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Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

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Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#91

Post by droithomme »

malnourish wrote: post #81
droithomme wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally accurate; nice summary; have seen this myself; was thinking the exact same things while reading the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_on_Kids recommended to those who are skeptical. Nothing is your post is overly dramatic or exaggerated in the least.

As a person a few years out of high school myself, I was more shocked by your disclaimer for exaggeration than by the post above. Everything said seems normal and logical for the schools I've encountered (and the local/regional/national media) to report, given their dispositions and previous conduct.

Yes, things were a lot different back in the day when I was a youth. Which wasn't as long ago as you might think. It's both very alarming to me the way things are handled in schools, and that so many seem to think it is a good thing and that so few realize the dangers. To someone who went to school even 20 years ago who hasn't been following the changes the above post might seem an outlandish scenario that could never happen in America land of the free.

Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#92

Post by droithomme »

unimpressive wrote: post #85
superuser2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, the justification wouldn't have been "her actions," but the reasoning would go something like this: 1. She is a student using personal electronics on school property during school hours without permission. This is explicitly disallowed in the handbook she and her parents would have been compelled to sign. This is not about food - she broke the rules. 2. That's great that she wants to be a journalist, but y…

The more conspiratorial side of me likes to think that school is a prison camp used by vested interests to teach American citizens from a young age that they have no rights and to stymie any sort of real intellectual development by providing large globs of homework and projects. But some people require more than the standard to weigh them down. Like in Harrison Bergerson.[0] And the only reason that they don't force…

> school is a prison camp used by vested interests to teach American citizens from a young age that they have no rights and to stymie any sort of real intellectual development

There's a pretty strong argument made that that is actually the case and its intentional, backed by actual history.

Have you read The Underground History of American Education? It's extremely interesting and well referenced. Read it free here, or get the print book on amazon if you like. http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#93

Post by sopooneo »

malnourish wrote: post #80
Splines wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up in central Canada I never had a school that provided meals. Now that I'm in the US I find it odd that schools (of all ages) can provide lunch for students. My son now gets his food at school - while it's nice that we don't need to prepare his lunch beforehand, I'd much much rather have my school district's food-related costs be used towards teachers and learning. I have prepared lunch for my son when he wa…

The biggest thing with this is that there are some parents who are unable to prepare food for their child due to financial costs. For some kids, a school meal might be the only thing they eat, or the largest meal of the day.

There are many families where it is an issue of finance and time preventing them from making their kids healthy lunches. There are also a great many families where it is an issue of broken culture and defeated people that actually could provide nutritious meals. Of course if it's only one kid in a poor school that comes every day with simple cheap home-made food, that child risks serious ostracism.

Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#95

Post by rquantz »

leot wrote: post #68
hack_edu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of the materials is only a small part of it. Preparing and cooking fresh food requires much, much more effort than prepared packaged foods. Microwavable or similarly low/zero-prep food products require very little labor, require only a few steps before they are served, and create almost zero items to be washed and cleaned. You would be surprised how much cheaper a flat of microwave burritos is compared to an…

Given the success of various "healthy fast-food" restaurants, it seems nearly everyone can be taught to cook the simple stuff. But I was thinking, here, of quinoa prepared in a rice cooker (comparable in difficulty to microwaving a burrito), salad, and pre-made vegetarian chili. There's no way the total cost of this is higher than calorie-equivalent microwave mexican fare. E.g., Costco organic quinoa is about 700 kCa…

I don't want to undermine your basic point here -- I hope that you're right. Quinoa in particular might be a problem though, since it's already increasing in price due short supply. Mass adoption by America's schools would probably result in making it unsustainable both for the schools themselves and for South American communities that rely on it.

http://www.newser.com/story/114536/in-bolivia-a-quinoa-quand...

Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#97

Post by neilparikh »

Does all of the USA and UK have school provided lunches? Here, where I am (Canada), schools don't provide a lunch to the students, and the cafeteria food that can be purchased is quite unhealthy (pizza, fries etc.). I'm in high school right now, which might be why it's different, but I don't remember being provided a lunch from the school in elementary school either.

Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#98

Post by stevenbedrick »

josefonseca wrote: post #27

And this is in Scotland. Can you imagine what it is like in the poorest countries in the world? This is why we need a permanent, open Internet on all nations, because as soon as the truth comes out, someone does something about it.

A few weeks back, All Things Considered had a really interesting piece on a school lunch program in Bangalore:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/04/06/149867092/indian...

Obviously, that's just one program, and in just one city in just one country, but I thought it was pretty neat.

Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#99

Post by davidhollander »

tnash wrote: post #90
davidhollander wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where we value money over people's health. This is sort of a nonsensical statement, as money is simply an external means by which to make such relative comparisons of value between things which are good. Perhaps you meant to assert the accumulation of savings is valued over health related expenditures? Debt levels would suggest otherwise.

Where we value the ability to obtain goods and services over people's health. Not savings, but purchasing power. Better?

Food, food preparation, medicine, and health treatments\consultations are considered goods and services. Could you give some specific examples of things which can be said to be externally valued by a collective "we" which are neither goods nor services, the principle you are using to measure the collective value of non-goods and non-services, and the operation which allows you to relationally compare the value of non-goods and non-services to the value of goods and services?

Re: Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

#100

Post by kamaal »

I am really happy and surprised at the same time, to know that children in first world countries get facilities like eating such awesome food provided for free in school.

In my country(India), its a extremely far fetched thing to even assume that somebody can provide such good quality food for free in school. When I was in School around 12 years back, We would carry a lunch Tiffin packed at home, sometimes I would go completely hungry if my mom was in a hurry so some slip happened while making the Tiffin.

And yes, cakes, pastry, vegetables are all big things. My lunch used to be far more modest.

I hope someday in my country we would capable of providing this kind of facilities to kids.

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