Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Friday, September 1, 2006
Walk this way?
Today, I took my six-year-old to her first day of kindergarten. And we did something really bizarre and radical.
We walked to school.
It’s about six blocks from my house to the school. Along the way, we could barely hear each other talk over the loud whizzing of a long line of cars zipping down a main thoroughfare.
On the other hand, the sidewalk was congestion-free — a lonely, unused concrete frontier.
I’ve been toying with the idea of allowing my two school-age kids — second grade and kindergarten — to walk to school on their own. But I wonder, is a 0.6-mile unsupervised walk down a public street by children this young grounds for criminal neglect charges these days?
I walked to school in second grade with my younger brother. And using Google Maps, I looked it up — 0.7 miles. Almost exactly the same walk my kids made this morning.
My kids walked through leafy Kettering, a typical suburban neighborhood. When I was young my walk was a bit more elaborate — across a college campus and through the center of downtown in a mid-sized college town.
But then again, this is a different world.
Today we send four-year-olds to self-defense classes and parents sit and watch every soccer and baseball practice (my parents dropped me off and picked me up). We’re terrified to let the kids out of our sight.
But walking to school is good for kids. Did you know there is even an international movement to encourage walking to school?
So put yourself in my shoes and give me advice. Would you let these young kids walk to school alone?
UPDATE: Other posts on this issue:
Permalink | Comments (41) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Student Health and Safety, Young Children
