Traffic jam by the schoolyard!
Twenty-eight years ago, when the modern (verses the Biblical where Samuel the Prophet spent his school years) Shiloh Elementary School opened for the first day of learning, there was hardly a car in Shiloh, espcially during the day.
A van transported the kids who lived in the tromasbestim, caravans, and eshkubiyot, prefabricated cement houses, near Tel Shiloh all the way up to my neighborhood, a kilometer and a half (a full mile) where the school spent its first year. After school, they trekked home by foot.
The following year, the school moved down near the Tel and my kids and their neighborhood friends did the trekking. There was some transportation in the morning for those on time, and then it was up hill, not the idiom, I mean they, we walked the mile up the mountain.
My youngest is a "November baby," so he wasn't yet three when he started nursery school. And, yes, he, too trekked up the hill. It seemed to take half the afternoon, but it established a strength and endurance, no doubt.
I'm not writing this to brag, G-d forbid. I'm writing it, because today, by mid-morning, our town email was filled with complaints of traffic jams near the school. Consider this. The school is now in the middle of Shiloh, no more than a kilometer from anyone, and generally much closer. But in today's world most young parents have cars and would never consider letting their children, even school-aged children walk to school, especially on the first day.
If parents want to accompany their kids, let them all walk together. It would be so much healthier.
4 comments:
I agree entirely. Walking is very healthy and you actually get the same benefits of jogging from walking too. Good for adults and chilren.
It's fascinating to read of what life was like in Shiloh when you first made aliyah. Probably harder by far than it is today.
I enjoy reading about a Middle Eastern Israeli story of long walks to school. It reminds me of my father telling me and my siblings of walking to school in five feet of snow, which in retrospect is no tall tale. He literally did.
We were in Buffalo. In December 2000 we had ten feet of snow. Not inches, feet. Not to mention 28-feet of snowfall during the Blizzard of '77.
One time I went to school wearing clogs. We got a terrific snowfall before class was out and I had to walk home in those wooden shoes with no backs in snow.
keli, sounds like fun. I've always loved to walk. Actually, we made aliyah 11 years before we moved to Shiloh. We've had lots of adventures.
out here in kiryat gat ive been impressed with how many kids walk to school. i walk my daughter to mischpacton in the morning (which my inlaws think is horrible! why dont i just drive or take a bus!) and i am always passing tons of students. if its within a mile, they walk. cultural difference? money difference?
Maybe the mentality here is sort of nuveau riche with the cars, coddling the kids. Strange how some of the same people who work so hard to be fit drive in the neighborhood.
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