Oh, My Aching Back!

Venturing down to the dark and dank basement and risking my life as I fight off the ever-increasing horde of spider crickets, I retrieve my trusty soapbox and stand upon it once again to pontificate. What’s got this writer’s shorts in a proverbial bunch this time, you may ask? If you have a middle-schooler in our fair county that has just started back to school, you may already know, and if you have younger children, you’re about to get a big surprise when they move up to middle school.

Our Sweet Caroline has joined her older sister, Little One, in middle school this year. The chances of my seeing her for a moment in the hallways, at lunch, or even during car rider drop-off and pick-up are no longer. It’s a big change for the both of us, so it was only natural for me to ask her how her first day went. 

 “I like all my teachers. The school’s really big. We have to carry our backpack around all day.”

“Why don’t you just put it in your locker, then take out only the stuff you need for the class you’re in?”

“We don’t have a locker.”

“What? Did they run out?”

“Nope. No one has one.”

Yes, Dear Reader, someone has made the decision to take out all the lockers in the local middle school. I asked her why, but Sweet Caroline didn’t know. So here are a few possibilities as to why lockers have been removed.

It’s just math.

To look at the locker issue from a mathematical standpoint, we simply have to convert the numbers into a solvable word problem. Ask any math teacher, numbers do not lie; they always add up. Hypothetically (and I know how folks love a hypothetical, especially teachers), if you have 1000 students in a middle school and only 800 lockers, how many students will be getting lockers for the entire school year? 

Now some of you may have logically come to the solution that the answer is 800 students. I did too. So, I’ll tell you just what my 10^th grade math teacher, Mr. Myers, said as he handed back my final exam, “Nice try.” 

The correct answer is, of course, zero. 

If there aren’t enough lockers for every student, then no student gets a locker, and I am in favor of this decision. My reasoning is at the end of the story. But don’t skip ahead. We have more possibilities to look at as to why school lockers should be taken out of not just middle school, but all schools everywhere.

One bad apple.

Some may think lockers are no longer in use because someone decided that books and other school stuff weren’t the only things that should be placed inside. Should one or two kids out of 800 doing something wrong inconvenience all the rest? Apparently so. This, of course, makes perfectly good sense to me. I’m always in favor of more rules to keep folks in line and out of trouble. But that’s not the main reason to get rid of school lockers. There is a much more important reason and, yes, we’re getting to it soon.

Get tough!

When asked why their backpacks are so heavy (and they are super heavy!), our Girly Girls answers were surprising.

“We have a book for each class.”

“We have a binder for each.”

“And we have a Chromebook.”

Building muscles while you’re young is important to good health when you get older. And what better way to get a daily workout than to lug around a super heavy backpack throughout the school day? And our granddaughters have not just one, but two – the one they wear on their back (for their school stuff) and the other they wear on their front (for soccer stuff). When they complained how heavy both are and how tired they are at the end of each day, I was ready with some of my words of wisdom they have grown to love.

“Adversity builds character. When I was your age, I’d hike through the woods, hop over Cripple Creek and scale a huge hill just to get to school and my locker. Didn’t complain once. Besides, think of how toting around a combination of 50-pounds worth of backpacks are building your muscles. What a great workout you’re getting!”

But a great workout isn’t why I’m in favor of all the lockers coming out of the middle school. For that we must travel back a long, long time ago to that old familiar street not so far away called Flamingo and the north end of the 5^th grade hallway of Mt. Olive Elementary School.

Down the Street Bully Brad had been my arch-nemesis since Old Mrs. Crabtree’s third grade class. And even though we were in separate 5^th grade classrooms, at least once a week he’d find me during or after school and punch, kick, or otherwise bully me. One day, just before lunch, I was the last one in the hallway getting a book out of my locker. Bully Brad snuck up behind me, stuffed me in and closed the door. Yes, it was a surprise to me too that I could fit into a locker.

It is easy now to understand why I’m such a proponent of no longer having school lockers. Without lockers, I would have never been stuffed into one. Had I carried a bulky, super heavy backpack throughout the school day during my youth, it is likely that I would possess greater strength today. And, if I had my huge backpack on, I’d have never been able to fit into my locker.  

Some may believe this story to be serious. Others may believe it to be satirical. Still others may think it a combination of both – written to bring to light an issue of great importance: concerns of what those super heavy backpacks are doing to…well…backs. Has it been penned only after a great amount of research – or none at all? 

You decide, Dear Reader. For the truth is found between the lines written above.

Or not.