George Chan
Oct. 25, 2000
***********
Proposal
In the October 11th 1999 issue of U.S. News, a specialist said “the backpack burden, largely a product of more and heavier books, may be setting up children for serious back ailments in the future.” Although it is unproven that backpacks and load burdens are a direct cause of scoliosis, they are definitely a contributing cause to the worsening conditions of scoliosis in children. Studies also show that if a backpack filled with books weighing more than 20% of the child’s body weight could be injurious (U.S. News). It could also increase the degree of scoliosis in adolescents.
Habit scoliosis, the habitual sitting and standing in improper positions, is a disease that is most commonly found with adolescent students because of the constant stresses the weight of text books place on their spines. The only treatment for this type of scoliosis is to wear a back brace for a long time usually through most of their adolescent years.
Being a student in the Syosset school district for 12 years, and carrying around heavy back packs for most of those years have cause me to have tremendous back pains. I believe that all parents are worried about the health of their kids. The weight of the text books are still increasing, so I propose that you as parents petition the school for a change to alternative media like CDs. This change will relive back problems in kids, is more cost effective and will help some kids learn better.
You can petition in several ways. The most helpful and convincing way to petition the school is by showing up to the school board meetings. At the meetings propose to the school board about the idea and asking them to act upon it. You can also call the head of the school board and ask for a change in the system. But these measures will only work if we as a community show up and voice our opinions about this growing problem.
Presently a majority of students carry around backpacks filled with books that are about 20% the weight of the students themselves. This extra weight on the students’ backs forces the students to alter their posture to accommodate the extra weight. For me the weight has caused me to have major back problems that immobilized me for periods of times. A study by 5 doctors concluded that the daily physical stresses associated with carrying book bags significantly alter the posture of youths (Pascoe DD, 631). A study taken over 5 years of high school involving 985 students ages 12-18 concluded that their was a change in the head and neck angle, when comparing standing posture with no backpack with posture when carrying a back pack (Grimmer KA, 21). This alteration in posture may result in the use of back braces for a majority of the kids’ adolescent years. In order to protect the health of our youth, it is necessary to implement the use of alternative media within the schools educational system. Using CDs at home will eliminate the need for kids to carry their textbooks to and from home. This in turn will keep the kids from contorting their spines and prevent most back injuries from backpacks.
The school board should be interested in what you say if you bring up money issues with them. They would also care about the education of the students. So you can also include that there are many beneficial effects to making alternative media available to students. The first effect is that it will improve the health of the kids, second it will be more cost effective so the schools and parents, and last of all it will improve learning through the interaction of the CD and kids.
A down side of interactive CD’s is the computer related health issue called Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. This rare injury occurs because of the repetitive motion of the hands. Through the emplacement of ergonomics with the use of computers can prevent the onset of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. The most ergonomic tool for computers is the natural keyboard, which is built to fit the natural posture of the hands. The natural keyboard would be a one-time cost of approximately 40- 50 dollars but medicine and medical bills for the injury will cost more than a keyboard would. For further information referring to carpel tunnel syndrome please refer to the Carpel Tunnel Therapy web page (http://www.carpal-tunnel-therapy.com/). For resources on ergonomics please refer to the EurgoWeb (http://www.ergoweb.com/).
In order to implement alternative media use in the schools’ system, the school would have to keep a set of textbooks in the classrooms so teachers have some material to work with. Besides having a set of textbooks in school they should issue the CDs to students so they wouldn’t be stuck transporting their books to and from school. Some people may ask why not just give the students 2 sets of text books, one for home and one for school. Granted this is a feasible plan, but the school is risking losing money and so are you. Say a textbook is 75 dollars and you are issuing two textbooks per student. That is 150 dollars and is more costly to the school than to issue one textbook and one CD per student. Also if a student were to loose a textbook at home it would cost the family 75 dollars to replace, but CD’s are more cost effective with the average price of CD programs to be approximately $50 this price is derived from the average prices of computer games and software. The conditions of textbooks also degrade faster than CD’s, and texts books take longer to print than CD’s takes to produce.
For further proof of the feasibility take most college books. Most college level books come with supplemental software for further solidification of ideas and concepts. For example my college level books includes ED&G 100, Chemistry 12, and Econ 2 all of which came with supplementary CDs to help solidify ideas and concepts. The cost of the books was approximately the same if they didn’t have the supplemental CDs included.
Learning can be easier and fun with interactive CD’s. The CD has the ability to have animated pictures, sounds, and more for further education. It is well known that most students or kids learn with interaction in the subject. A CD textbook just might be the newest learning tool. From personal experience with interactive information technology I have learned easier and faster with interactive CD’s than regular books. This works for me because in my IEP it states that I learn better visually (with pictures and illustrations).
It should be easy for the school to implement this plan, with the additional money the school would spend buying a second set of school textbooks, they can easily purchase textbooks on CD’s. Schools may be worried about CD hackers or CD Burning, but this is not an issue. If the CD's have the same data format as games then it would be very difficult for a person to try and copy the CD and distribute it for their own profit. The newer data CD’s are formatted in a partial coding algorithm. It is this partial coding of data that protects those games from being copied. If a text book CD were to adopt that coding the companies would not have to fear losing money through the use of illegal means. I know this for a fact, because my friend just recently purchased a game and he tried to copy it. But the incomplete data coding made the CD writer think it was done copying and only copied 1/8 of the game. So the partial coding does work.
In my opinion alternative media would be a beneficial addition to the schools education. Besides providing a better education to students it would improve the health of your kids. So please as a community join together and petition the school for a change from paper textbooks to alternative media.
Works Cited
Pascoe DD, Poscoe DE, Wang YT, Shim DM, Kim CK “Influence of
carrying book bags on gait cycle and posture of youths.” Ergonomics,
June 1997, pages 631-41
Grimmer KA,
Williams MT, Gill TK “Associations
between adolescent head-on-neck posture,
backpack weight, and anthropometric features.”
Spine, Nov 1, 1999, page 21
Dunn, Harold K. M.D., John T. Smith M.D. Medstat.
Http://medstat.med.utah.edu/Scoliosis/def.html (10/27/00)
Comarow, Avery “Use Both Straps!” U.S. News,
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/991011/nycu/back.b3.htm (10/11/99)
