4 Reasons Why School Bags Should Not Be a Burden

The most disheartening sight which can be seen on a weekday morning is that of little kids bent forward, bearing the crushing weight of their school bags. Books were never supposed to be a burden that students and parents would grow to resent. Yet, parents have to helplessly watch their kids carry the burden of the whole world on their fragile shoulders. In this era of digital transformation when education can be imparted through digital means, carrying this burden every day seems brutal. The most critical question to ask yourself is, do heavy school bags have to be there for any kind of learning to take place? Below given are some of the reasons why school bags should not be a burden to the students.

1. Affects Physical Health: Children carrying heavy bags are unaware that they are endangering their well-being and health in a serious way. It can have serious repercussions on your child’s posture even when they are not bearing that load. The tremendous effect on your child’s spine is just one of the many physical side effects. If this turns out to be a daily affair, then your child, in the long run, is prone to develop orthopedic problems that he/she would have to live with for life-long. As a parent, these minute burden details may not grab your attention now, until your child starts to complain of pain or discomfort.

2. Loss of Interest in school: Carrying a heavy school bag brings no joy to any child. Additionally, the discomfort and stress on your child’s shoulder are not at all worth it. This in turn will develop physical pain for which your child will no more want to attend school. When you start hearing excuses of back pain and shoulder pain is when you as a parent need to take it up seriously with the school. Most schools these days have a locker for each student where he/she can place their books. He only needs to carry home home-work books for assignments. 

3. Freely go to school: Apart from bags being a burden, the presence of school bags add unnecessary responsibility for children who study in kindergarten and the pre-primary sections. For them, these are the days when they race with each other, hop and jump on their way to school. Schoolbags are taking away their excitement of movement. These little kids should go to school joyfully rather than stressing about their bags.

4. Going Digital: When schools turn to teach with the help of digital resources it will reduce the burden of carrying paper materials and books to school. Digital resources can be preserved for a longer period whereas paper materials are very delicate to handle. Children might lose them or end up tearing them but with e-textbooks, that is not an option. In the age of visual learning and online studies avoiding the use of schoolbags can immensely change the atmosphere of education.

For example, visual learners will understand the gravitational force very easily if they watch a video rather than reading it from the book. Visual learning gives the benefit in terms of recall when visual elements are incorporated. It is easy to remember even minute things when you see them happening in front of you rather than reading them.

Paper materials and books are one medium of education but not the only medium. With the help of visual learning and e-classroom, our children will not only become better learners but also develop higher-order thinking and adaptation skills. If you encourage visual learning and teaching approach, educators can better meet the needs of all students. This is not to say that traditional teaching methods rooted in lecture and reading should be jettisoned wholly. Even though visual communication is becoming increasingly important, verbal and written communication are still ubiquitous and essential.

Summing up:

At Shri. Harshad C. Valia International School we believe it’s the duty of the school to start thinking for the child’s overall wellbeing and just not academics. As an international school in Mumbai, our aim is just not to churn out intelligent children but also healthy and al rounded students. For the wellbeing of students over and above academics, we are in the opinion that co-curricular activities play an important role in a child’s life for overall growth.