Tell it to these guys....
WHY?
Not trying to be a prude, but we had to eat on the floor sometimes back when I was in elementary school too.
I don't know why the author assumes that someone has to touch the floor in order to sit down. It's quite easy to sit down on any flat surface without touching it. It just takes a bit of practice.
Personally, I don't think anyone should have to eat on the floor, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal. After all, it's a public school, not a five star restaurant.
Kind of like a picnic, huh? ;-D
Why not get their lunches and take them back to the room?
This is just a stunt to raise more money from the taxpayers.
‘Yet in order for Mahwah High School to lengthen its teaching time, they opted to push all 1,000 students through a single, 43-minute lunch period.
‘”This allows teachers to go into greater depth in their discussions,” Superintendent Montesano said.’
I have a feeling they’re not going “in depth” into anything of substance. I have a feeling (oops, pun not intended) they’re interested in expanding time for all the feel-good pap and sexual learning.
I raised 4 kids - considering what and where teenagers eat when they are NOT in school, I don’t see anything wrong with this.
I can understand how you would certainly WANT to sit at a table to eat your LUNCH because it is irritating to try to cut food....or not tip over your milk with your foot...etc..etc..
BUT, it is funny to me that the kids would be indignant about the GERMS or CONTAMINANTS on the same floor where they CHOSE to sit all of the time!
AND....while there might not be enough room for all of them to sit at a table during lunch, there is CERTAINLY enough room during breaks and after school...and, even thought they COULD sit at the tables during these hours, they choose not to...
So...not saying that the school should be forcing this...just noting that kids (and parents) LOVE to have “a cause”.
Sometimes these causes are GOOD.
And sometimes, they are sorta silly...
It makes perfect sense to me. It’s a public school. They’re getting the students ready for when they’re homeless.
When it comes to schools and daycare centers, I am not sure that I buy the unsanitary argument. ALL the surfaces in schools and daycare centers in particular compose one gigantic petri dish. I am not sure I would want to go around swabbing surfaces as these parents did, I fear I would end up a germophobe like Howard Hughes and Howie Mandel.
Though likely not intended as such, this directive fits in perfectly with the “multicultural” role playing lesson plans that we are allowing to dominate public education.
Administrators might even get grants for school innovation and empathy for the poor if they couched their decision in those terms.
Just think of all the “cultures” that sit on the floor when they eat and use their fingers rather than utensils to get their meal into their mouths. Just think of the scene as “universalist,” “progressive,” “breaking bread with our third world brothers and sisters.”
Ok, I am not getting it. So what they tell the kids to sit on the floor to eat their lunch.
Have they never been camping, a picnic, to the beach? Really what is the big deal?
P.S. Just thinking back to my grade school days and we often had to sit on the floor in a classroom to watch a film. We would go to the gym for an assembly and had to sit on the floor. Now I didn’t like it because it was uncomfortable and it always cheesed me off that the teachers were sitting in chairs, but no one thought about it being unsanitary. I don’t ever remember washing my hands in school either—or being encouraged to do so.
Well...do they MAKE the kids WASH their hands BEFORE they eat? If not, what’s the problem? It’s not like they’re serving the lunch ON THE FLOOR.....they are just SITTING on the floor while they are eating their lunch.
My friend owns a restaurant in that town, and I can personally attest to the fact that the health inspector’s office there is quite efficient. I’m surprised the school got away with this for so long.
Boo Hoo... have to sit on the floor. Tell them to join the Army like me and you’ll be happy to eat in the rain and in the mud sometimes.