Wednesday, April 20, 2011

What are schools thinking??

Just a little mini-rant here...

My kids have "Oven baked ham with pineapple sauce" for school lunch today. They both love ham. (Really, who doesn't?!) They're both buying their "Oven baked ham with pineapple sauce;" the slice of ham that comes with globs of gooey, supposed-to-be-but-not-really-sure-what-it-is pineapple sauce plopped on top of it.

And the mystery sauce isn't my problem. My problem is this:

How are they supposed to cut and eat the slice of ham?

Even if my Pre-Kindergartner or my first grader could successfully wield a knife to cut their food, knives are not allowed in school. Heck! I don't even know if they have actual forks anymore. I think that they're all "Sporks" now. I don't remember seeing any forks when I've been there. (Not that I was looking for them though.)

I'm sure that by now everyone's heard about the grade schooler who was expelled for his mother packing a plastic knife in his lunch bag. (Yes, school officials acted quickly on that one. They successfully disarmed the disgruntle 4th grader before he jumped up on the table, and yelled at his chicken patty, "I'll bleed you, M-effer!" And you thought suburban America was boring! (No, this child was not actually planning on doing that. He was actually just trying to eat his food. And no, this (surprisingly enough) didn't happen at our school.)

It's just, yanno, if you want these kids to eat their food, you want them to eat all of their food, well, just how do you supposed they're supposed to do that if you -quite literally don't give them the tools to do so? And then chastise them when they pick up their whole ham steak with their hands and eat it that way because they A.) Can't cut it, and B.) Can't pick it up with their spork.

Anyone else see anything wrong with this picture, or am I just moving on to PMS?

2 comments:

dannyscotland said...

Sigh. It seems like everyone is so intent on expelling and punishing kids who aren't doing anything wrong...

I think this is insane. I'd like to see them offer this same meal to the adults in the school and also not allow them to use a knife or real fork to eat it. Obviously someone was not using all four cylinders when thinking this through.

I am a teacher by profession but a stay at home mom by choice, so I have been through some wacky school stuff. All I can do is...SIGH.

Kristie said...

We have plastic knives in our school. Seriously, you don't? Do tell how the kidlets ate their food!!!!