October 6 was International Walk to School Day
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
On October 6, 2010 was “Walk to School Day” - actually part of Walk to School month – and more than 3,000 schools have been doing it around the United States, and many more around the world. From Boulder, Colorado to Belleville, New Jersey to Tupelo, Mississippi, kids arrived at school on foot, and had great fun doing to.
As if you need them, the official site provides four of the biggest reasons to walk to school:
1. to create safer routes.
2. to engage kids of all abilities.
3. to enhance kids' health.
4. to improve the environment.
But why limit it to just to one day? Some schools don't even when school is too far to walk to.
From a school in Lafayette, Colorado: “We encourage participation by offering volunteers stationed at designated sites where families can meet to walk/ride together to school every Wednesday. This year we are using a punchcard to keep track of participation and award incentives. Many of our staff walk or ride and we try to model this transportation choice for our children as parents.”
But what precisely is so strange about walking to school. It was always the only way to get to there for the great majority of children and still is so today for a great many. It should become common again and, as soon as cheap oil will be resigned to the pages of history, it will, once again be common for children to walk and/or cycle to school, and to elsewhere.
One of the reasons for the explosion of obesity amongst school children in the USA, Britain and in some other countries is the very fact that they are being ferried to almost everywhere by their parents – or someone else – in a motorcar. Many of them seem to have forgotten what their legs and feet are actually for.
When I was a child, though I never actually went to any school, every child walked to school or went by bicycle, even from far out farms. It was basically unheard of for a child to arrive at school by motor vehicle.
To learn more about schools that encourage their kids to walk, or ideas for events to encourage your own community to do the same, visit walktoschool.org <http://www.walktoschool.org/>
© 2010
