Wear a helmet.

One of my students, a young, pre-teen boy in perfectly good health will probably never be the same again. He was having some fun with friends at the skate park until he flipped over the handlebars of his bike and landed on his head. He was airlifted to a nearby hospital where he was first in a coma, and then had to re-learn how to eat and speak. I'm reviewing the notes from his doctor: he will have most likely have permanent critical thinking deficits. Furthermore, "one of the caveats of head injury in childhood is that as the curriculum evolves...the more obvious the cognitive difficulties might become."

 

There is the good news: he survived, he can walk and talk, and has a parent that cares. The more obvious sad part: this was totally preventable.

 

I can only hope that both he and his friends have learned their helmet lesson for good.