We often hear the endless gripes from parents about the weight of school bags. So, last night, my two kids decided to weigh their bags for blogging purpose. (they insisted I blog this so I better do so)
WEIGHT OF THE BAGS
#3 son is 10 years old and in Standard Four. He is of average size for a 10 years old (though he is technically 9 years and 2 months old) and his body weight is about 25 kg. The school bag weighs 5.5 kg. This is after all the Buku Dua have been taken out. There is a new system now where textbooks are spilt into two, book one and book two for different time of the year. The purpose is to reduce the school bag weight but unfortunately, it taxes on the parents’ pockets because the price is double.
#2 son is 13 years, going 14 and in Form Two. He is on the smallish side and weighs only 30kg. His school bag weighs 5 kg MINUS the exercise books. He left the exercise books in the class.
#1 son has yet to buy his textbooks but I guess for his (large build) size, it doesn’t matter to him. Moreover, at their age (16 years old), they will probably leave everything in the class and risk the headmaster’s wrath. It is pretty cool to go to school with an empty bag, no?
SOME TALES
Long ago, I had one colleague whose son was in the same class as mine. She used to carry her son’s school bag from Standard One (age 7 years old) and deliver it right to his class. Which means, the son did not have to carry any schoolbag at all. When he reached Standard Four, the class room was located at the top floor and mom still insisted to do so. I mean, the boy is perfectly healthy and strong but she just had to go the ‘extra mile’. (I can’t stand her btw.)
One day, the form teacher got so annoyed with her action. Seriously, the mom was quite a nuisance because during the children walk to the class, this woman would tagged along with a bag like a porter.
The teacher screamed at the boy, in public! “Kamu pondan kah? Beg sendiri pun tak larat angkat?” (Are you a sissy? Own bag also no strength to carry?) Fuwah, I got the best laugh of all!
SOLUTION
Many times, my hubby had wanted to approach the headmaster of the secondary school to suggest building a locker for the students. Actually, it is not that difficult because if the parents pool their resources together, they can do so. But we never got around to it. It will probably involves a lot of red tapes (from the Government) and by the time, the project got off, probably my sons have already completed school.
As for my primary school son (#3), the school is just next door, about 200 metres away and hence, weighty school bag is not really an issue.
Read dSaint’s educational solutions. LOL.
I see my nieces and nephews in the same dilemma as any other school kid…. sigh. I hope by the time Gordon starts school, things will be better, like lockers provided…. which i doubt also lah. Maybe i start to petition now…..
my high school had mini-lockers (2.5ft high only) but students had to pay rm12 to use the lockers. most of my classmates thought it was a waste of money, and since we were forbidden to keep our books under the desk, each of us resorted to putting a large box beside our desk to store our books.
That’s the beauty of being in the primary school.
But in my days, I left some of my gigantic textbook under the table. And I still do it in my secondary. No cases of textbook lost or steal since my classroom is locked. 🙂
One thing good about the school here is .. they do provide a locker .. and charge 10bucks.. for it. .and then at the end of the school year.. they return the keys. .and they get their money back. Did i also tell you.. that school buses are free here in Canada..?? Yup.. absolutely free.. !!
in the future, no kids have to carry school bag to school, just their laptop, yes!
I was enrolled into a boarding school from form 1-5. The stories I could tell might even merit it’s own Blog. But I would like to tell you about our school bags or the lack of any.
First and foremost, It was uncool to carry school bags of any sort.
Secondly, it was only cool to carry your things in one palm.
Thirdly, Only girls ands gays carry books to your chest (or to cradle like one cradles babies).
Fourthly, Some of us left books in our main classes, however this was not so good because we had floating classes (our classrooms were used by other classes when we went for Science Lab, Art Classes and PE).
So the solution some of us came up with is to tear us our books at the binding and bring only the necessary chapters to class ;).
Now about spinning book on the tip of your pointer finger. This is the coolest way to carry your book to class.
during my UPSR time,
i hve 2 bags…
each about 5kg…
and not to mentioned 6 files, each for 1 subject
we went to classes with 1 bag on shoulder, 1 at the back, and hand carrying files and water bottle…
i tell u… pai miah…real pai miah
This is 20 year old problem, I saw it brought out in paper in 80’s
Solution is so damn simple(don’t even involve locker)
i. BAN the excercise book. I don’t see a reason that anyone children do revision with exercise book. It become a source income for many school but it is bad. A piece of full scap paper is good enough.
ii. standardise the text book and make it controlled item
And the most important. Fire those joker than run MOE. 20 years is not a short time.
As students get older, they bring less books to school.
Or at least that’s the way it worked out for me. 😛