Gosh, Teens At School Have An Extraordinary Burden To Carry.

Let's take a load off their backs...

The other day I picked up a schoolbag to pass to its owner and was almost speechless. Good grief, have you ever lifted one of those schoolbags of today? What on earth are the teachers thinking?

A normal schoolbag of a 12 year old weighs the proverbial ton. Obviously not as much, but at least a number of kilos. My goodness, the schoolbag I picked up was h-e-a-v-y.

When I inquired about why it was so darn heavy, she told me that this is normal and as they get such a varied amount of homework ( i.e, each subject teacher wants to contribute!!! ) they need to have the relevant books at hand.

Some of the kids aren't tall and strong yet and I can almost picture the smaller lot almost toppling over backwards with that added burden.

Most kids in the rural parts of Austria catch the school bus and usually walk a fair bit to reach it from their home, with their extra load on their backs. That cannot be good for developing bones and maybe each teacher should carry around the a relevantly heavy schoolbag as their pupils.

Apart from carrying this extra load, the pupils do still have to learn and do homework with all those books they have schlepped home. Oh yes, a heavy schoolbag equals loads of homework.

When does this generation of kids have time to smell the odd rose, play soccer outside with their friends or read a novel? Ironically, the one task that would help tremendously in anyone's language skills is reading for pleasure and unfortunately with so much homework to complete along with studying for exams and tests, there is hardly any time for reading, socializing or just being a teenager.

...and they say that school is supposed to be the best time of our lives...

Biggi