There has been a strict no food in the library rule from the beginning of my five year run as the school librarian. The reasons are fairly obvious, especially when you consider it is a middle school with 950 kids swimming through hormonal changes that account for a large percentage of their behavior. They tend to change direction every minute or so, leaving various items behind as they go, wrappers and crumbs for the vermin, creating the clean-up and maintenance trope that I'm not sounding for this entry. What I am really concerned about is the culture of the school, the blending of many cultures, health issues and respect. I think that food is a much bigger issue than is commonly thought, that in fact it is one of the biggest issues we could ever possibly teach. After all food is one of the few biological necessities for life. If anything should be taken seriously, it is the food we eat.
Food is so central to culture that you can identify a culture simply from the name of one dish alone, such as Pho, tamales or knishes. Rules surrounding food run the gamut from the health department to halal, vegetarianism to the WTO. When cultures mix in a place like a middle school, it seems best to put rules in place that create the least amount of friction between any particular, individual cultures but that maintains the needs of the institution. This is exactly the right place to insert lessons in civility and in yielding to the common good. But that is not what we currently have. What we currently have is confusion generated by mis-guided notions of what diversity means and entails. We have far too little modeling of healthy eating behavior.
In my school there are teachers who eat in front of classrooms full of students (frequently teachers have no time to eat otherwise) just like teachers in the '50s used to smoke in the classroom. Seeing young teens eat smarties for breakfast is not uncommon. Students and teachers can be seen walking down the hallways eating from the cafeteria trays. The problems with food are far more than just public health issues, they are cultural. We are not encouraging a culture of participation, we are encouraging the consumer culture, narrowly defined. But our purpose is not consumerism, it is education.
Ultimately, I think consideration of food is a foundation for respect, respect for life, respect for culture and respect for the people who provide, prepare and clean up when we eat. Eating is a social experience, an educational opportunity. Like it or not food at school is part of the curriculum. The question is: When are we going to start respecting food at school?
Food is so central to culture that you can identify a culture simply from the name of one dish alone, such as Pho, tamales or knishes. Rules surrounding food run the gamut from the health department to halal, vegetarianism to the WTO. When cultures mix in a place like a middle school, it seems best to put rules in place that create the least amount of friction between any particular, individual cultures but that maintains the needs of the institution. This is exactly the right place to insert lessons in civility and in yielding to the common good. But that is not what we currently have. What we currently have is confusion generated by mis-guided notions of what diversity means and entails. We have far too little modeling of healthy eating behavior.
In my school there are teachers who eat in front of classrooms full of students (frequently teachers have no time to eat otherwise) just like teachers in the '50s used to smoke in the classroom. Seeing young teens eat smarties for breakfast is not uncommon. Students and teachers can be seen walking down the hallways eating from the cafeteria trays. The problems with food are far more than just public health issues, they are cultural. We are not encouraging a culture of participation, we are encouraging the consumer culture, narrowly defined. But our purpose is not consumerism, it is education.
Ultimately, I think consideration of food is a foundation for respect, respect for life, respect for culture and respect for the people who provide, prepare and clean up when we eat. Eating is a social experience, an educational opportunity. Like it or not food at school is part of the curriculum. The question is: When are we going to start respecting food at school?
