Safe walking habits

The last couple of weeks, I've been getting involved with our Safe Routes to School trainings at elementary schools around the state. In these, we go to elementary schools, train parents, teachers and other volunteers in the skills we want them to teach the kids, and then we all take small groups of kids out walking around the school to practice those skills and begin developing safe walking habits.

One of the interesting observations I've made in this process is what bad habits the adults have -- myself included! It's less urgent that adults have good habits in looking out for our own safety, because we are generally more observant and aware of our surroundings than your average 2nd or 3rd grader, but it presents a challenge to our volunteers to model good walking habits when their own habits demonstrate their own lack of concern with regards to, for example, making sure that cars in all lanes of traffic have stopped before they enter the crosswalk.

I've also noticed that over the course of working with 3 or 5 classrooms in succession, the adults get much better, smoother, and more comfortable with the material and enacting the behaviors we hope to impress upon the children. This makes me think how important it is that children be regularly exposed to safe walking in practice and also in discussion. Kids often know the right answer, even as they enact bad habits.

For example, I might ask a couple of kids at a crosswalk, "What do you need to do to cross safely here?" And they certainly know the answer is, "Look both ways!" But very often, looking both ways simply involves turning their heads without actually paying attention to what they see.

This is all a reminder to me to take more care with my own walking habits, and not to assume that cars will do what I expect them to do at crosswalks, traffic lights and other places that I encounter them as a pedestrian. It also reminds me, though, to talk about safe walking when I'm out and about with kids, rather than simply leading the way and figuring they'll pick up the right thing to do by osmosis.