After-school activity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An after-school activity is any organized program which invites youth to participate outside of the traditional school day. Some programs are run by a primary or secondary school and some by externally funded non-profit or commercial organizations. These after-school youth programs can occur inside a school building or elswhere in the community, for instance at a community center, library, park, etc. The activities are a corner-stone of Concerted cultivation, giving children experience with leadership and dealing with adults.[1] Such children are believed by proponents to be more successful in later life, while others consider too many activities to indicate overparenting.
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[edit] Typical activities
There are a myriad of organized after-school activities for children including, for example:
- Sports such as Soccer, Baseball, Hockey, Swimming
- Performing arts such as Dance, Drama and Ballet
- Creative arts such as Painting, Drawing, Crafts
- Cramming schools for literacy, mathematics, etc.
- Scouting, Girl guides, Boys and Girls Club of America, Boys brigade, Cadets
Some feel that programs run by schools allows students to take courses or compete in intramural sports they would not otherwise enroll in, for fear of failure.[citation needed]
[edit] Filling time
Many of these activities take place in the afternoons of school days, thereby helping parents with childcare before they finish work. They can also occur in the evening and weekends, too.
The motivation for participating in an after-school activity is often that parents are working, and wish their children to be supervised[1]. If unsupervised, they may fall into criminal or undesirable activity such as drug-taking or teenage-sex[2][3]. Daily occurrences of violent crimes peak between 3 and 4 PM, directly after the end of the school day. After-school programs give children and youth a safe place from such dangers.
[edit] Independence
Advocates of Slow parenting believe that children should be allowed to develop their own ideas[4]. Getting bored is a step towards having an idea for something else to do. Having no adult organizers allows the children to find their own structure.
In her book The Price of Privilege[5], psychologist Madeline Levine found that children of wealthy families were more likely to suffer psychological dysfunctions such as anxiety and depression. By spending so much time in organized after-school activities, and missing out on time or emotional closeness with their families, they fail to develop self management which is a powerful precursor to both psychological inner strength and academic achievement.
Not all children fit ideally within any single mould. While there may be some that benefit from being supervised and pushed towards didactic goals, others will end up achieving more on their own, or with minimal supervision according to the Chinese philiosophy of Wu wei.
[edit] Management
Some after-school activities are provided free of charge at the point of delivery, while the majority are for-profit businesses which charge for membership. They are sometimes government-funded, especially where it is believed that the parents may not be providing a good home environment, and so professional care may be better.
A number of states have organizations that work to give local after-school providers resources and training. For instance, the Rhode Island Afterschool Plus Alliance and the California Afterschool Network provide resources on the state level. On the national level, the Afterschool Alliance serves as a national advocate for after-school activities.[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Mahoney, Joseph L.; Larson, Reed; Eccles, Jacquelynne S. (2005). Organized activities as contexts of development: extracurricular activities, after-school and community programs. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 45. ISBN 0-8058-4431-7. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pQ2HAS9RmtUC&lpg=PA1999&pg=RA1-PA45#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
- ^ Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1999. p. 65. http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/nationalreport99/chapter3.pdf#page=15.
- ^ After-school fact sheet
- ^ Honoré, Carl (2008). Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children From The Culture Of Hyper-Parenting. Orion. ISBN 978-0752875316.
- ^ Levine, Madeline (2006). The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. Harper Collins. pp. 256. ISBN 9780060595845.
- ^ http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/aboutUs.cfm
[edit] External links
- AfterSchool.gov - US Government website for after-school programs
- Afterschool Alliance
- Center for Afterschool Education
- National Institute on Out-of-School Time at the Wellesley Centers for Women
- Out-of-School Time at the Harvard Family Research Project
- The After-School Corporation
- Hot Topic: Character Education - Service-learning-related after-school program information at Learn and Serve America's National Service-Learning Clearinghouse
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