School is a place of learning many things, including values.
And I think we all agree the best way to learn values is by example, rather
than just by instruction. But there are subtle lessons being taught by parents
which go in the wrong direction.
These lessons are embodied in how children get to school. In
an urban environment, it should be trivial to locate schools in the
neighbourhood, within walking distance. But with our publicly-funded school
system split into two mutually-exclusive boards, the result is often that kids
are bused past the nearest school to attend one in the other system. While I
believe this could easily be resolved, there seems to be too much inertia for
government to even talk about addressing this now, so I’ll let that pass for
today.
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| I sourced this apropos gag here. |
Yet there are still many children living near enough to walk to
school. The school my daughters attend has no busing at all, drawing only from
the local neighbourhood. So that means all the students walk to and from
school, right? Sadly, wrong; instead, many are driven to and from by parents,
losing the opportunity for a healthy walk. And those parents seem unable to
follow simple rules and guidelines the school sends home several times a year:
don’t park in the fire lane, don’t double-park, don’t leave your car idling. By
putting convenience before basic safety health, and rules, parents are teaching
selfishness by example, while failing to build up the healthy habit of walking
or cycling.
Much of this is a perception issue: that our streets are
unsafe for children, yet safe for cars. Statistics don’t support this. And even
if the work schedule requires driving the kids to school instead of walking
them, it is very easy, not to mention healthier, to park a block away and walk
a little bit, instead of adding to the traffic chaos surrounding the school.
Children, to be healthy in body and mind, need physical
activity. This should be a mix of organized sports, free play, and active
transportation: getting to and from places on foot or by bike. 58% percent of
parents walked to school when they were young, yet only 28% of students do now.
This shows that our kids are in serious danger of not getting sufficient daily
physical activity, leaving them at greater risk of poor health, poor school
performance, and building poor life habits.
In Barrie, a number of caring community members and
stakeholders have formed the Active Transportation Working Group to help foster
more use of feet and pedals and less use of the automobile. One important and
exciting initiative is the School Travel Planning Pilot Project for which three
Barrie schools have been selected. What is learned from this pilot will be used
to determine how best to move forward and engage more local schools in
promoting active transportation within their communities.
A mix of approaches is needed, some relating to
infrastructure, like traffic calming and bike lanes, while others relate to
education and culture. Simply learning that it takes less time to get
door-to-door by bike than by car for distances under 5 km might help people
re-think their transportation choices. If you currently drive your kids to
school, see if you can find opportunities to turn some (or all) of that daily
trip into a healthy walk, instead.
Published as my Root Issues column in the Barrie Examiner.
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins is a director of
Living Green and the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
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