- eSchool News - https://www.eschoolnews.com -

The rat race of childhood: Why we need to balance students’ lives

In Aspen, Colorado each year, intellectual leaders from around the world meet for the Aspen Ideas Festival, presented by the Aspen Institute and the Atlantic. This year’s most Googled names attended the Festival’s most recent installment, held June 27-July 3, to present on the “big ideas” currently shaking up American society, from science and technology to the arts, education and culture, Vicki Abeles, a parent of three and the director of the documentary, “Race to Nowhere,” [1] which challenges common assumptions about how children are best educated. Among them was Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton professor and former State Department official, whose recent piece in the Atlantic [2] on the daunting systemic challenges and compromises faced by the working mother has dominated headlines and stoked fiery cultural conversation since its publication in the magazine’s July/August issue. Appearing at the festival in conversation with Katie Couric, Slaughter reiterated one of her article’s most salient reflections on work-life balance — or the lack thereof — in modern America: “Given the responses to my article, [it’s clear] there are many, many people — and many, many men — feeling like we have gone way too far,” she noted. “We’re working 24 hours on 24 hours, and we don’t have the time to be human beings in the round.”

Click here for the full story [3]