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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Maybe it is the better weather after all!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-west-coast-ivy-league-hook/
[/quote]

It may be the case that being free of weather-imposed disruptions does sustain a certain continuity, and that that continuity, whether of learning, practice, rehearsal, does positively affect proficiency or even mastery of a subject or activity.  Since we travel to school, we lose that continuity of education in the particular subject we are studying, say chemistry, when weather days intervene.

Take, as another example, youth baseball.  The very best teams in the country generally play in states where the weather is only slightly more amenable to practicing the sport outdoors, all year, with minimal disruptions.  Thus you see that Florida and California consistently place top teams. https://www.baseballyouth.com/rankings

Did amenable weather perhaps promote a learning environment that helped Stanford and Berkeley to rise from relatively new Universities to some of the country's very best, as much as other factors?  And weather days arguably do not impact colleges and universities as much since the students and faculty live on, or close to, campus.

We cannot, of course, change the local weather, and we seem unable to get our local governments to invest in proper winter planning, resources, equipment, and employees to clear the roads, sidewalks, and parking lots in a timely manner.  Therefore, the question is how can we build in educational advantages locally to compensate for the effects of bad weather days?  Should we add some days to the school calendar, apart from the built-in snow days, at the beginning of the school year?  Should we tack on an additional 25 minutes to the typical school day?  Should FFX County do away with its Monday half-days?  Should we shorten the winter and spring breaks by several days?

I don't know the answer, but I think that it is a discussion worth having, given all of the weather days that the past few winters have brought this area.[/quote]

I will see your baseball analogy and raise it.  Baseball observers now see an "epidemic" of Tommy John Surgery for pitchers (a surgery that  uses a tendon from elsewhere in the body to replace a damaged tendon in the arm) in Major League Baseball.  The consensus of researchers is that young pitchers, who play 10 months per year (travel baseball, especially in CA and FLA) are now coming into the majors with relatively damaged arms that give out earlier in their careers.  Doctors have also noticed that more Hall of Fame pitchers come from up NORTH, where they pitched fewer pitches as youngsters and had more pitches left in their arms later.

Here's the link (although I suspect this is not a baseball crowd): http://grantland.com/the-triangle/tommy-john-epidemic-elbow-surgery-glenn-fleisig-yu-darvish/

So, to play out the analogy here -- bright, curious students are not going to suffer from missing 4-5 school days over the course of a winter.  And the way kids work around here, an extra day off or two might actually be a good thing.  True also that the "feast or famine" approach of 9 months more constant school and three months off is probably not the best for learning.  An English/European calendar with the breaks spaced more evenly probably is the best for teaching and learning, but culturally it is a non-starter here.  But trying to cram more days into the 9 month won't make a big difference.[/quote]

Your analogy is not perfect for the following reason.  A student, particularly in high school, studies any one discrete subject or topic for a relatively limited period of time, let us say about the nine months of the typical academic year.  So your high school sophomore or junior typically only has so many days to digest, learn, absorb, and conquer AP Biology, or Honors Calculus, or European History.

A pitcher preparing to pitch Div I or II in college might have ten years of pitches under their belt, with arguably a lot of strain.  A student preparing to study Computer Science or Mathematics or English Literature or Chemistry at a good college, does not have the same ten or eleven years of subject strain in their backgrounds to prepare them.  They have only as many days as the school year provides, and arguably their "strain" or "stress" comes not from too much time and preparation, but from too little time and preparation because of missed school days to master the material.[/quote]

LOL.  Dang, your baseball analogy got turned back on you, but you just keep on arguing.  SWING . . . and a miss.   :wink: [/quote]

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