I'm personally stumped by this situation. When I was a kid in high school, we had personal lockers in the school building. They were tall enough to hang a coat in, and had a top shelf section for books and other stuff. We all stopped to change books in the few minutes between all our classes. Somehow we managed without excess confusion. Nobody carried a backpack. NOBODY. Backpacks were for camping. I had a three-ring subject notebook that went everywhere with me along with whatever books were required. Sometimes the books were in the classroom.

I understand the problems in schools with no lockers, but for the others, what's changed? It's not like books are bigger now, or there are more subjects. I don't get it.

The other old-fashioned thing I miss in schools: real cafeterias. We had cooks--women in hairnets who made food in huge pots back in a real kitchen. Okay, the food really sucked sometimes, but it was real food. My kids get what amounts to airplane food: cooked God knows where and delivered in little foil-covered trays in hot boxes. My son packs his lunch, and my daughter grabs a slice of pizza and a drink at lunch. Neither will touch the foil food with a ten-foot pole.