Monday to help you kick start each week with expert advice on education.

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