The Quasimodo Effect

I’m afraid we’re raising a generation of hunchback children. This phenomenon is not the result of a medical epidemic and it has nothing to do with the fluoridated drinking water conspiracy. No, it’s simply a result of overzealous textbook authors and too much homework.

My 15-year-old daughter started her second year of high school recently and she is changing into a pack mule with each passing day. Every morning she hoists her backpack, bending under the weight of it, and plods off to her classes. Once there, her teachers assign homework unmercifully as they fret about the results of statewide standardized testing.

Believe it or not, Kate’s backpack weighs in at nearly 50 pounds. That is, when I put it on the bathroom scale and add my foot for purposes of exaggeration. Truthfully, it totals between 25 and 30 pounds if you include her lunch box and she isn’t really a big eater. As a worrisome parent and marginal scholar, I believe that backpacks are for camping and no child should carry more than an armful of books.

Maybe I shouldn’t complain. If Kate fares poorly in academics, she will at least be qualified as a sherpa guide; able to carry twice her body weight in supplies and equipment as she scales Everest. For a career in a warmer climate, she could always work as a mule smuggling cocaine across the Mexican border. I guess it’s good for her to have a trade in case she doesn’t make it into college.

We should take a lesson from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451; books are bad. Filled with wild ideas that inspire free thought, modern art and other dangerous activities, books corrupt the minds of our young people. Not only that, but the damn things are heavy.

Back in the late ‘70s when I was in high school, this problem did not exist. It was definitely not an issue for me. I only brought home the occasional textbook to fool my parents into thinking I was doing homework. I also used to refill the vodka bottle with water, but that’s a different column.

Thanks to the passage of time and the miracle of shock therapy, none of my teachers from high school remember me. Through the years my grades and conduct inspired several educators to make drastic career changes. Otherwise, they would tell you that I should have carried more books home. If my uncle had not been in charge of scoring the SAT, I would have never made it into college.

During my high school career, anyone with a backpack was a nerd, but these days you have to have a rolling backpack to qualify for that. Soon rolling backpacks will be the norm and to achieve parity the nerds will have to push wheelbarrows full of books.

As teenagers we used to confide in each other about dermatologists and acne medicine, now my daughter’s peers share the names of their chiropractors. I realize that Disney did a lot to improve his image, but do we really want the Hunchback of Notre Dame to be a role model for our kids?

Ray Bradbury taught us that 451 is the temperature at which books burn, but there must be another solution. Some of the textbooks now come with companion CDs so the kids can leave their books at school and access the text with a computer. I like that idea, but if it doesn’t catch on, maybe now is the time to add weight training to the Head Start programs.

As for my little girl, her mother and I have hired someone to help her succeed in school. Instead of a tutor, Kate now sees a personal trainer twice a week and she’s bulking up on steroids. Students of the world unite and cast off the oppressive yoke of your education. Anyone got a match?


Recently accepted into chiropractic school, David Theall can be reached at dtheall@triad.rr.com

© David Theall 2005