International Walk to School Day

Did you know that today is International Walk to School Day? That works well in what they call "living communities" where there are, among other things, side walks, neighborhoods built around the school, etc. And also parents around to facilitate this. At Howard Hall, the event changed to "Walk at School Day" to accommodate the children that ride the bus and whose parents couldn't be there. There are only two small subdivisions that are required to walk/car-ride to school, and we live in one of them.

My kids walk home from school every day. They know that if it's pouring rain, I will pick them up. However, if it's only sprinkling, they are to use their umbrellas and rain coats to walk as far as the neighborhood cut-through, where I will be waiting for them. In the mornings, a good neighbor and her children ring our doorbell as they walk to school. If not for her, I would have to drive my kids to school every morning, or walk with them.

I don't like the idea of not knowing whether or not my kids made it to school. At Hardy Oak, they would call every absent child's home by 9am to verify the absence. I haven't ever received a phone call from the school attendance clerk here, so if my kids didn't show up to school, they could be in another state by the end of the school day. I shudder to think about it, so I avoid that worry at all costs.

We drove to school today, instead of walking, so that we wouldn't be too late for the event. Every person that walked a mile around their playground track would get free breakfast. The kids had a blast running and chatting with their buddies. One poor little small-fry started crying in front of me because his mom couldn't be there, so I took him to the PE coach to have his tears dried. As soon as the other kids got off the buses, they joined the party. I was amazed at the energy of these kids running so early in the morning.

By the time we finished walking and ate our bagel for breakfast, the tardy bell had rung. We were sitting with a friend of Zach's and mine in the cafeteria. My friend worried about her son receiving a tardy, but I reminded her to look at the line of kids waiting to get their breakfast. No one was going to count tardies for all of them. She wasn't convinced, so I added that our boys are in Kinder-what is the school going to do our boys for being late after a school-sponsored event? I could see from the uncertainty in her eyes, that she thinks I'm a rebel, bucking the elementary school system. She's right-Zach wore his regular running shoes today instead of his solid brown ones and he hasn't worn a belt since the second week of school. My friend cut the belt loops off of her son's pants so that he wouldn't have to wear a belt. I'm just glad Zach's shirt is still tucked in at the end of the day!

The best part of the morning was the sense of community that this event built. All over the track, kids were running around saying "Hi" to their friends, going to look for them, and convincing their different groups of friends to walk together. They felt the freedom of being let lose with only a few parents and fewer teachers. In their behalf, the event was optional for the students, so teachers were required to wait in their classes for any students who showed up in class.

I was surprised to learn from Ainsley that if a student in her class gets on Orange before recess, they have to run 3/4 mile before they can play. That would have motivated me in elementary school, that's for sure. Ainsley was sure she would never need to do this. In Sydney's grade, they start out recess every day by walking two laps. Some days, she said, they like to keep walking around the track while they talk.

Speaking of classroom discipline systems, Ainsley created her own color: Pink is for when she hasn't gotten in trouble but has had a minor bad day. I think the other day she was worried about what happens to your eyes when you read in the dark, so she marked her folder pink. In Zach's class, they each have a paper car. If the car stays in it's pocket, it's good. If it moves from green all the way down to red, it means that the car will be crushed by too much traffic, which is bad.

I miss Hardy Oak's system of having every child in the school spend the last 5 minutes of their day reflecting on how well they lived their school's virtues. They had to figure out when they had made a poor choice during the day, decide which virtue they hadn't been living, and mark it in their folder. The teacher reviewed the folders in which she needed to add extra comments to the parents about the misbehavior. They were never punished, unless it was serious and needed a trip to the principal, but instead were not considered to be a Self-Manager. When the school held Self-Manager Celebrations, those children who consistently failed to manage their own behavior were invited to hang out in the library instead. They also did not get to wear their self-manager badge or participate in school-sponsored extra curricular activities.

Something tells me that Zach is capable of more than understanding how to keep his truck from being crushed.

PS-Even though I didn't finish getting my kids settled into their classes until 30 minutes after the tardy bell rang, no one received a tardy slip.

Also, if you ever come across poor grammar or poor word choices in my blog, I apologize. I always write late at night, and while I try to edit and revise, there is only so much I can do before my brain turns back into a pumpkin.