Yesterday (Friday 28th March) the airwaves were full of debates about whether children should be kept in school or not. The intention of the debate was looking at school food and how to prevent children eating fast food every lunchtime rather than the healthy options offered by the school canteen.
There seemed to be a certain level of horror at forcing children aged between 11 and 16 to be in school during the lunch hour - it was against their human rights, it was preventing them making adult decisions about what to do in their free time and what they wanted to eat.
What utter tosh! You can't have it both ways. You can't say that children have to be driven to school as the streets aren't safe and they might be abducted or attacked or damaged by traffic, and then say that they can go out at lunchtime when all these things are just as likely to happen. You can't say that childhood doesn't last long enough and then expect 11 to 14 year olds to make decisions about what to do in their lunchtimes and roam the streets, albeit that 15 and 16 year olds might start to take that responsibility.
In addition, lunchtimes are an ideal time to get involved with sport, hobbies, music, drama or catch up with homework. When I was at school, breaks weren't long enough for games of hopscotch, huge sessions of french cricket, the music club, rehearsals for official or less official music or drama events, time in the library and getting that last bit of homework finished or that last bit of preparation for a vocab test done. Has all this gone nowadays in the search for the best chippie?
Say no to young people from time to time. Say that they must stay in school (there will still be truants, but not a mass outbreak). Tell them what to eat - self-discipline is something that comes with age and how many middle aged middle class can say no to that glass of wine at the end of the working day? Kids shouldn't be left to go to hell in their own way, until you have shown them how life can be otherwise.
Comments