Back to school

Today is the back to school day for many kids in Finland. In Texas they still get a week off or so, although their teachers had Convocation starting today.

Convocation are all the meetings teachers have before school starts.

At the college, we don’t have Convocation until next weeks Wednesday and classes start the Monday after. That means that I’m still off for another 1.5 week! 💪

Anyway, back to back to school.

Every year there are posts in social media that encourage people to take extra care in traffic when school starts, due to kids walking to school (at least in Finland). There aren’t usually many incidents per year, but unfortunately they do happen – those sad situations when kids are injured in traffic. So if you’re getting behind the wheel, please keep an extra eye out for small kids, since they know less of traffic than you do (hopefully.. if not, maybe you should take a couple of driving lessons).

In Finland kids can walk to school as young as first graders or take the local bus (which means that there’s a working local traffic system). Here in Texas, kids are mainly driven to school, there’s not much of transportation. There is a school bus system (the famous yellow busses from all the movies). A fair amount of kids are still getting dropped off by parents and needless to say, the rush hours around the schools can get pretty craaaazy. Finno people, you ain’t seen nothing!!

The police in Finland is doing a fairly good job at making themselves visible in the traffic, making sure crossovers are safe. They should be, but unfortunately drivers don’t always give the right away to pedestrians and this is sadly where a lot of the accidents take place – the one place where you should be safe crossing the street.

Right now, there has already been five different posts on the Helsinki police facebook page, promoting carefulness in traffic.

So, slow down and let the kids pass safely!

Another thing that I wanted to point out now that school is starting, is bullying.

D O N O T B E A B U L L Y .

If you see someone get bullied, report it and help the victim. There is no heroism in bullying, but there is heroism in interfering.

The police in Finland has also had big campaigns in the past years about bullying, reminding that it is against the law.

Lastly, I want to talk about a really sad aspect of school start (like the previous two weren’t depressing).

Bulletproof backpacks for kids.

You read that right. And from what I saw, the sales have increased a lot due to the past weeks events. What a sad world we live in, that these kind of items need to exit. Our children should be able to go to school feeling safe, not wearing bulletproof backpacks and have lockdown drills.

Regardless of these depressing aspects (sorry), I want to wish all kids a good school start, and best of luck to all you educators out there! You are doing an amazing job, that you are not paid nearly enough for, nor do you get as much credit as you should, but without you, our society wouldn’t be what it is.

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