Don’t even touch those car keys.
If you are getting your children to school on Monday morning, you have three options – walking, biking, or insanity.
We love the new field, the solar panels, all the great things going on at the school complex. What we do not love is the traffic. It’s always been bad. Monday morning it will be much worse.
As we pretty much knew would happen, the end of the construction projects and the beginning of the school year did not turn out to have the clear space of separation on the calendar that was originally scheduled. If you are attending the Farragut-Middle-High School complex, and you are planning to drive there, you might find yourself remembering your last ‘circling the drain’ adventure around LAX. There is nowhere to park.
The CCPD will be handing out tickets like coupons at the grocery store, and the expectation that some child is going to end up getting hit by a car is far too great.
If you are going to any of the other grade schools, you will recall from last June the bumper to bumper crawl, the kids popping out of car doors with no warning, the sudden pedestrians in the crosswalk, and that awesome aroma of six hundred cars squeezed into a tenth of a mile, all of them just burning gasoline.
Happily, insanity is not your only choice.
Today is a great day to make sure your helmet still fits, that your brakes are easily oiled and your tires are pumped. Ride your bikes to school. It can be the start of a great habit.
My personal favorite is to get those sneakers on and walk there. Almost prep-free, all you need is an extra 15 or 20 minutes to stroll. Call your neighbors and see who else needs to get to school and you can walk together.
Get some fresh air, get your blood pumping – it does not take a lot, and it’s really good for the brain (in addition to being good the bottom.) If the children are small, you can count all the blue cars you see on your way. If they are older, you can discover all the different species of trees that you pass by. If you want to show them that math really does matter in real life, you can count the calories you burn or the steps you take, or the gallons of fuel you are saving and compute that into how they are helping to protect the planet from climate shift. The number of footprints you leave on the way to and from school can reduce the carbon footprint that your family leaves on the earth.
Ask your kids if they are concerned about global warming. They might surprise you.
Children need to know that they have power, that the choices they make are important, that they can make a difference in the world. You are sending your kids to CCUSD to get an education, but that can begin before they arrive on campus.
As the wise and wonderful Dr. Seuss said “You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can take yourself any direction you choose.”
Choose some sanity, and try not to be too surprised when your kids thank you.
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