Why no school on Saturday?

[Nenders]

No, I am not a harsh person who thinks that kids should not have any fun. But why not just have Sunday off? You could have a shorter school year, or just cover more material. I can see how in predominantly Christian countries kids would get the Sabbath off. Do kids in the US get Saturday off for the Jewish Sabbath? Do any countries have school on Saturday?

[curwin]

“Single, double, triple pay, I ain’t going to school on Saturday…”

(I assume that the reference will be unknown to almost all of you)

[Knighted_Vorpal_Sword]

*Originally posted by curwin *
**“Single, double, triple pay, I ain’t going to school on Saturday…”

(I assume that the reference will be unknown to almost all of you) **

Isn’t it “ain’t gonna work on Saturday?” That’s the version on tapes my kids have.

[zev_steinhardt]

*Originally posted by Knighted Vorpal Sword *
**

*Originally posted by curwin *
**“Single, double, triple pay, I ain’t going to school on Saturday…”

(I assume that the reference will be unknown to almost all of you) **

Isn’t it “ain’t gonna work on Saturday?” That’s the version on tapes my kids have. **

Yes, it is “ain’t gonna work on Saturday…” curwin just changed it to reference the topic at hand.

Zev Steinhardt

[muttrox]

You couldn’t have school on Saturday, it would ruin all the best jokes on Fat Albert.

[no1_squoog]

*Originally posted by muttrox *
**You couldn’t have school on Saturday, it would ruin all the best jokes on Fat Albert. **

Poor Rudy. They always gave him shit.

[dolphinboy]

Whether it has anything to do with the Jewish Sabbath or not (I doubt it) having no school on Saturday is a long standing tradition in this country. The weekend is suppose to be time kids spend with their families… plus would you want your kids home more during the summer then they already are?

I know in Japan they have school on Saturday and in some Islamic countries they have Thursday and Friday off and go to school on Saturday and Sunday.

I actually prefer the concept of year 'round school since kids don’t forget everything they’ve learned during the summer break. Take a month off in Spring, a month off in Summer and a month off in Winter makes more sense to me than three months off in Summer. Very few of us these days send our kids out to the fields to harvest anymore…

[unixrat]

Very few of us these days send our kids out to the fields to harvest anymore…

Coming from outstate Minnesota and marrying someone from rural South Dakota I can tell you that the number of kids helping out during planting and harvesting is non-trivial. While the New York City school district might have zero kids in this bracket, the summer break is still needed around here.

[cornflakes]

I’m not in a union and I’m not looking for one, but labor fought long and hard to get a five day workweek. Why should we deny it to our kids?

I’m assume that the second day off was a byproduct of labor’s fight for two days off from work.

[Zsofia]

Here in South Carolina, they move the school year around so the kids can pick the peaches. They start earlier, especially in peach-heavy counties, so they’re out by early May.

Not that that has anything to do with Saturday. But some of us still need summers to help out on the farm, thanks so much.

[tomndebb]

I’m not in a union and I’m not looking for one, but labor fought long and hard to get a five day workweek. Why should we deny it to our kids?

I suspect that this is the closest answer, so far. In the U.S., the work week used to be about six and a half days. (“About” because it depended on the particular trade/industry/occupation.) Saturday afternoon was the beginning of the time off to get prepared for any social events on Saturday night (since the only social event permitted on Sunday, in many places, was church service).

At that time, kids went to school until noon Saturday. With the advent of the 40 hour week, kids were freed on Saturday–probably not for their benefit but because the teachers demanded it.

Saturday classes actually remained a part of many college curricula for a long time. I had Saturday morning classes in my first to years of college in the late 60s.

[Nenders]

I had not considered the labor part of it. It makes sense that the teachers want to work the same hours in theory as the rest of the work force. Though I know many teachers put in more than 40 hours a week.

[curwin]

If the union’s fight for a five day work week is the source of the five day school week, then it is likely that the Jews were involved in the source of that. There was an article in the Jerusalem Post a couple of weeks ago about how they are trying to make Sunday a day off in Israel now. One of the women leading the issue is the granddaughter of the American union leader, and I think rabbi, who was successful in getting America to make Saturday a day off in the 30s.

[KneadToKnow]

*Originally posted by Zsofia *
Here in South Carolina, they move the school year around so the kids can pick the peaches. They start earlier, especially in peach-heavy counties, so they’re out by early May.

I’d like to qualify that a bit, if I may Zsofia (cool name BTW).

Rural school districts do sometimes find themselves having to schedule their calendars around the needs of local farmers, and that is true just about everywhere. Now, I’m sure most of you feel that South Carolina equals rural, but as a native of the Palmetto State, I can assure you that there are urban and suburban school districts in South Carolina whose populations think the notion of getting out of school to go pick something is just as backwards-sounding as anyone else does.

The school year in Columbia, where I grew up, started in late August and ended in early June as a rule.

[Arken]

You can’t have school on a saturday! If you do, you can’t force the kids to go to school that day if they’ve skipped other days!

I hated saturday school. What a bummer.

[Skywatcher]

I went to high school on Saturdays. I was in a private school in the summer to make up for a semester of public school English. The reason for the Saturday morning classes was so we students wouldn’t have to be there for the entire summer.

[curwin]

*Originally posted by curwin *
**If the union’s fight for a five day work week is the source of the five day school week, then it is likely that the Jews were involved in the source of that. There was an article in the Jerusalem Post a couple of weeks ago about how they are trying to make Sunday a day off in Israel now. One of the women leading the issue is the granddaughter of the American union leader, and I think rabbi, who was successful in getting America to make Saturday a day off in the 30s. **

I found the source:

What gave her inspiration to take up the cause was her great-grandfather, Dr. Samuel Friedman, an Orthodox Jew in New York who initiated the movement for the five-day work week in the United States. Originally opposed by management and labor, he eventually won over the support of Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, and it became law in the late 1930s.

[Davidbw1]

You do realize that the real reason why there’s no school on Saturday is that is some schmuck politician decided to make school on Saturday (or Sunday), there’s be a huge riot on their front lawn.

[Kyla]

Hrm, the lady in curwin’s posts strikes me as sort of lazy - in Israel, the weekend is Friday and Saturday. Adding Sunday seems excessive. When I was there, I managed to arrange my schedule so that I didn’t have any classes on Sundays. I mentioned this to my friend in an email (just to say “ha ha! Three-day weekend!”) and he wrote me back, confused. Why would it be of note that I didn’t have classes on Sundays?

[curwin]

Maybe this editorial from the Jerusalem Post will explain the issue a little better:

Sometimes a bill is put forth in the Knesset whose collective advantage is so obvious that to argue its merits would seem almost superfluous. Such is the case with three similar bills calling for a two-day weekend. From any point of view in our often fractured country, there can be no doubt that every segment of society would benefit from such an arrangement, and the combined good it would do might even be greater than the sum of the parts.

The basic idea - first raised in a cabinet meeting in June by Minister Natan Sharansky and submitted as bills by MKs Nahoum Langental, Yuli Edelstein, and Benny Elon - calls for Sunday to be a complete day off for all workers, and banks, schools, and offices would all be closed.

Workers would work until 2 p.m. on Fridays, and add an extra half-hour a day Monday through Thursday. Schools would be open Monday to Thursday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Friday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Retail stores, places of entertainment and recreation, and transportation would be open and operational.

For if Friday were a shortened workday, as it is for observant Jews in the Diaspora, then Saturday could serve as national day of rest, while Sunday would be a day of leisure and recreation for everyone. And many Jews, who stand somewhere in between and would like to have a little of both worlds, wouldn’t have to trade one for the other. Such an arrangement would help promote a more relaxed, better-rested society, while strengthening the Jewish nature of the state without imposing religious laws on anyone.

Moreover, it would lesson religious-secular tension: Activities such as soccer and other sports, shopping, and so on could be done on Sunday, thus minimizing the pressure to do more on Shabbat. With malls and kibbutz shops open on Sunday, customers would have time to browse and buy at their leisure. Friday nights could become more of a family night - even for the most secular - as it is in the Diaspora.

Sundays would become like it is in most Western countries, a day of family outings and activities, of nature hikes and field trips, visits to the zoo and beach, and hosting barbecues at home with friends and relatives. Public parks now sit empty most of the week and are totally overused on Independence Day, Election Day, and Hol Hamoed. It would be far more sensible, economically and culturally, to have proper weekends, so places such as parks could be used all year round, like in every other country. If such a day could be had once a week, the effect on the morale and pressure level of Israelis would be enormous.

But there is the economic aspect. The main opposition to this bill comes from the Finance Ministry, which is afraid that a day less working would significantly decrease tax revenue. Certainly a study should be done to see if that is so, but with the country ever more closely linked to the world economy, it makes sense to have weekends on the same days as other countries. Maybe it would take an extra 60 minutes Monday to Thursday instead of 30 minutes to make up the difference, but there too the advantage would mean Israeli companies would be working more hours at the same times as American and European companies. Moreover, industries like tourism would benefit, as Israelis would have money to spend on a weekend holiday at the desperate hotels around the country.

At a Monday night meeting of the government’s Interministerial Committee on Legislation, which now stands opposed to the idea, Sharansky told the members to ‘take into account that there is also a political price to pay. I can tell you from my experience - no other idea which I ever proposed had such public support, where I received so many letters and telephone calls from all types of people, from Left to Right, religious to secular.’ This is not surprising, and the legislators should heed the warning.