No Eating in Class!

How many of us have heard this one? I heard this on the first day of my Zoom meeting for one of my classes at the beginning of this pandemic. I was really excited to attend class through Zoom at home as I would have more time for doing things I enjoy and I could eat while in class. 2 minutes before class started, the professor saw me eating and messaged me privately that I better be done by the time class starts because she doesn't allow eating in class, otherwise I'd get marked absent for that day. I was horrified that while sitting on my bed in the comfort of my own home, my professor still thought they had control over what I was doing.

Hold up. Let me get this straight. I am in my own house and you are telling me I am not allowed to eat? Why the hell do you think you still have that power over me? I'm hungry and my response to that is I am going to eat. I turned my camera off until I was done eating. I don't understand what is so bad about people feeding and nourishing their bodies.

Why are we shutting down possibly the opportunity for students to eat and nourish their bodies because we as educators can't get over the power dynamic that we are in charge long enough to realize that children get hungry way faster than adults.

Not to mention, it not only intensifies the horror of experiences children may already be having around food. Food insecurity is a real problem all over the world and that is something that we as educators have the ability to help students with. Not allowing people to eat is an abuse of power and takes away a basic human right that is not allowed both in prison and school settings. Interesting how "blue collar" schools are more strict on this rule than in "alternative (higher class) schools". Why are our schools run like prisons and why do they set people up for a life of modernized slavery?

Children at home may be getting mixed messages about food and what is acceptable. Children can and do develop eating disorders from the confusion and food in their homes and in schools. As a person who grew up in a home where food was a source of friction, as were many things, it did not make me feel better when I went to school and not only wasn't allowed to eat when I was hungry, but also was then made fun of for the food I brought from home.

I have had the privilege of having experience in different classrooms and my favorite one was one in which the students were happy and learned how to interact with each other as equal human beings (a basic skill that is not widely taught in schools). It was wonderful to walk into a classroom where the children were taught as humans and were allowed to serve their own basic needs*. At the beginning of the year, each student was either given their own mug or were told to bring their own mug for tea, hot chocolate, water, juice, etc.. There was silverware, electric kettle, a toaster, a microwave, bowls, plates and a mini fridge full of food that students brought and the extra food from the cafeteria that would have been thrown out. This food were things like power bars, yogurt cups, fruit and occasionally some left over vegetables that weren't moldy or bad in any form but just would have been thrown out. This classroom had such a great atmosphere and the children knew that they were allowed to feed their bodies as often as they felt necessary and allowed to drink when they needed to. Why is this such a revolutionary idea?

For any teacher who doesn't allow students to eat during class I ask you, are you able to go all day without eating? If you were going to road-trip or go on a hike, would you bring food with you? Are you able to eat food when you get home?

*At the end of the year the district changed their policy to where teachers were not allowed to bring food to classrooms from home, students were not allowed to bring food to share, and the only food that was allowed in the classrooms were the high sugar, low nutrition options that the school provided. We used this as a writing lesson where the students crafted their own letters to the superintendent of the district (these are 2nd graders) about why having tea in class, or food in general, helped their learning. After this change there were a bunch of students whose daily food intake was cut in half by this mandate as school was their main source of food.