What Is Back To School Really Teaching?

Over the past few weeks children around the country have returned to school. Their bright shining faces are all in their places and ready to learn. But while they learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, there are some truly frightening lessons that we seem to be teaching them, quite inadvertently.

On my way to work, I routinely get stuck behind school buses picking up children. I was horrified, however, when I got stuck behind a bus for ten minutes. It wasn't the amount of time that shocked me, it was how often the bus stopped. Within 70 yards or so, the bus had made three different stops. Then, 20 yards after the last stop, the bus turned into the school. There were three bus stops within 100 yards of the school.

People complain that kids today are too fat. Maybe its because we're teaching them 100 yards is too far to walk.

Recently, I saw in the news that a school district banned the game of tag because kids were complaining they were being chased. Again, maybe if kids got off their rear ends once and while and ran around, they wouldn't be so fat. But more than that, what happened to teaching kids personal responsibility. If two kids are chasing people who aren't playing the game, punish those two children. Kids need to be taught there are consequences to their actions. By taking the game away from everyone, it teaches kids who played by the rules that there really isn't any point to, since they'll be punished anyway.

Educating children doesn't start and stop with the classroom. We have to pay attention to what we're teaching along the way.