Schools in Winter

Driving back through the hail after dropping my son at his high school, I passed the little countryside elementary school and many students walking there - walking to school being the rule. The boys were wearing their regulation navy blue, short uniform shorts and the girls their skirts, all with bare legs and white ankle socks. These were topped with white button-up shirts. One plucky young lad even was wearing his short-sleeved summer uniform shirt.

Two of my children went to that school some years ago. Inside will be no warmer. In my kids' experience, the only rooms with heaters in the elementary and junior high schools they attended were the teachers' rooms and the libraries. Ditto with air-conditioning in the summer. I have been told it is to "toughen them up" - teach them to "gaman."

Then my work brought me to a kindergarten - a brand new shiny kindergarten - where, in respect to the clean floors, everyone takes off their inside slippers to go into the classrooms. It was like being in socks outside - the linoleum felt icy. The kids, of course, are in socks, some barefoot, and they're very small - so they're right next to the floor, that is, the ones who are not sitting on the floor. My feet were completely numb for the rest of the hour I was there. I lost feeling in them after a minute or two.

"What doesn't kill them makes them stronger"?