101–110 of 388 posts
To help support that, it should be expected that on the first day of school, police officers will ride bikes along all the routes students are expected to cover --- to help support that, bring back truant officers and put them on bicycles.
I think this article misses the one big problem (as I understand it). It's that schools need to dismiss the kid to their parent. I have family in North Carolina and I understand that cars have the family number displayed, and someone with a radio communicates to the school staff "Car 315 is here", they then find that kid and dismiss them. Just do away with that. When the bell rings, send the kids outside and they wil…
My mom walked me to school until I was in 4th grade. She was a single mom and needed to work, so she decided to let me walk to and from school from then on. I made friends on that walk. 30+ years later, I am still friends with many of them even though we live hours away from each other. I'm not a parent, so I don't know what I don't know; but, I've observed so many kids being shuffled between school, events, "play da…
In 1969 only about 30% of kids lived too far away from school for walking to be a realistic option.
In 2009 (and today) that numbers is around 80%.
Walking to and from school is great if you can do it.
Most people cannot do it.
We can just wait for this problem to go away as robocars becomes the norm. We'll look back on the primitive times when kids couldn't just click a button or whisper an instruction for a ride like anyone else.
We need busses. If it has to be techy-flashy, would it satisfy you if the bus was self-driving?
We can walk to school and see the bus when we leave the house and easily beat it by many minutes.
(Busses being slow and routes taking long is probably a design feature, allowing schools to let out at 3PM but parents to not have to be home until 5PM or later).
But the real final solution won't be robocars, it'll be robokids. Then if you lose one you can just get a replacement.
Me? I picked the public elementary school 10 minutes of walk away instead of the private one that is 20+ minutes of driving. I don't want everyone in the household gets frustrated pretty much every Mon-Fri.
Secondary school is going to be a bit of issue. We do have one that is adjacent to the said elementary school but it is not very good. But then my son would be 11 years old by then so hopefully he can just take the bus.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's fucking ridiculous.
Normally I’d ding a comment like this as low-effort, but… I honestly can’t think of any more appropriate reaction. I know I’m behind the times, but I was surprised recently when, at an elementary school in the US, they showed me painted lines on the floor of the classroom, indicating the zones out of the line of fire for somebody shooting through the small, jail-like window in the door… apparently they train the babi…
It all seems overdone and ridiculous, but when you get a phone call from your child as they sprint from the school building to the safety of the woods due to shots fired in the building, you're glad they did prepare for the "when to stay" and "when to run" decision...and then after you realize that it's even more ridiculous that they had to use that training.
That was the longest couple hours of my life, but knowing that the kids got the f** outta there made it a bit more bearable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"he decided" is probably one of the issues here. back in the day it would have been "this is what your doing now kid"
That kind of upbringing worked out really well for the boomers, we are in this mess because of that. Kids should have agency and independence, but also a feeling of safety, trust, and security. You cannot force a kid to work against their own safety instinct because of your own selfish comfort.
I looked at the author’s Google map view of the 2 miles they couldn’t walk to school, and the enormous grassed area next to the road would have meant I’d be walking that quite happily in the UK.
When I hear these stories about how children in USA go to school, I am always astonished.
In Europe, my parents took me to the school one single time, for the first school day, when I was 6 years old. Everyday after that I have gone there and come back alone, for a walk of about one mile and a half. Several years later, I continued my studies at a more distant school, to which I was going alone using the public transportation of the city, by bus, the same as most of my colleagues.
Even during the 1st grade (i.e. at 6 to 7 years old) any child would have considered very shameful to be brought to the school by their parents, as an indication that they would have been somehow helpless or handicapped.
I think this article misses the one big problem (as I understand it). It's that schools need to dismiss the kid to their parent. I have family in North Carolina and I understand that cars have the family number displayed, and someone with a radio communicates to the school staff "Car 315 is here", they then find that kid and dismiss them. Just do away with that. When the bell rings, send the kids outside and they wil…
That, and just let kids walk home. It's good for their muscles.
80% of kids live too far away for walking to be feasible.