Hello all!
So, last week we talked a lot about storytelling (courtesy of Rachel) and this week we will ask you to use your storytelling skills to think back on your own narratives of learning about food in school. We have talked a lot about our personal narratives with food and farming, yet most of those stories have taken place outside of the classroom. This week we would like you guys to reflect on your own experiences learning about food, agriculture, and health in school. How early were you taught about these things? What things did the mainstream curriculum focus on? Knowing what you know now, do you think your education provided you with enough information on these important topics? These are the type of questions we want you to begin to consider.
When I think about food, agriculture, and health in education, I usually think about two different things: understanding where our food comes from and what it means to eat a healthy/balanced diet. When you look at our mainstream curriculum, think about these two things:
1. How good of a job is our curriculum doing in teaching students about agriculture?
2. And, how good of a job is our curriculum doing in teaching students about eating healthy?
As you can probably guess, our education system right now is not up to par. With the exception of a few unique school projects that really aim to teach kids everything they need to know about growing and eating healthy food, most public schools in the United States fail to offer children these important lessons.
The things I am going to have you look at for Thursday are all about this issue. The first thing I am going to ask you to read is an article. This article discusses K-12 Agricultural Education in the United States, and it really explains the history and development of today’s mainstream curriculum. It’s a 24 page PDF, but no worries, you don’t have to read all of it-- unless you want to. I would only like you to look at the first three sections (Introduction, History of K-12 Agricultural Education in the United States, and Current Structure of K-12 Food and Agricultural Education in the United States). You can stop when you get to the section about funding for these programs, on page 12 of 24.
Again, this is also about reflecting and thinking of your own personal narratives! So, after reading this article, ask yourself: how much did your education experience align with the current curriculum on food and agricultural, as talked about in this article? What was the same? What was different?
The second thing I would like you to watch is a TED talk by Jamie Oliver, titled, “Teach every child about food.” This video is slightly long, but I promise it has some really interesting information and it hits on some really important points. He focuses mainly on obesity in United States, and on how the education system is the main reason behind America’s obesity problem.
As I said, this video cover a lot of stuff. What do you think was the most important or surprising thing he mentioned? Was there anything in particular that stuck out to you in terms of food and education?
The last thing I want you to explore is this website. I mentioned before that there are a few unique schools and programs around the United States that are working hard to teach children what they need to know about food, and this is one good example. This is the link to the Maine School Garden Network, which is a local organization in Maine that aims to, as their mission statement says, “promote and support educational gardens for youth, and to encourage school programs which teach healthy eating and environmental stewardship.” I would like you guys to check out their website and just see what kind of work they are doing. Don’t spend too much time on this, just look around a bit and try to get an idea of what kind of programs can be established in communities like this one. http://www.msgn.org/
Some things to consider: the example I gave is from Maine, which is made up of mostly rural areas; how would something like this work in an urban environment?
Dejah’s Reflection-
For my reflection I will narrow in on my own narrative in regards to agriculture and food in education. I have vague memories from 4th and 5th grade about planting a few flowers outside of our classroom, and even vaguer memories about drawing farms in 1st grade. Like the earlier article touched on, most of my memories about farming were in science classes; we learned about photosynthesis- how plants eat, and about food production in middle school. As far as dietary education goes, I remember taking 6th and 7th grade health classes where we had a few lessons that explained what a healthy diet was. We also had one or two short cooking classes when we were in 8th grade. Those are my only memories that stand out at me when I think back at my early education.
I feel as though my education was definitely lacking, because now I am running into one major problem. I am living off-campus for the first time, having to cook for myself and buy my own food, and I am not being 100% successful. I know the basics of a healthy diet, but it is hard make sure I am getting all the nutrients I needs. Like Jamie Oliver mentioned, the new generation doesn’t know how to cook for themselves and eat a balanced meal each day.
Questions to reflect on-
I threw out a lot of questions in this blog post so by-no-means try and answer them all! There are only a few main things I want you to answer in your response. I would like you to talk about your own narrative with food in education, and give your opinion on the two main questions I posted:
1. How good of a job is our curriculum doing in teaching students about agriculture?
2. And, how good of a job is our curriculum doing in teaching students about eating healthy?
Consider this last question: Knowing what you know now, do you think your education provided you with enough information on these important topics?
Lastly: Do not put this in your comment, but think about and come to class with a list of the top three things you felt your education was lacking, in regards to food and education.
Thanks Dejah, for selecting our materials this week and outlining such an important topic. Your observation that our discussions have stayed away from our formal education is apt; I’m glad we’re getting a chance to talk about it.
ReplyDeleteI have such a hard time remembering school, which I think speaks volumes about how little time was spent discussing these topics. I can vaguely remember a science lesson where we planted seeds and left them to grow in various conditions. It was supposed to help us learn about what conditions were ideal when growing plants, when it came to things like amount of sunlight, amount of water, and soil condition. I know that in both middle school and high school, our mandatory Health class had a unit on nutrition, but I remember that these classes focused on extremely basic information, to the point where I didn’t actually learn anything. We talked about the process of plant growth in both middle school and high school Biology, in terms of explaining photosynthesis. When I was in high school, there was a Cooking class that might have discussed nutrition, but I didn’t take it.
My education would at times briefly touch on the processes of growing plants and on nutrition. However, these discussions were never grounded in important conversations about farming or agriculture as a larger system. All of our conversations were about more abstract processes, rather than the active role that human beings take in the production of food. Further, all of our conversations about these topics remained within the realm of what I would consider to be “common sense.” I wasn’t interested in these discussions, because I didn’t feel like I was learning anything. By glossing over these topics, school actually made me LESS interested in farming and food. I felt like there was nothing interesting to say about them, because I was so used to just being told the same things over and over.
Moving forward, I think we absolutely need to change how our education system talks about food and farming. Children need to know more about where the food they are eating comes from. I think that getting them involved in growing food and cooking will allow them and their families to make healthier decisions about what they eat. Some of the solutions that Jamie Oliver poses in his TED talk could make for potential steps towards changing our educational process. However, at the same time, I am very hesitant to employ the same frameworks that he did in his discussion. I had major issues with the way that Oliver was talking about health and obesity, to the point that I walked away wondering if he had done more harm than good in the community he visited. I was horrified by the way that he spoke about overweight children and their parents. I am a firm believer that successful, lasting health initiatives cannot stem from a culture that shames people for their bodies. If we want to help children, we need to focus on healthier diets and active lifestyles, not the number on the scale. Framing issues around the “the obesity problem” contributes to a culture that teaches us to either shame or pity people for their weight. (Weight, I might add, is a result of a number of factors, not just what food a person consumes!) Telling mothers that they’re killing their kids, or broadcasting images of overweight children (who cannot possibly have consented to this) to encourage the audience to think their lives are tragic, is incredibly inappropriate. It’s cruel and doesn’t actually do anything to make people healthier. Thus, while I found myself agreeing with a lot of the solutions Oliver posed, I also thought that in some ways he modeled how I think we should NOT approach education.
(Yikes, my post went over the character limit!)
DeleteI was super interested in this topic/how Oliver was approaching it. I ended up doing a little research online, and I stumbled across this article which takes another perspective on school lunches in the district that Oliver is talking about. Here’s the link if anyone is interested:
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/school-lunch/
(I’m sorry this is all so long – I didn’t realize this was going to provoke such a strong response from me! I enjoyed the Food and Agricultural Education report, as well as poking around on the Maine School Garden Network website. This collection of materials gave me so much to think about; thanks again for taking the time to gather them together and provide our framework for this week!)
The Huffington Post school lunch article is a great overview of the school lunch program--I learned a lot I didn't know! Thanks for sharing this!
DeleteSimilar to Rachel, it is pretty hard for me to remember specific moments in school where I learned about agriculture. I was required to take Earth Science and Biology classes in Middle School and High School but they were always conceptual and abstract and more about the theoretical process rather than the reality. I was a 4H kid (I rode horses growing up) so I am connected to agriculture in that way, but it was not at all connected to my school/academic career. Personally, I don’t think the public school curriculum in my hometown is doing all that great at teaching kids about food and eating healthy. As Sam said in one class, we also ate Bosco Sticks in my Middle and High School which are just about the least nutritious and most processed food I can imagine. It is usually considered something relegated to the private/home sphere and not connected to the academic.
ReplyDeleteHowever, on a brighter and more hopeful note, I have volunteered in the Woodward Garden for the past few springs and I think the work happening there through Fair Food Matters is really inspiring. Heather Crull, who manages the garden, incorporates classroom material into the garden and simultaneously teaches elementary school children about growing and eating food. It is a super cool program that takes place in an urban school that is made-up of a lot of children of color and a lot of children from a low socio-economic background and I've witnessed how successful it can be.
I feel like our educational system teaches us nothing about agricultural. Before this seminar I had no previous classes or teachings on food and farming. I think the only thing that came close was learning about the dust bowl in my history class back in high school. From the school that I came from the focus was on preparing students for college or at least for them to graduate high school so agricultural and farming were not even in the picture. We had classes such as nutrition and health but even those focus in on eating fruit and veggies and staying away from drugs or preventing pregnancy. I feel the knowledge that I have acquired about learning to eat healthy was on my own and my own self development.
ReplyDeleteTo reiterate what Rachel and Amy both said, I hardly remember any of these topics in school. I've mentioned before that when I became vegetarian in middle school I got a lot of questions about whether it was because of issues in the meat industry, but those were only informal conversations. I don't remember any formal lessons about where our food comes from. This feels wrong to me though- I spent part of elementary school in Austria where we learned about all kinds of wholesome things like knitting and hiking and I spent all of middle and high school in Indiana where there is a lot of farmland. I feel like there would have been some kind education about agriculture in both of these settings, but I have no memory of it. To me, this indicates that, if there was any school conversation about agriculture, it was not emphasized enough to be made memorable.
ReplyDeleteI do remember a little bit of education about healthy eating. I remember talking about healthy eating as early as 5th grade. We were given the food pyramid and it was explained to us that we should be eating certain amounts of each food type. At that age my parents were still providing me with all of my food though so I don't think it ever really stuck. In high school health class I remember talking about healthy eating again and probably in a little more depth. I still left high school with very little knowledge about how to put what I learned into practice. I also feel that education on healthy eating without any discussion about where our food comes from is missing a large part of the story.
Overall, I do not think our school systems are successfully educating school children about gardening and food education. Moreover, some schools may provide more educational experiences and curriculum related to food and gardening that other schools do not provide. Thus, making for an unequal and unfair advantage for some students in different schools or school districts than students in other schools or school districts. I think the best thing schools do is teach school children about the Food Pyramid as it is an introductory and brief introduction to the types of foods they should be eating throughout their life for a healthy diet.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of learning about agriculture, I did not receive education on the subject throughout anytime during my school career. I think that schools in the United States need to do a lot better in regards to teaching about agriculture, because it can eventually determine a child’s life health wise. I think there needs to be more programming on physical health in regards to exercise and nutrition. When growing up in a DC public school for elementary, I remember eating tons of sugar in the morning, such as sausage pancake corndogs and french toast. For lunch, we would consume “mystery meat,” fires and other processed foods. Eventually, I started to bring my own lunch. In middle school, my school prepared home prepared food, but the food was still unhealthy. I believe that more education for school boards would impact what kids are served.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own experience, I remembered teachers in schools always emphasized wasting food is bad. You are able to eat food because the farmers are working hard in farm. Wasting food is guilty. But no one talk deeply about it. As a result, I see many people still wasting food. My elementary school and middle school forbid students eat food outside in general unless you have the issue such as religion, vegetarian. Sometimes my school invited food experts to give a lecture to students. However, since it is not a official class. No matter how teachers said it is important but students always do not take care of it.
ReplyDeleteI am very lucky, my mother is a doctor for internal medicine. My mother has saw many patients with hypertension. She "trained" me how to eat healthy since my childhood. She is not a good chief but a healthy chief. Now, I always eat food tastes light. My mother banned me eat sugars and snacks. When I go out to eat together with my friends, they always be amazed of how can I survive in such light taste food. Without eat anything too salty, spicy and sweet. My experience in my family makes me be aware of the importance of eating healthy. Compared to other people, I think most of them learn it neither in school nor in family. It is a severe problem for education system.
The only food education I remember from my K-12 days happened in my 7th grade Home Economics class, where I learned to bake chocolate chip cookies and to deep fry vegetables!
ReplyDeleteI had a similar reaction to Jamie Oliver’s talk as Rachel did. I absolutely agree that we should be talking about the realities of dietary-caused illness and especially on how those illnesses affect children. I do think that we would be better off as a nation if we tended to the health and well-being of our children and that includes offering them food that will nurture their developing bodies and minds. And it includes helping them develop a healthy relationship with food and knowledge about how food affects them. Oliver’s focus on obesity as the primary marker of ill-health made me a little uncomfortable, though. I know that obesity is a significant health problem, but so is body shaming. (And mental health and physical health are intricately intertwined.) I wish he’d focused instead on some of the actual diet-related diseases, like diabetes or heart disease, rather than body size.
I read through the link that Rachel shared and was interested to find a connection between school lunches and the dairy buyout program that I told you my family considered taking in the mid-80s. It’s interesting to me how all of these issues are intertwined! The US govt. price supports encouraged dairy farmers to overproduce, so the govt. bought up surplus dairy products for school lunches, but that encouraged more overproduction so finally the govt. paid farmers to sell their cows, but that meant a surplus of beef on the market as the dairy cows were slaughtered, so the govt. bought up the surplus beef for school lunches. So school lunches weren’t driven by what was most nutritious for kids—it was about what commodity crop the govt. was trying to support through buying surplus and then dumping it in school lunch programs.
It seems to me that our educational system is doing a pretty poor job of teaching about agriculture and about food. When these subjects are taught, as some commenters have noted, they are taught in an abstract way, through information in textbooks rather than hands-on experience. And I think you just can’t fully understand food and farming unless you physically engage in some way. Which is why I think cultivating school garden programs in which students can participate in the whole food cycle from soil prep to planting to cultivating to harvest to eating to composting and back around again. Which is why I LOVE the Maine School Garden website! Someone needs to get a grant to make a site like that for Michigan!
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ReplyDeleteFor me, eating healthy is certainly an important thing people need to know. In one hand, we are whan we eat. In order to get healthy, we need to know how to balance the nutrition in our food. On the other hand, we also need to know the role of each nutrition, especially for people who want to get slim or grow muscle. My first knowledge of nutrition come from bio class in high school, and in the first-year seminar in this college, I learnt some theories about healthy diet. I think the seminar is very helpful, because it totally changed my mind. I was total to eat more carbohydrates and less meat and veggies form my childhood, but that class told me the new research found that it is healthier to eat more veggies and meat and less carbohydrates. However, as the impact of food should only be shown in long term, my body cannot tell which diet is healthier immediately. I was lucky, because before I got the knowledge of healthy diet (before high school), my food was passively offered in a healthy way. At school, all the food is prepared by school, which a healthy combination of two veggies, one meat, rice and soup, and at home, all the food is prepared by my housekeeper, which is almost the same combination at school (don’t know why). I am kind of worried about how whether other students are having a healthy diet, because these course about agriculture and diet are not required. For me, I would not know much about these topics if I did not choose the relevant course.
ReplyDeleteIn my educational experience, the school curriculum does a grave injustice to students in teaching them about agriculture. I was taught about agriculture as a difficult job-- one that isn't ideal or to reach for-- one that is barely honorable (which I now truly believe is). The agricultural system was never talked about in school, or methods of growing food, or even much awareness to the fact that we are consuming food that is grown somewhere (and most of it grown in large processing). This is just insane to me because food is a basic need for life, and it would make so much sense to be educated about the basic needs in school, right?
ReplyDelete2. Through the educational system, however, I have been educated a little bit more about health and diet. I remember in montesorri being conditioned to eat mostly fresh fruit and vegetables, but then in elementary school I feel as if I lost the knowledge of a healthy diet and how that affects me on a physical and mental level. In middle school, we were taught about diet in Foods class, but I do not believe that we were taught the right stuff-- the optimal stuff for health. I believe that the diet /health education is unfortunately inextricably linked to the propagated processing of food/unhealthy food choices, and therefore we are not given adequate nutrition information.
It was not until the past few years as I've done more independent research on nutrition/diet and the physical and mental affects that I have really been able to understand what a whole food, healthful diet is and been able to implement it like so after gaining the knowledge and coming out of the ignorance. Therefore, I am passionate about learning more and being able to share this information with the larger population through the educational system.
It seems as though very few of us can remember the way food or agriculture played into our primary educations and I assume that in and of itself is pretty telling. The first thing I thought of when presented with the idea of engaging with food in schools was getting to work in the cafeteria serving food to my peers in 4th and 5th grade. It wasn’t a critical engagement but noticing how all the food we were going to serve came out of boxes and the microwave was kind of a look at how food in schools was treated. I can also remember cooking with a health class in high school but I don’t know to what end, so it clearly wasn’t that impactful.
ReplyDeleteMost of what I learned in school about food was presented pretty passively and incompletely but there is one instance that I thought really did it right. In Oregon, every 6th grade student goes to an environmental science camp in the woods for one week out of the year. The camp is facilitated by professional adults and also high school students. I was a student leader throughout high school and something I thought they did really well at the camp was food. We didn’t necessarily eat ‘good’ food, it was more so the way food and meals were approached. We worked really hard to make sharing a meal communal and ceremonial in a way many students, who didn’t regularly sit down for family meals. had’t experienced. The camp tried to create a culture of joy and thankfulness and community around food in the week we were all there together and that felt meaningful and it’s something I’m grateful to have been a part of.
Education is an interesting can of worms for me because I moved so much growing up, transitioning between different educational systems. Korean public elementary school, private US-curriculum-based international school in China, and American university. I don’t remember much from Korea, but I do remember climbing over mountains (literal mountains - Korea is a very mountainous small peninsula where everything is smoothed together), raising silkworms for science projects, and eating really really really good meals. And I distinctively remember wondering where the US's “bad school food” stereotype came from because I basically had home-cooked meals for lunch everyday, made by the lunch ladies. Meals were well-balanced in nutrient as far as I remember - and eating “healthy” was definitely promoted. However, I think there were some vagueness and problematic (in retrospect) on what the defined as “healthy” - ie. body image, etc.
ReplyDeleteMy mom was very good about stocking up our bookshelves with books to read, and while she did “censor” certain materials (tangential topic), she allowed me to read books related to nature. Most of my agricultural knowledge, which was rather extensive for a little kid, came from there; however, I don’t remember my school promoting such readings.