Poor Kids and Huge Back Loads
Posted : April 29, 2006 at 10:58 pm [IST]
During our school days, we never carried bags. I don’t remember carrying many books too. We didn’t have lockers. An interesting report appeared in TOI. It talks of the ill effects of the excessive load that our kids carry these days.
Vividha Kaul in a feature in TOI appears to have done some good research about the weight that a kid is to carry to his school every day.
TOI caught up with several schoolchildren and weighed their bags with a spring balance. It discovered that even a class 2 child carries a load of at least 5 kg. Children in class 7-8 seem to be the worst sufferers with most carrying more than 7 kg and some carrying as much as 10.5 kg.
And what are the doctors’ advices?
”A primary school child should not be carrying more than 2-2.5 kg weight. For a middle school child, 3-3.5 kg should be the upper limit while at no stage, not even in high school should children carry more than 4-4.5 kg.”
”This can cause chronic pain in the lower spinal region. Younger children are also prone to muscle injuries which may aggravate sports injuries. Psychologically, too, some children develop inertia as far as going to school is concerned.”
”Most children complain of pain in the back of the neck near the vertebral column and especially in the area between the shoulder blades. This prevents them from maintaining a proper posture.” A recent study conducted amongst 1,134 children in the 10-15 age groups by Indraprastha Apollo Hospital has showed a prevalence of lower back pain in 38.4% children.
Every day morning I see this and you also must have observed. The parent out of love for the kid brings the load up to school bus. But for the rest of the day, it is the kid who carries it. The scene of kids waiting for the school buses with their parents takes me down my memory lanes to my own childhood. I never got this chance, though my children got.
And it is interesting to note what writer R K Narayan said in a famous speech in Parliament on school bags in 1991.”I am pleading for abolition of the school bag. I have investigated and found that an average child carries strapped to his back like a pack-mule, not less than 6-8 kg… ”More children on account of this daily burden develop a stoop and hang their arms forward like a chimpanzee while walking and I know some cases of serious spinal injury in children too.”
I am sure the school management can do something positive to reduce the burden, and teachers can be of help with interactions with guardians of the wards. The school can certainly have lockers for keeping those text and exercise books that the students use in school. The students must have separte sets of books for study at home and again it must be minimal.
Besides the medically adverse effects of the load, the huge lot of books creates a tension. I have seen kids under tensions to complete the homework and the project assignments of the teachers. All these works must be exciting for the students. Teachers must arouse the interest for the subjects through application-based teachings.
Unless each teacher become concerned about the students and innovate the process of teaching and make it interesting and enjoyable, we can’t get the best out of the kids of the country.
- Indra
Category: Employment/Education |
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