To the multi-month break thing - I live in Germany, where we have 6 weeks of holidays. I have to agree, 10 weeks is rather much, although it IS fun!
One of the things I've noticed is that it is more typical for families in Germany to do something during their vacation - travel to a foreign country, etc. Most German families (at least the ones I know) spend 3-5 weeks of their vacation away someplace (my family normally goes on hiking tours in the Alps, for instance). This leaves a few weeks time for simply relaxing - perfectly acceptable, IMHO.
However, if one has TEN, not six weeks of vacation, and if one does almost nothing during this break, then I have to agree fully - that is too much.
Another point:
Learning to learn is all very well, but with some of the teachers we get, it isn't possible to learn. We have teachers who are literally AFRAID of the students, and my class is a... rather agressive one. A friend of mine said that his class had managed to get a teacher to storm out in tears, and mine isn't far away from achieving that. Out of the about 25 teachers I've had in the last 4 years, I'd estimate maybe 3 good ones, 5 okay ones, 10 mediocre teachers, 4 awful teachers and 3 REALLY awful teachers. And I thought education was supposed to be one of the most important things the government worries about? Think again. Most of the awful teachers are teachers who are very good in terms of knowledge and experience but never faced a class full of students until they were already too far down the "teaching path" to quit. And some of the teachers-in-training we get are even worse...
*rant off*
Hope I didn't offend anyone [img]redface.gif[/img]