Flip Flop Day (or, What Are We Teaching Our Kids?)
It's the start of a 3 day holiday weekend so I thought I'd share something S&H related that is closer to home.
All of my children’s schools have a general rule that flip-flops (or any shoes without a back) are not allowed. When the rule was questioned by parents, the schools stated that the rule was put into place for safety reasons – flip flops are just not as safe as closed shoes for kids running up and down stairs and climbing on playgrounds. As a safety professional, I agree.
My daughter informed me that today she can wear flip-flops but she has to pay a dollar. This is actually quite common – on hat day, you can wear a hat in school if you pay a dollar or on pajama day, you can wear pajamas if you pay a dollar. I shouldn’t say “pay” because it is really a donation of a dollar to whatever cause the school is collecting for at the moment. This is an easy fundraising activity for many schools. I have even heard of workplaces that have days where you can wear jeans in exchange for a set amount which gets donated to charity.
I don’t have any problem with donating money to various charities in exchange for lightening up a dress code but when kids are basically being told they can ignore a safety requirement for a day by paying a dollar, I have concern. Although these kids are still in school, they will be in the workforce in the near future. What are we teaching them? Safety rules – well most of them anyway – are in place for very good reasons. Encouraging someone – in fact encouraging an entire school – to overlook a safety rule in exchange for payment is wrong. We are sending the wrong message.