Cancel classes day before spring break?

Earlier this week, Jim asked in class what our opinions were about teachers canceling classes the day before breaks since often times many students need to leave early. I did not have a strong opinion of this at the time, but since have thought more about it. I think that teachers should absolutely NOT cancel their classes. For example, this upcoming spring break, the break is officially marked on teh calendar as starting on Saturday. Students should make their accomodations for leaving after their classes are finished. Jim gave the example of someone needing to leave early to catch a flight. I'd say- Book your flight for a later time that you can still make it to after attending your classes. If professors are going to cancel classes, then students are going to try to leave early from their Thursday classes. There needs to be a definite start of break, which is Saturday of after your Friday classes are over. I do think there could be a few extreme case exceptions to this, but in general, I belive if I student elects to miss a class right before break, they should suffer the consequences of missing class just like if they skipped any other day of class that semester.

Assimilation Lecture experience

Wednesday's lecture given by Jim Langholz was on the topic of Assimilation. Rather than give answers or concrete conclusions, Jim instead added more questions to my mind (which was already swimming with questions before the lecture.) Before the lecture Doug Knick emailed all of the Paideia students telling us to assemble in the basement instead of the lecture hall and about 2 munutes after class was supposed to start to go to class as a large group. Initially, it didn't even cross my mind that I was just blindly following the instructions of Doug. Knowing Doug and Jim's relationship and Jim's sense of humor, I just figured it would be a funny joke. While Doug's experiment was obviously an example of assimilation, so is going to the lecture and class on time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and following all of the norms and criteria of the course in order to achieve what? a good grade? life enrichment? I'm trying to understand why we do these things we do? But on the flip side, wouldn't the world just be a crazy place if everyone just did whatever the heck they wanted? Questions questions questions!

Early Education

There has talk about the idea of mandating early education for all children in our country. Today my discussion group talked about this. While I don't believe that they should be mandated for all children, it would be great if there were more support for lower income families who would like to send their kids to preschool. (I realize that there is not an unlimited supply of funds in this country, but I feel this is something important.) There are programs like Head Start and some schools that provide aid for those who can't afford it, but unfortunately there are long waiting lists and not enough aid for everyone. I believe these years of early education are very important for children. I would hope that parents are raising their kids from the very beginning, teaching them their values and general behaviors of our society, but I would incorrect if I thought this happened everywhere. Early education is an opportunity for these kids who are missing out on these lessons from their parents to learn them somewhere else. As for the kids already receiving nurturing in their home lives: Early education provides kids with something they can't learn at home - interacting with others (besides siblings,) sharing, and other life skills that one must learn through interacting with others who don't the same attitudes or viewpoints. I don't believe learning to read or extensive academic subject should be started yet at this young age, but there are many other lessons that will positively impact the children's lives.