Interchangable Beauty

December 3, 2011

$jaclynday: What I’ve Read: Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project: How One Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches —And How We Can Change Them! by Sarah Wu Sarah Wu, aka “Mrs. Q” (her anonymous blog pen name), has had quite a meteoric rise since launching her public school lunch program expose blog in 2010. A teacher in the Chicago school system, Wu decided to take matters into her own hands after seeing the types of lunches offered to the mostly underprivileged student population at her school. As she notes, the subsidized lunch may be the only meal some of the students have on a daily basis—and in that regard alone the nutritional value was found to be severely lacking. In an effort to shed further light on the problem, Wu began surreptitiously photographing each hot lunch every day for a year. As it happens, her project corresponded nicely with wider conversations happening about school lunches across the country. Mass media began approaching her for interviews, a book deal was signed and voila—you have this book and one teacher who is no longer anonymous. (I guess you earn some degree of safety for your teaching position when CNN is clamoring to get you on TV, although Wu has said that her coworkers have been exceptionally supportive of her blog and book.) After all that background, here’s the skinny on the book: it’s good. It’s well-researched. It’s interesting and page-turning. I didn’t put it down until I’d flipped the last page. It’s short enough to read in a few hours. It’s full of interesting facts and background tidbits about school lunches. The full-color photograph montage of her year of hot lunches was enough to turn my stomach. It’s put together well and Wu makes her case admirably. It’s hard to walk away from this book without feeling some compulsion to help make a change in the way students are fed at school. But, as Wu points out, hot lunch comes down to the same thing that everything else in the public school system does: budget and time. Fresh fruit spoils, canned fruit does not, etc. There is really no incentive for the schools to change their lunches except because of outside pressure and an intense spotlight on individual schools and their shortcomings. I personally never attended public schools, but having come from a family of teachers (literally—90% of the people in my family are in education), I am more or less aware of the hot lunch situations at their particular public schools. Although the schools I attended were served by the same food suppliers that also contracted with most public school systems (Sodexo, Aramark), the types of lunches I was able to purchase were far different from the ones Wu showcased in her book and on her blog. There are a few reasons for this. First, the private schools I attended were a fraction of the size of public schools. It was cheaper to feed a smaller group of students more nutritionally sound food because, duh—that makes sense. Second, students worked in the lunch room/cafeteria of the schools with a few adult supervisors to help prepare the meals so there were more (inexpensive) hands available to help prepare various dishes. Last, every school I attended served vegetarian options only which required more creativity in the offerings and also tended to keep things more healthy. For example, Wu points out how few public schools have salad bars, but at my school, a daily salad bar as necessary because it was a vital component of the meal in the same way a meat option would be in a public school hot lunch. So, as you’ve probably surmised, there’s really no fair way to compare my experiences with the average experience of a large metropolitan public school, except to conclude the private schools have the “advantage” of being more or less beholden to constituents in a way that public schools only experience at the hands of local, state and national government. That’s where this book, and the numerous other well-known school lunch campaigns (including the one led by Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program) play a vital role in getting changes enacted. It’s sad that things have to come to an expose-type level, but as we’ve seen more and more with public education, that may be the only way to move change through the red tape that surrounds the system. You can add hot lunches to the growing list of items currently being fought for or against because of public pressure and exposure: teacher compensation, standardized testing, lottery placement, state-wide academic requirements, etc. If you’re interested in learning more or want to help support various initiatives in your city or town, check out one of these organizations or campaigns. If you read the book, Wu also offers some helpful suggestions on getting involved with the cause and making positive changes at the local level. Have you read this book? What do you think of Wu’s project? What’s your personal experience with school hot lunch?$

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project: How One Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches —And How We Can Change Them! by Sarah Wu

Sarah Wu, aka “Mrs. Q” (her anonymous blog pen name), has had quite a meteoric rise since launching her public school lunch program expose blog in 2010. A teacher in the Chicago school system, Wu decided to take matters into her own hands after seeing the types of lunches offered to the mostly underprivileged student population at her school. As she notes, the subsidized lunch may be the only meal some of the students have on a daily basis—and in that regard alone the nutritional value was found to be severely lacking. In an effort to shed further light on the problem, Wu began surreptitiously photographing each hot lunch every day for a year. As it happens, her project corresponded nicely with wider conversations happening about school lunches across the country. Mass media began approaching her for interviews, a book deal was signed and voila—you have this book and one teacher who is no longer anonymous. (I guess you earn some degree of safety for your teaching position when CNN is clamoring to get you on TV, although Wu has said that her coworkers have been exceptionally supportive of her blog and book.)

After all that background, here’s the skinny on the book: it’s good. It’s well-researched. It’s interesting and page-turning. I didn’t put it down until I’d flipped the last page. It’s short enough to read in a few hours. It’s full of interesting facts and background tidbits about school lunches. The full-color photograph montage of her year of hot lunches was enough to turn my stomach. It’s put together well and Wu makes her case admirably. It’s hard to walk away from this book without feeling some compulsion to help make a change in the way students are fed at school.

But, as Wu points out, hot lunch comes down to the same thing that everything else in the public school system does: budget and time. Fresh fruit spoils, canned fruit does not, etc. There is really no incentive for the schools to change their lunches except because of outside pressure and an intense spotlight on individual schools and their shortcomings.

I personally never attended public schools, but having come from a family of teachers (literally—90% of the people in my family are in education), I am more or less aware of the hot lunch situations at their particular public schools. Although the schools I attended were served by the same food suppliers that also contracted with most public school systems (Sodexo, Aramark), the types of lunches I was able to purchase were far different from the ones Wu showcased in her book and on her blog. There are a few reasons for this. First, the private schools I attended were a fraction of the size of public schools. It was cheaper to feed a smaller group of students more nutritionally sound food because, duh—that makes sense. Second, students worked in the lunch room/cafeteria of the schools with a few adult supervisors to help prepare the meals so there were more (inexpensive) hands available to help prepare various dishes. Last, every school I attended served vegetarian options only which required more creativity in the offerings and also tended to keep things more healthy. For example, Wu points out how few public schools have salad bars, but at my school, a daily salad bar as necessary because it was a vital component of the meal in the same way a meat option would be in a public school hot lunch. So, as you’ve probably surmised, there’s really no fair way to compare my experiences with the average experience of a large metropolitan public school, except to conclude the private schools have the “advantage” of being more or less beholden to constituents in a way that public schools only experience at the hands of local, state and national government. That’s where this book, and the numerous other well-known school lunch campaigns (including the one led by Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program) play a vital role in getting changes enacted. It’s sad that things have to come to an expose-type level, but as we’ve seen more and more with public education, that may be the only way to move change through the red tape that surrounds the system. You can add hot lunches to the growing list of items currently being fought for or against because of public pressure and exposure: teacher compensation, standardized testing, lottery placement, state-wide academic requirements, etc.

If you’re interested in learning more or want to help support various initiatives in your city or town, check out one of these organizations or campaigns. If you read the book, Wu also offers some helpful suggestions on getting involved with the cause and making positive changes at the local level.

Have you read this book? What do you think of Wu’s project? What’s your personal experience with school hot lunch?