Comments on: back to school blues

By: Paulo

Paulo — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:11:09 +0000

Well, here in Portugal we have the same problem. No store is too small to sell school props for “la rentrée” of September… God, and the horrible things on sale!!

And here there’s no uniforms so we have the same problem you saw in France with clothes competition. For those who can afford it, of course.
But the most ridiculous in a bank making publicity using “la rentrée”. A stupid game of words, I must say. It combines the word notas = grades and the same word notas = money… and says something like this: “this year, we’re all worried with the our notas (grades/money). So, go to bank *** and blablabla”

It’s pathetic…

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:10:09 +0000

My primary school had just abolished school uniforms, but my parents still sent me to school in my older brother’s hand-me-down uniform regardless.
How cool is that?

Do children still wear hand me downs?

By: Nigel M

Nigel M — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:09:37 +0000

Well, since we all had to walk to school 4 miles in the snow barefoot, it’s best that they be given something to hold over the heads of their offspring: “Lockers? Ha! When I was your age, I was carrying my weight in books to school every day. In a burlap sack. Shoeless. Over broken glass…”

By: Stuart

Stuart — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:09:02 +0000

Do they think they are somehow strengthening the kids’ backs that way?

By: Claypot

Claypot — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:08:41 +0000

I LOVE this time of year back home. Don’t you just get high on the smell of all that new stationery? Or is that just me…When I was four I carried a suitcase to school. It was covered in Mickey Mouse stickers that said ‘I’ve been to the Isle of Man’. Boy was I the coolest kid ha ha! I fell over it running for the bus one day and bust my knee. They still made me go to school. I swear that case is probably still sitting in my parents’ attic.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:08:15 +0000

Hi, I’m writing from Malaysia and unfortunately, the kids here have the same problem. They have to carry huge school bags and it is popular to see shops selling school bags with wheels. A couple of years ago, the govt announced that lockers would be built, but until now, they have yet to be built.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:07:31 +0000

…..and I thought it was only over here in Ireland that the kids had to carry all their books with them, because the schools have only recently heard of lockers. And every year, without fail, the parents of the newest batch complain loudly about the back problems that their tiny offspring are suffering. The schools ignore it, knowing that it is a rite of passage through September. Come the winter, there will be other things to worry about. And so it goes on….

By: Vit

Vit — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:07:06 +0000

mine have fluorescent POWERPUFF girl rucksacks for nursery school. utterly taste free. I’m SO with you on the school uniform. I hated mine when I was at my vile comprehensive school, but I could never have competed in the “coolness stakes” that we have here like France. terrible.