Oink, Oink: Schools and Nutrition

“Super Size Me” is a documentary directed by Morgan Spurlock, in which he embarks on a 30 day trial where he eats nothing but McDonalds. Obviously, this is an incredibly unhealthy experiment. But Morgan tries it anyway (just to prove that eating McDonalds three times each day actually is bad). While suffering from an array of medical problems near the end of his 30 day McDiet, we find that Spurlock had given himself liver damage due to the drastic change in his cholesterol. Spurlock does his homework regarding the facts of obesity in America, and proves his point well. Some of his findings were controversial due to his extremely healthy lifestyle before the McDiet. Some of the problems with Morgan’s documentary (along with other information) can be found at this blog.

What I found most interesting about Spurlock’s documentary included the research he conducted regarding nutrition concerns in school cafeterias. Spurlock visited a high school cafeteria to study what the students would eat on a typical day (if they hadn’t brought their own lunch).

“A girl comes to the cash register and pays for her little Debbie cake, a Swiss roll to be exact. Now in case you didn’t catch it we are in a school cafeteria here. The girl walks toward a table after paying and Morgan Spurlock asks the cashier if that was all the girl was eating today. The lunch lady actually says, “oh she brought in something else” Morgan asks her how she knows and who is in charge of making sure she does have something else and the lunch lady then refers him to the boss, naturally. He follows the student back to the table to find that she did bring something else, a can of coke.”

Read More…

Morgan also enlightened us with information concerning a cafeteria in a school which contained students who were kicked out of their previous school for mischievous behavior. In this particular school, the students were served only healthy foods and beverages, which kept the students calmer and more responsive throughout the day. This particular school had fewer incidents than the original public school.

My high school stopped selling soda about three months after Morgan Spurlock’s movie was released in the U.S. I don’t know whether the two occurrences were somehow linked, but it sure seemed as though schools were going on a health kick. However, the individual who made the arrangements for our school’s new-and-improved health fling never really thought it through. Though they stopped selling soda, they continued to sell beverages such as minute maid lemonade and fruit juice (drinks which often contain more sugar than soda).

Spurlock’s documentary definitely sent out a positive message regarding the danger of cafeteria food found within schools, but schools are still doing little to fix the problem. I was always confused as to why my school bothered to make such a small and useless attempt at keeping students healthier. Instead of removing the bliss of an ice cold Diet Coke from students (especially from me), they could have instructed the cooks to disperse fries in serving sizes rather than gigantic heaps. Perhaps vegetables could have been an option to students. Producing fresh veggies every day is obviously more expensive then the bulk processed foods stored in the freezer, but my school paid a great deal of money for the sports teams’ equipment and activities. It’s just too bad they “couldn’t afford” to keep the athletes from getting chubby during the off-seasons.
So why not serve healthier foods in school cafeterias? Many excuses are offered for this concern, but in my opinion, few seem relevant. The assistant principal of Salinas High School offers his input in an article from The Herald.

” they won’t eat it, so why not offer them what they will eat?” says North Salinas High assistant principal August Caresani. “If our kids didn’t like our food, they wouldn’t eat it – they’re high schoolers.”

Another excuse voiced from Salinas high school in The Herald argues that if schools don’t serve their students unhealthy foods, they won’t eat at all, and junk food is better then no food, right?

”‘I know what they should be eating, but you can’t make them eat right,’ says Kathy Dearing, food service manager for Salinas Union High School District and a registered dietician. ‘Eating habits come from home and you can’t change them in a 20-minute lunch period. So we have to offer them choices that they will accept. And anything they can get at fast food, they’ll buy here.’”

Personally, I think all cafeterias should serve healthy food to their students. It would be a great way to influence healthy eating habits (don’t people attend school to learn anyway?) and routines. In time, students probably wouldn’t even miss the mid morning ding-dongs and cheesy fries.

Read Full Article

Teaching like Socrates: A Little History behind S.T.

The biggest problem with standardized testing is that it’s completely product based. There is only one answer to every question. A question that has multiple interpretations or answers does not exist in the limited world of standardized testing. Preparing a student for these tests limits his creativity, and sends the message that he doesn’t need creativity to be successful in life. It feels like society is turning schools into little factories (grade schools) which spits students out into big factories (universities) and ultimately creates millions of clones who think and act the exact same way.

I’m not implying that every aspect of school is product-based. We have all had rare classes where we were able to express ourselves through discussion. We have all had classes that didn’t require us to make and learn hundreds of flashcards. In my experience, it was the experience-based classroom settings which really stuck with me throughout the subsequent years of school.

While surfing through dozens of articles related to different aspects of standardized testing, I came across one from the Washington Post which addressed current teaching methods with the ones first developed by Socrates in ancient Greece. I didn’t even know Socrates was a teacher. Today, he would probably frown upon the current use of standardized testing. It turns out that his teaching methods have had a great deal of impact on the way students have been taught throughout history. For Socrates, the ideal teaching process was dialogue based, rather then product based.

“In ancient times, Socrates tested his students through conversations. Answers were not scored as right or wrong. They just led to more dialogue. Many intellectual elites in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. cared more about finding the path to higher knowledge than producing a correct response. To them, accuracy was for shopkeepers… Critics say standardized testing has robbed schools of the creative clash of intellects that make Plato’s dialogues still absorbing. “There is a growing technology of testing that permits us now to do in nanoseconds things that we shouldn’t be doing at all,” said educational psychologist Gerald W. Bracey, research columnist for the Phi Delta Kappan education journal. “

Standardized testing began with simple essay exams, which were often sufficient until the 20^th century arrived. However, test distributors began looking for shortcuts in order to test in more sufficiently in different areas. Therefore in 1914 the first multiple choice tests arrived. Testers claimed that multiple choice tests evaluate individuals on their rate of learning rather then immediate knowledge. However, I think it is simply an opportunity for testers to evaluate individuals in a quicker fashion. Technology is rapidly making the nation increasingly lazy.

“Historians call the rise of testing an inevitable outgrowth of expanding technology. As goods and services are delivered with greater speed and in higher quantity and quality, education has been forced to pick up the pace.”

When thinking about the purpose of standardized testing, I often find myself wondering exactly when surface knowledge became more important then depth. I found that the SAT became the first big standardized test in the 1940s, and it has stuck with society ever sense, and even caused school districts to develop an array of standardized tests which students are now required to take.

“Many educators who value depth and rigor lament what followed. In 1926, the multiple-choice SAT was introduced as a much faster way of testing college applicants. On Dec. 7, 1941, several members of the board, during a previously scheduled lunch, decided that the outbreak of world war would require faster decisions and less leisurely testing. They eventually canceled the board’s old exam format. The SAT ruled.

Read Full Article

The (few) Benefits of Standardized Testing

If you have read my blog this far you’ll know that I am against standardized testing. However, every student has to take a few standardized tests at some point, and in some aspects, these tests can be very beneficial to students. While the ACT and SAT often earn students some very useful scholarships which can help them pay for a college which they normally would not be able to afford. The MEAP (in my opinion) is a much easier test. Students who pass the test were given up to $2,500 from the state of Michigan which could be used towards in-state college tuition. However, funding for the MEAP has been cut and is slowly being phased out. The three big tests for Michiganders include the MEAP, ACT and SAT. In my experience, the MEAP earned some money to help pay for my college. Because of this, it was the only test of the three which I found to be of any use. The ACT and SAT felt as though they were a waste of my money, but I needed the scores to get accepted into college. Which test is more useful? Which test is more difficult? According to an article found at Review Journal the SAT is a more difficult test, but it is also less often required then the ACT.

“The difference between what is being tested is often explained as, the SAT measures a students reasoning and aptitude whereas the ACT focuses more on the high school curriculum. ‘I recommend both because even though they test similar things some students do better on one than the other,’ Gilbert said. Most admissions offices take the higher score if the student has taken an exam multiple times. As for which is easiest, Gilbert said it depends on the individual. ‘Although the ACT has a science section, I still felt it was easier,’ said Las Vegas High senior Suzy Benito who has taken both the SAT and the ACT. There are differences in the way each test is set up. The SAT has no science reasoning portion whereas the ACT does. As the first admissions test, the SAT has been the most widely used test preferred by schools on the East and West coasts and the ACT was mainly required in the Midwest and southern states. However, now more and more colleges and universities are accepting either test, some requiring both.”

Money and financial benefits aside, the claim that these standardized tests are good interpreters of college accomplishment puzzles me. Analyzing scores on verbal sections of standardized tests seems as though it might not be a very accurate predictor of whether or not the student has decent verbal skills. What could be better way to test a student’s verbal skills then require him to write an essay?

“Often students have no idea what to expect or what the differences are between the two [ACT and SAT]. ‘Both are predictors of college success and rely heavily on math and verbal skills,’ said Las Vegas High School counselor John Gilbert. “The differences are more in the areas of the formatting and scoring system.”

Most of my college courses (especially those which pertain to my major) are discussion based courses. Memorization is a very small ingredient found within my courses because the basis of my studies regards interpretation.

Read Full Article