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Schools should do away with cafeteria seating and students should eat in the classrooms. This seems inconvenient, but I'm pretty sure it would be very beneficial to students. One reason I say this is because lower-functioning students often do not have appropriate social skills. Violence and gang activity are more prevalent in lower-income neighborhoods. Violence is much more likely to occur when students are in large groups and staff supervision is limited. Eating lunch in the classroom will increase the level of safety for students and staff. It will also help to synchronize the daily schedule.
I know this is easier said than done because now we have to figure out a way to get the lunch from the cafeteria to the students. I have thought up a solution to this. Get the students involved. Let several students from each class take on the responsibility of bringing the classroom lunch from the cafeteria. They can take student orders and be responsible for retrieving the meals. This can be considered job-skill training. Giving responsibility to the students will increase their confidence and self-worth.
It's just an idea, and it may be impossible, but for now it sounds good. Thoughts on this?
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I would think that if you wanted to have students get involved in taking orders & retrieving lunch for their fellow students that you might run into the following issues:
ReplyDeleteTime - having a small group of students take orders for their entire class, leave to get the meals, bring them back to the class for consumption, then clean up - if I remember correctly, lunch period was 30 minutes when I was in school and I don't see how this would fit into that time period while allowing kids ample time to eat.
Liability - students handling other students' meals would require expenditure in certain counties for those students to be certified in safe-food handling. Programs and testing are not free for this type of certification. Also, the should would have to take responsibility because little Billy spat into Johnny's lunch while retrieving it for him because they don't like each other...
Cafeteria seating is definitely an issue when it comes to student safety and violence, but your solution needs some work. I would rather see the school spend additional money on providing professional, non-student service within the classrooms for lunch. This could be accomplished by hiring additional lunch aids or even providing the parents of these children the part-time employment.
Correction - sorry for the typo
ReplyDeleteAlso, the school would have to take responsibility because little Billy spat into Johnny's lunch while retrieving it for him because they don't like each other...
Yes, I agree. They would need more adult supervision. When I taught at The Harbour School (this is a small school for special needs students), all students ate lunch in classrooms. They were able to sign up for lunchrooms, thus enabling them to eat with their friends (as long as teachers approved of the grouping). Many students brought lunch from home, and the school also offered sandwiches, salads, soups, drinks, snacks, and sometimes pizza. A few students along with several adults were in charge of running a register and taking orders. After picking up their food, the students took it back to the classroom to eat.
ReplyDeleteI see that for many reasons, this would not work in a larger school. You are right that students would not be allowed to be around the food without adult supervision because of the issue of students tampering with the food. Also, in bigger schools, the idea of students with food unsupervised in general is probably a bad idea. I'm thinking about food fights, poor kids stealing other kids' lunches, etc. Some of the ideas I've come up with are a bit too utopian, I will admit. I guess I will have to be more realistic and come to some form of a compromise.
At the very least, we must synchronize the schedule of all students. When I was in high school, our lunch period was the same amount of time as an academic period (about 50 minutes). This made for a long lunch but at least the academic schedule was not interrupted by lunch bells. I will think more on this.
The bottom line is getting more parents involved with their childrens education. If more parents would volunteer at schools there would be alot less problems.
ReplyDeleteRight. Kids wouldn't dare do some of the things they do if their parents/grandparents were present. I think this would definitely be an effective way of improving behavior.
ReplyDelete