pony rides

[Guest guest]

I can sympathize with all sides of this, seeing both delight and cruelty exhibited by children for years at petting zoos and county fairs.It occurs to me that if the school is really set on doing this, you could help advocate and create a curriculum for all students prior to the school fair. This curriculum would teach them about how animals are raised and how to treat animals, specifically with regards to the ponies that might be coming to visit them. Stories of wild mustangs are pretty amazing and have a similar path that children can empathize with. Being able to approach any animal (or human!) with the thought in mind of how they would want to be treated will take these kids a long way, and they need to learn that skill and practice it beforehand. Have the older kids at the school create the questions about how the animals are treated, their living conditions, etc., call different vendors and ask them, and let the kids find the best vendor to choose. I've seen these pony rides in action and many times the animals are chained to walk slowly in a circle and it's even sadder to see the children who kick and prod them to go faster. You can advocate for investigating the vendor (or do it yourself), but if they choose to use a poor one, despite your efforts, your chance is to then turn to the children and educate them to treat the animals well whenever they have the chance. Ask the vendor if the children can brush, pet, and feed the ponies healthy snacks in addition to riding on them. The older kids at the school could help out with this and then the 'fun' becomes taking care of the animals instead of just trying to force them to go faster or live up to some expectation. Put the focus on enjoying befriending the ponies, taking care of them, and gentle riding and you will have created some animal lovers for life. Perspective from a teacher... Best to you all,Even Windows 7: I wanted more reliable, now it's more reliable. Wow!