Summer is vacation time. Following this issue, the IU News will begin its own summer vacation, returning in the fall. Until then, the June News offers a long and varied list of suggestions and recommendations for books and articles we hope will interest readers of the IU Community News.

For students, teachers, scholars and others, summer often means extra time for reading — time to relax and follow a whim, to acquire new knowledge, or to finish interrupted work. When the academic year ends and vacations begin, projects and books that have been deferred during busier seasons can be taken up.

While many students are able to enjoy summer's greater leisure and an opportunity to pursue interests or hobbies, not all student summers are created equal. San Jose State University Professor of Education Lauren Sosniak recently wrote an editorial — The Summer Educational Divide — for the San Francisco Chronicle that takes a look at a harsher side of summer, reminding us about "the considerable gap in opportunity to learn between children of the poor and children from more financially secure homes."

Professor Sosniak notes that "Across the Bay Area and the state, the educational opportunities for children and youth will vary considerably," while proposing that a child's summer experiences — away from the classroom and in a variety of social or physical settings — are education "richly construed."

Summer experiences often provide learning that does not come via the classroom. Sosniak continues: "Through their activities, [children] acquire content knowledge that helps them understand the vocabulary and the ideas in school textbooks and on school tests. They learn to work with others to accomplish goals, they learn how to practice purposefully, and they learn the value of initiative. They begin to imagine possibilities for their years to come, and they develop aspirations."

Professor Sosniak proposes a public conversation about the means and methods by which educational opportunities might be made available in communities and through organizations for children whose parents cannot afford or imagine them; and in the end she challenges readers: "We need to create summer activities for children from low-income homes that are as educationally rich as our more privileged children experience all year long."

. . . Continue on to the IU News June 2005 page to complete this story.