Mammy dropping kids to school in the car

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118221782#Comment_118221782

Absolutely. Alas it's not an option for a lot of people. And for some people who do have it as an option - it would still be the wrong decision because their career is part of what they feel defines them. So not the easiest choice in the world. I get seriously emotional about parent-child relationship things. I cry at pretty much every movie that plays on the topic :/ So it breaks my heart that so many people want to do better - but simply can't

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118225315#Comment_118225315

If you've got teenage kids in secondary school then it's logical to estimate that you started spawning them at say the age of 30. That would put you in your 40's. You know also a child of the "last century". Not exactly a spring chicken yourself. You're probably only a handful of years younger than me. You might even be the same age or older. But don't let that stop you from making snotty little comments about old age and betamax recorders and working a shift in the coal mines at the age of 4 before heading off to kindergarten or some such sh1t. I'd tell you to grow up but I fear it might be too late for you to do that.

Flinty997

You haven't a clue basically.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118226801#Comment_118226801

Schools are still being stupid over uniforms.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40261379.html

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118227338#Comment_118227338

Its a life choice.

There no harm in saying too many get driven to school. But equally sometimes people have to use the car.

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118228502#Comment_118228502

I'll tell you what I DO know. I know that a kid can easily walk or cycle a mile.

I know that it is not dark at 16:00 even on the shortest day of the year.

And I know that a school wouldn't risk a plethora of law suits if the classrooms were freezing and 35 pupils all got pneumonia when they ban running in the schoolyard for the exact same reason.

So keep crashing into your contradictions there.

Flinty997

Have you heard of Google?

https://www.thesun.ie/news/7976568/irish-school-freezing-cold-students-cant-write-class/

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/ireland/dublin

Lots of kids (these days) have after school activities, study classes, homework classes.

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118229584#Comment_118229584

Are you really trying to peddle this crap? Really? Maybe you ought to go back to school and study geography. That's if the book isn't too awkward or might break your back.

Sunset doesn't determine when it gets DARK. Sunset in June in Ireland is 9:50 or thereabouts. It's still bright until at least 10:30. There's this thing called the Sun that may have dipped below the horizon but still illuminates the sky.

You asked me for pictures of people in Amsterdam cycling around (and you demanded that I show pics of 3 people on a bike carrying heavy bags which I never claimed).

It's difficult to wait and take a picture of an event that may never happen. You should have absolutely ZERO problem posting a picture of it being dark at 16:00 in Ireland. The Sun sets everyday after all, so get out there at 16:00 and display how dark it is.

As for your nonsense about Baltic classrooms, beautifully reported in The Sun (oh, the irony). ... Did this attitude towards a kid sitting in a freezing classroom ONLY begin with this COVID thing or were your kids nice and toasty prior? You know...back in 2019...the last "decade"?

My grandmother walked to school in the 1920's, my ould lad in the 1950's, me in the late 1980's/early 1990s and not a one of them ever said the classroom was a freezing damp kip. The granny even said they had a fireplace with turf. A bastard of a teacher, but they were inside and warm in the cold months

Why aren't you suing if your kid is forced to carry a bag that you yourself can't lift over your head, and the kid has to sit in an icebox of a classroom?

Oh, the cold classrooms has been going on for a long time.... way before Covid. This article pre-dates it by at least ten years.

Schoolchildren freezing to keep down fuel bills - Independent.ie

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118228531#Comment_118228531

Life choice in a democracy..that’s been a cornerstone of our freedom on this island since before, hundreds of years before the foundation of the state..

governments or sections of society want to complain about too many cars in the country... maybe suggest to them THE driver of that (no pun intended) might be too many people in the country... because cars don’t drive themselves... neither do they breed and they are not gettting cheaper the opposite in fact.... go about addressing the issues that saw one year in the last 15 a 2.9% population increase ! In a single year....We have more cars because the number of people, we have longer bus Qs the same reason.

From my perspective in Dublin...we have **** weather, poor unreliable and slow bus service, no metro, a limited tram network serving a tiny percentage of the city and its population...

longer commutes as not every kid can get into their nearest school because of the demand..

Therefore kids will use lifts to get to schools...

a comprehensive, efficient, comfortable and fast public transport network...then certainly I’m open to the idea of less cars but with all the above in place that’s naturally going to be happening...

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230678#Comment_118230678

If that report is true....and I have no reason to call it into question then prudence demands that the situation is addressed.

There's a huge difference between a poor child having to walk or cycle home at 2:30 pm and that same kid have to spend 5 or 6 hours a day in a freezing classroom.

If these classes are so cold to the point of frostbite then why is there no outcry from the parents? If my sprog could go gunning to school on a bike all wrapped up and warm and then have to tog off and sit shivering in a class then I would somehow cry foul.

Suckit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230724#Comment_118230724

If my sprog could go gunning to school on a bike all wrapped up and warm and then have to tog off and sit shivering in a class then I would somehow cry foul.

Your sprog would probably find it warm after walking or cycling to school.

I used to walk to school and out heating was only installed in 5th class. Our teachers had it kept turned down and some off us required it being turned off as they were falling asleep.

The problem only seems to have become a real problem when they are going to school sheltered in cars, some with heating and possibly heated seats. Then going into a colder than that and less comfortable classroom. And I'm not insinuating anything there. There should be heating at some level, but if more walked to school etc. they they would be less likely to be affected.

Flinty997

I'm baffled how you think a 30 minute walk is going keep you warm for an entire day.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230678#Comment_118230678

Oh I agree. I spent many years in a prefab myself. But it's another thing to have the windows open all day.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230706#Comment_118230706

Oh I agree it needs a holistic approach. Very little joined up thinking in this country.

They can create a cycle lane that's impossible to use then wonder why no one uses it.

An a side note one of the more reliable means of transport unaffected by traffic and almost all Irish weather is cycling. On a wet day when traffic is bad you'll cycle to work in more or less the same time. Assuming your route and requirements facilitate cycling.

John_Rambo

After the last two years people inexplicably still think you can catch viruses like pneumonia from open windows and fresh air.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118226049#Comment_118226049

Only a month ago Jimmy, you were banging on about the difference between school time traffic and term time traffic. Short memory?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230867#Comment_118230867

Agreed.

Not school related, but for the short time we had our offices reopened we had grown adults at loggerheads over keeping the windows open all day.

SeanW

I find this thread hilarious. I've been to countries where school systems are planned a lot more effectively. In the US for example, car dependence around schools is (although it can vary in places) considerably less than Ireland. The reason is that childhood education (elementary, middle and high school) is a municipal matter in the US. And so, with every student guaranteed a place in a particular school, school bus systems are the norm and they carry the backbone of the "school run." This is in spite of the fact that the US is much more car dependent than any part of Europe including Ireland, and teenagers can often start their driver licensing process when they turn 16.

That's not the case in Ireland where your nearest school might not "have a place" for your child (a bizarre and alien concept in a properly run system) so you have to drive your child to some random school miles away. And if in the absence of that planning, there is a lack of legal parking/waiting areas for parents to wait for their children, this is simply additional dysfunction.

In this environment I find it bizarre that that the OP is surprised that there are so many cars around schools at school start/finish time. When then, should parents drop their children off at school? 2AM?

Of course this shouldn't be surprising. The OP is the same person who recently started a thread suggesting that motorists who break any road rule be punished more severely than violent scumbags who go around stabbing people.

andekwarhola

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118184458#Comment_118184458

The last part is a somewhat extreme extrapolation? :)

The school local to us does have an extreme amount of cars outside for sure, and agree that nobody I knew in school got lifts to school. That said, I'd be wary of the state of the nation addresses about today's youth. The majority of neighbours didn't have cars in my area as a kid and it's commonplace now for example. A lot of what gets passed off as virtue about 80's Ireland was actually necessity.

I drop my kids to school as they don't go to school in our local area. If they did, they'd no doubt walk but i'd be happy to give them a lift on occasion, for example, if it was pissing rain. i don't think there's anything inherently virtuous about a 12 year sitting in wet clothes fir the day just to ensure they don't turn into Greta Thunberg.

happyoutscan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118225905#Comment_118225905

If he/she is, then they cannot be taken seriously. A WUM.

Suckit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230865#Comment_118230865

Not an entire day. Up to little break, then out and excercise/play. Then to big break, the same and then 2:30 home time. Unless they go to school for the entire day now, they don't have it that tough. That article states that the heating isn't left on all weekend. Sounds more like the principal is finding it cold in her office more than the kids.

One day (Monday) it could be a bit chilly, and likely only until around 12. Then for the rest of the week they are warm. Most schools have double glazing too. Remember the heating is on, it just hasn't heated the entire school first thing in the morning, and the weather mightn't necessarily be all that bad out there either.

Ir's not like they are sitting there from morning until evening freezing their asses off with their coats on and wrapped in blankets with the windows open and the North wind sending a blizzard past while the ice grows thicker in their wet socks.

Flinty997

Double glazing and heating isn't that effective when the windows are open...

Suckit

But who is to blame for that? I'm assuming if there are windows open, then the teacher has probably thought it was too stuffy or warm in the building, and/or saw some students starting to doze off. If they keep the windows open for too long, then that is easily rectified by saying it to the teacher or principal.

I can't imagine that they would open and leave open the windows throughout the school to keep all of the children cold for the whole school day. I have no idea how many teachers do it throughout the country either, but I would guess it's not that many, and of them, I would also hazard a guess that most are doing it for a good reason.

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118229584#Comment_118229584

Lots of kids have after school actvities? So what? What's your point? It's still not dark at 16:00 like another poster claimed.

Flinty997

Well its dusk. Arguably more dangerous.

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230865#Comment_118230865

I'm baffled as to how a kid has to carry around a back-breaking schoolbag "ALL DAY" as you maintained. They don't actually sit in class and learn, they just get to school and march around the yard for 7 hours like French Foreign Legionnaires?

Flinty997

Now you're ragging on the French.

https://snippetsofparis.com/french-work-week/

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118236156#Comment_118236156

Here we go.

The bag is impossible to lift. Then it's too awkward to put on a bicycle. Not too heavy to bring to the car or from the car to the classroom. Then one doesn't actually attend a class, one just carries it around all day.

It is NOT dusk at 16:00 in Ireland. And it is NOT ARGUABLY more dangerous unless zombies and vampires come into your equation.

How is it more dangerous if the sun is setting than if the sun is high in the sky?

I sometimes walked home from school in the depths of winter and the street-lights still weren't on. They only seemed to click on about 5pm or later...and guess what. the Sun had gone down but I could still see because of street lights...ALL THE WAY.

Crazy, huh? I didn't need night-vision goggles to get home in December at 16:20.

BurgerFace

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118236957#Comment_118236957

Who's ragging on the French?

Let's just substitute Foreign Legionnaires with any soldier or paratrooper woldwide. How about the SAS. Am I ragging on the Brits because you claim that a kid walks around all day with a back-breaking bag?