Our schools shape kids' minds but neglect their bodies

[Guest guest]

Our schools shape kids' minds but neglect their bodies

About seven million Canadian children returned to school in recent days.

 

It is an exciting time for the kids, and a stressful one for their

parents, teachers and caregivers. It should also be a time for

reflection and re-evaluation.

 

School is a place to learn, to play, to make friends, and for stolen

first kisses. School is where children learn to become independent from

their parents, where they shape their values and forge their links to

the community, and where the seeds of their future careers are sown.

School is a place where life-long habits, good and bad, are formed.

 

As such, we owe it to ourselves and to our children to make schools as

safe and healthy as possible.

 

It is likely impossible to prepare for the kind of maniacal suicide

bombers who terrorized Russia's Beslan Middle School No. 1 last week.

Metal detectors and armed guards at every school are not the answer. And

school safety is all too often equated with keeping out sexual predators.

 

What should concern parents more than these extreme and rare threats are

the mundane realities of everyday school life -- the physical

environment, the safety of transport, the food that is consumed, the

activity that is (and is not) undertaken and the health lessons that are

taught, both explicitly and implicitly.

 

The most hazardous part of a student's day, by far, is the trip to

school. Children travel by bus, by car and occasionally by foot, braving

encounters with the No. 1 killer of kids, the motor vehicle. And those

in buses have the added disadvantage of being transported in vehicles

not equipped with seat belts.

 

Children spend at least six hours a day in school, and it's not unusual

for the day to stretch to 10 hours or more with before- and after-school

care and activities.

 

While children will spend the bulk of their lives in schools over the

next 10 months, parents know remarkably little about the surroundings in

which they learn, and the curriculum they are taught.

 

Every child receives a report card, yet schools are not systematically

graded. The evidence is anecdotal, but many schools are old, and have

poor air quality and mould. A lot of schools were built in an era when

lead pipes and asbestos were staples of construction; they do not meet

modern fire-safety norms.

 

Many schools are overcrowded and poorly ventilated, making them hotbeds

for disease transmission. Outbreaks of meningitis, whooping cough,

chickenpox and influenza are routine.

 

Classrooms themselves tend to be ergonomics wastelands. Children often

sit in desks and on chairs that are uncomfortable and backbreaking. (As

if the packsacks kids lug around were not damaging their backs enough.)

 

And sit they do.

 

The vast majority of schools in Canada do not offer daily physical

activity as part of the curriculum. Playgrounds, if they exist at all,

tend to be rickety. And how many schools have anything but asphalt

yards? After hours, school gyms are often locked up tight, or charge

fees that are exorbitant, making them inaccessible.

 

Prisoners get more daily activity, and often have better recreational

equipment and freer access to facilities than children in public schools.

 

And what about the food? The staple of school cafeterias remains hot

dogs and fries. Vending machines loaded with sugary and salty snacks are

ubiquitous.

 

Children and teens should be getting the tools that allow them to build

and maintain a healthy lifestyle. They need education about fitness,

nutrition and sexual health to be integrated into every aspect of the

curriculum, not tossed in as an afterthought as part of the dreaded

lectures from the gym teacher about the birds and the bees.

 

Children also need role models, and inspiring surroundings. They need to

see good health and fitness valued. Yet, most schools do not even have a

school nurse any more, so health promotion has fallen by the wayside.

 

We cannot expect to produce healthy adults if we lock them into

unhealthy institutions for the 13 years of their primary and secondary

education.

 

Schools should be an integral part of our health-care system, not a

world apart. We are wasting tremendous opportunities by failing to

educate our children properly about healthy living.

 

Healthy schools are not a luxury, they are a necessity. The learning

environment we create is fundamental to our social and economic

well-being, a key to future productivity and sustainability of the

health-care system.

 

We cannot expect academic success and innovation in environments that

are poisonous. We cannot afford to focus so exclusively on children's

minds that their health is laid to waste.

 

We cannot produce healthy citizens if our schools are unhealthy.

 

apicard