THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508250201
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
In shopping malls and in commercials and advertising all over the place, the message seems to be that going back to school is as dreadful for most kids as a steady diet of green vegetables.
At one store, for instance, the cutesy, taped reminder that is played every few minutes tells us it's almost ``back-to-you-know-what'' time.
Banners depicting a young boy with forlorn face hang all over the store and bear the same message.
Huh? ``Back to you know what''?
Somehow, many of the people who craft these advertisements have lost sight of two things:
Most kids welcome the school bells, the burden of filling every waking moment of summer having long since lost its luster.
Telling kids over and over that they do not want to go back to school leaves an impression that there must be something wrong with their picture of it as a time of happy reunions with friends, getting to know new teachers and being introduced to new subjects.
The kids in our neighborhood aren't even remotely down-hearted that it's time to resume their routine with activities that leave little room for whining about nothing to do. I haven't heard a single one of them call school ``you know what,'' as if it were an obscenity so gross that their mothers, if they but knew, would wash their mouths out with soap.
I don't think these kids are special in this aspect, either. What kid doesn't look forward to demonstrating how good his or her behavior can be, at least for the first few days? What kid doesn't just jump right into those assignments, at least for the first few days?
What kid doesn't like going into a new classroom and trying to find out from former students what this or that teacher is like? Before they know it, they have a collection of do's and don't's sure to get them through the year.
And what kid doesn't enjoy looking through those new textbooks, giggling about the way folks in the history texts dressed, pointing out historical figures who resemble so-and-so among the kids' friends?
And what about the excitement of finding out just where you'll sit, who's in the class with you and figuring ways to meet that special boy or girl who sits across the room?
Oh, I know this ``you know what'' business is just advertising, just something to get our attention.
But I sure do wish the message could be a bit more positive. As test results and all sorts of other measures these days show, kids need all the encouragement they can get.
The ads are there to convince us we need shoes or whatever is on sale that week, not to say that school is important. With businesses devoting so much time to volunteer service and other things that boost schools, they surely could find a way to take the dread of out returning to school.
It's not back to ``you know what''; it's back to learning and activities to make our children better people, to prepare them to make their way in a world where that alone is hard enough.
It's really back to ``you don't know what, but you can learn it,'' and that's what makes this time of year so exciting. It's fascinating to watch children learning on every level, from the kid who struggles until he finally grasps a mathematical principle that to this point has been the enemy, to the bashful teenager who slowly gains confidence and blossoms into the best debater on the roster.
School is much more than buses and books and assignments. It's learning to get along with people of different colors and diverse ideas. It's taking your place in the world, learning that while not everyone is equal socially or economically, they deserve equal opportunities to learn.
For many of the people entering school next week, for the first time or as returning students, academic achievement is a ticket out of circumstances over which they have no control. They deserve all the boosting they can get.
Of course, that starts at home. Parental responsibility doesn't end at the bus stop.
We have to show that learning matters. School is not a baby-sitting service. It's a life-changing service.
Here's wishing new beginnings to everyone heading back to school. MEMO: This column is reprinted from an edition of The Sun in August 1994. by CNB