The Burden Of Learning
The Age
Tuesday October 28, 1997
EDWARD, 10, weighs 35 kilograms. His school bag often weighs seven kilograms. It contains his computer, folders, textbooks and his lunch. The weight does not include his sports gear or his musical instrument.
It is a heavy load for a child. But Edward is one of the many children who bear the burden of their education. The loads that adults carry are restricted by union and industry standards, but there are no official guidelines for children at school.
According to the Australian Physiotherapy Association, school bags should weigh a maximum of 10 per cent of body weight (about 3.5 kg for a 10-year-old). In February, the association warned that many school children were at risk of long-term back, neck and shoulder injury due to heavy and poorly positioned school bags.
But it is no longer a problem simply surfacing at the start of every school year. Parents watching their children set off each day - particularly, it seems, to private schools - dread the problems that heavy bags and equipment may be doing to young spines and shoulders.
The physiotherapy association's ergonomics and occupational health group is also concerned about potential "postural deformity" if students using laptops don't sit properly or take sufficient study breaks.
But schools themselves are more worried about the total weight the modern student must bear.
Kilvington Baptist Girls' Grammar School - among other schools - is even looking at small trolleys for girls to wheel around laptops and other resources, while Trinity Grammar is studying designs for a special rucksack-type bag to hug everything close to the body and distribute the weight evenly.
THE Education Department has no clear policy on such weighty matters. "Difficulties arise with setting a prescribed weight and design for schoolbags because students' strength and posture vary," says a department spokeswoman.
So, of course, do their requirements, which can be as simple as a few exercise books, a dictionary, a folder full of loose-leaf sheets, lunch (and the mouldering ghosts of lunches past) and school notices that are not found until the end-of-term clean-out.
That's scarcely a problem: the difficulties arise when there are textbooks for every subject, computers, sports clothing and equipment, and musical instruments as well. As one woman commented when watching a group of students boarding a tram: "You could travel round the world with less luggage than that."
Schoolbags have been steadily increasing in size over the years to accomodate growing needs, and schoolbags may have their own version of the Peter Principle: the contents expand to fit the room available.
The back-pack is the form of schoolbag recommended by the Australian Physiotherapy Association. But, if it is to be of benefit, it must be worn correctly, rather like a camper's backpack.
* Bags need broad, padded, adjustable shoulder straps. Waist straps are also recommended because they keep the bag firm against the spine and distribute the weight evenly.
* The bag surface should be padded, but firm, and should be in contact with the back.
* The top of the bag should be at shoulder height, the bottom level with the hollow of the lower back.
* The width of the bag should not exceed chest width.
That is also the advice from the Chiropractors' Association of Victoria, which sent a letter to all primary school principals at the start of the year, expressing its concern about the incidence of spinal damage in children and advising that proper use of the correct school bag could minimise the incidence.
But not all students wear their bags properly. Perhaps it's not cool to do so. Perhaps it's too difficult to strap it on properly at the beginning or end of the day; and it's certainly too difficult over a blazer or a rainproof jacket. And it's a nuisance to strap it on to walk to the bus or train stop, then take it off during the ride and strap it on again after the journey. It's much easier to carry it over one shoulder, which is what most students seem to do.
That is fine if the load is to be carried a short distance to a bus or tram stop and then a short distance to school. It's the long walk and heavy load that might cause neck, shoulder and back problems later.
Tony Hunter, managing director of Spartan, the largest schoolbag distributor, is heartened by the change to the backpack. Despite the difficulties, many more children are now wearing their bags correctly.
"The waistbelt used to be so daggy," he says.
Spartan began making backpacks in the late 1980s, after teaming up with two Sydney physiotherapists who had designed an ergonomic product called a go-pak. It contains two aluminium staves that can be moulded to the wearer's shape, so the weight is properly distributed.
Sales of backpacks really took off in 1989, says Mr Hunter. When the company began in 1982, about 90 per cent of sales were of carry-bags, and 10 per cent were of backpacks. Now, those figures are reversed.
The benefits of backpacks were readily acnowledged, but getting students to wear them properly was the difficult part. Since they have become a fashion item, it has been easier. But, as Hunter says: "It's always been cool to carry a bag over one shoulder."
The weight of schoolbags may be a greater problem in private schools, particularly those with laptop computers as part of the equipment.
They're still a relatively small number of schools with laptop computers - there are no reliable figures, but one estimate is that five per cent of schools have them, and perhaps 20 per cent of private schools.
Edward's computer comprises most of the weight in his schoolbag. His mother explains that school requirements are that the computer be put in the schoolbag. "There's a trade-off between the weight of the computer and its sturdiness," she says.
Not long ago, Edward suffered from neck and shoulder strain. "He was scarcely able to move," says his mother, Kerrie. "And that's a very common injury." Part of his physiotherapy treatment was to leave his bag alone; not to carry it.
She was able to drive him to school and to carry his bag into class, but she knows not every parent can do that. Many of the younger students at Wesley (Edward's school) travel independently, by train and by tram, and they're lugging all their gear around.
Part of the difficulty, she acknowledges, is the attraction of the computer: "The trouble with the computer is that they love them passionately." They have become the focus of social life (children swap programs where once they swapped footy cards), and because laptops are so portable, they can be used almost anywhere, all too often in poor-posture positions.
David Loader, the principal of Wesley College, thinks that school bags are a disaster. He says part of the problem is the number of options (music, sport) that add to the basic weight. Perhaps it is the burden of a good education. "What's good for the mind and the body is not necessarily good for the back," says Loader ruefully.
The school is considering other designs, including an airport-style bag on wheels. Long-term, he thinks there will be less difficulty, because the computer and a few disks with downloaded information will replace the weight of the text books. Tony Hunter also thinks that, long-term, the bulk and weight of schoolbags will be reduced.
At Bialik College, where students do not carry laptops to and from school, there have been moves to provide smaller bags for primary school students. Secondary students tend to take home all their books because they can't decide what they want to do that evening, says principal Genia Janover. The school has encouraged students to use loose-leaf folders so they can remove pages from other folders rather than taking them all home - "if they're well enough organised". Mrs Janover recognises that not everyone is.
Back problems are certainly not confined to private schools. A research study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in September 1994 considered 610 boys from 12 to 19 at three secondary schools in Melbourne's northern suburbs. The study found that 16.7 per cent were suffering from lower back pain at the time of the survey and that 40.3 per cent had lower back pain in the past. The combined figure of 57 per cent is regarded as high. The author, Phillip Ebrall, concluded that further study was needed to find the causes and potential preventative factors.
In France, schoolbags are such a weight that the Education Minister asked for a legislative report. A medical study of 1178 students aged from 5 to 20 found that more than half of them were suffering from problems of the vertebrae.
In England, where Spartan established a subsidiary company six years ago, the question of spinal damage seems not to be have been much raised. Tony Hunter says it has been hard to convince English schools to match the schoolbag to the uniform. He observed that many students carried bags that were not designed to be schoolbags.
BACK TO BACK
* Three years ago, among 610 boys aged 12 - 19 at three Melbourne secondary colleges, 101 were suffering from lower back pain; 245 had had lower back pain in the past.
* In France, of 1178 students aged 5 - 20, more than half were suffering from vertebrae problems.
© 1997 The Age