Fashion over safety

I'm just back from crosswalk duty. 

Standing at the crosswalk every morning is a really nice way to start the day.  I like greeting the children, I like smiling at the passing cars.  So far there has never been any situation that has been too dangerous.  Among my activities I open the school gates (and close them afterwards); I greet the sweet shop owner and her cat; I pick up trash if I find any along the road; if it is raining I wipe down the guard rails.

I exchange greetings with the high school students riding their bikes to school, and I say hello to the jr. high students also on their bikes (usually get no response from them); I chat with the vice principal who comes to crosswalk also; I ask about skinned knees or missing glasses or unusual items being brought to school.  The children suffer patiently the routine of checking the traffic in English,

"Look both ways...!  Right!  Left!  Right!  Okay!"

One more of my duties is to make sure students follow the traffic rules.

No hands in their pockets. (This is so that if they fall down they won't smash their faces.  Sorry... I don't make the rules...  I've yet to see a child fall down face first.) 

No sweatshirt or jacket hoods over their heads. (This is so that they can HEAR the traffic as well as see it...  I too, am supposed to keep my hair pulled back behind my ears.)

And every child is supposed to wear a yellow hat...  In the case of boys, a yellow cap, in the case of girls, a yellow beret type hat.  An occasional child will forget his or her hat at home and I'll ask where it might be and they'll tell me it is either forgotten in the school or in their house.  Usually the next day the child will be wearing the hat again.

Recently I have one 6th grade girl who doesn't wear a hat.  The first couple days I ignored it... "She's forgotten it somewhere."  (One time a boy lost his hat for the whole week... He'd left it at swim school.)  And then I asked her about it.

"It's in my bag."

"Well, tomorrow put it on please."

I certainly don't want the children to start out the day being scolded so I try to keep my tone light.... Sometimes that doesn't work.  Today, the 6th grade girl is still not wearing her hat and it is still being carted around in her bag.  She pulled it out to show it to me!

"I have my hair in a ponytail.  My hat won't fit over it!"

She doesn't seem to care that the yellow hat is supposed to be making her more visible to drivers...

I also have a jr. high school boy who completely ignores my guidance about wearing his bicycle helmet.  He most often gets away without wearing the helmet by taking a road going away from my crosswalk thereby not having to meet up with me at all....  But I see him in the distance... and he comes into my neighborhood before and after school, never wearing the helmet that sits in the bicycle basket.  I figure it is my job to make noises about the helmet when I am in uniform but I don't when I'm just out walking Choco.  I wonder if I'm sending the poor boy mixed messages...

Just yesterday the boy rode his bicycle near my crosswalk without wearing his helmet until he noticed a police car patrolling the school route.  The boy pulled that helmet out of his basket and HELD IT over his head.  Once the police car had gone away, the helmet was back in the bicycle basket and the boy was worriedly checking to see if his carefully spiked hair had been flattened by the hated helmet.

Everybody thinks fashion over safety...

Here is a picture of Takumi in his high school days when hair spiking was so important to him.  In high school there are no longer any rules about wearing a bicycle helmet.