For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 30, 2018

the good ol’ rear-view mirror (with coke-bottle eyeglasses staring back at you)

There’s nothing like death threats to make the children obey. I wonder if Mrs. Grunion issues this lecture every time a kid gets on her bus.

I wonder if this driver is anything like Cranky in “Crankshaft”, who always leaves behind the mothers trying to get to their kids with lunches or homework that was forgotten. Or, on the other hand, keeps destroying mailboxes in rural areas…

That’s it. I’m walking. Suddenly 2 miles doesn’t look so far.

I never rode on a school bus as I always lived fairly near to the school. I was only about a mile away. Did I miss anything?

Why do people take these kinds of jobs when they hate children? This woman has no business being around kids with that attitude!

@rg: Crankshaft’s twin sister separated @birth!!

I always liked the school driver on South Park. I imagine she was representative of some.

A guy I know made a good living at a local big business and was offered his retirement early in a lump sum. He took the offer and bought a car which he found out he hated. During retirement he and his wife had to drive bus. Another guy bought Disney stock instead and he didn’t need to drive bus, by any means.

She needs student management training, or she won’t last. Those riders are going to challenge her every inch, why would Canadian children be different from American children.

Gaah — I had a driver like this in junior high. I still have nightmares about her.

NO TALKING?

My dad drove a school bus after he retired from his career job. The kids loved him, but then he would wait for them if they were late getting out the door, even combed some of the kids hair if they asked him to. His bus was always the last one in. He drove until the state said he was too old to drive a bus. So then he used his van and time picking up food at the distribution centers for food pantries. He went into some pretty risky neighborhoods, but he was never afraid and was always treated with respect.

The woman was hired to get the school bus safely and efficiently from A to B, not to entertain children.

Just have a sign on the bus:

“We are not responsible for injuries that happen because you weren’t sitting down. And yes, we can tell.”

I have a buddy who retired from the Marines Corps. For many of his years in the Corps. he’d been a Drill Instructor. He took a job as a school bus driver for a junior high school.

I used to laughingly call him “Sgt. Crankshaft” because he took no guff from these kids and carried a lot of his D.I. skills and attitude to running his bus.

Needless to say, he had the best behaved bunch of bus riders in the school district.

Funny thing was, the kids not only respected him, but really liked him.

When was laid up in the hospital, a few years ago, practically every kid – past and present – who’d ridden his bus, came to visit him or send Get-Well cards.

And today she’d be fired and sued for threatening children…lol

OR…She is the perfect person to be safely taking these children to school and back home. Kids tend to wander around and do weird stuff while unobserved and riding a bus with just other kids. Some discipline is called for.

I’m guessing they start out loving kids, but years of close association with the exuberant reality creates new awareness of what’s needed to allow you to actually do your job. Driving in traffic with a busload of kids is hard enough without the kids releasing all the energy that’s been pent up in the classroom all day. She’s spot on to lay down ground rules as well as a warning.

I was aid on a school bus when the driver did this worst day my life Kid did all they could do not obey the bus drive including the f and u word well back to the office we went that did little

Maybe if today’s school bus drivers were allowed to have this attitude and act upon it there would be less fighting, swearing, bullying, etc. on the buses.

In parochial school, we were expected to remain quiet in the classroom, even when the teacher was not there, to walk in line silently to and from rooms, until we were well outside the building for recess, etc. We could talk in the cafeteria, but still quietly, and there was certainly no horseplay. We didn’t have school buses, but I would imagine it would have necessitated being quiet on those, too. We all seem to have survived just fine. I wasn’t sure I would survive when I changed to public school – the noise and chaos (which was nothing compared to nowadays) terrified me the first day!

adults need to respect kids. kids need to respect adults.