School lunch or Snickers? You decide

Oliver Brown, a student in the humanities magnet at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, writes:

In past years, students have watched in horror as their favorite fatty and sugary vices have slowly disappeared from school cafeterias and vending machines. The product of a school board decision imposed in 2004, LAUSD has proceeded to ban soft drinks, trans fat chips, and candy from lunchrooms, attempting to replace them with healthier, smarter options.

At left, students go through the lunch line at Hollywood High School.

This sudden absence of the essential, and by far most prevalent, adolescent drugs did not, however, deter teenagers; instead, it elicited an onslaught of rogue sugar dealers, myself included. Selling from dingy stairwells and dark, deserted hallways, I, alongside my fellow comrades in arms, pushed candy and confectionaries to the students of Hamilton High School: a dollar a doughnut, 50 cents for every crumpled, timeworn bag of hot Cheetos. As our tribe of underground dealers made hundreds in faded, one-dollar bills, school officials remained flummoxed at this new surge of scattered pink boxes and candy wrappers. A cold and calculated war began between these two opposing fronts.

While I watched soldiers falling to fines and two-day suspensions, our seemingly innocuous venture began to reveal itself as a far more insidious crime. Selling the very items I avoided in my own diet, I came to realize that I was peddling obesity to students who were often already overweight or unhealthy. After all, I had proselytized the teachings of “Supersize Me” to everyone I met, and sold Kit Kat bars while wearing my thrift-store “Go Veg” T-shirt.

However, my inner conflict was resolved when my own demise came in the form of a grand sting operation. Stealthily followed by security guards, a vice principal, and the dean of discipline, I was cornered, my product taken, and my parents promptly called.

It is from the hypocrisy of this arrest that I find myself angered and betrayed by the school system. While LAUSD flaunts its new “Cafeteria Improvement Motion,” an attempt to bring nutrition into public schools, we have truly achieved very little. Although the Domino's pizza has disappeared, it has been replaced by an equally unhealthy, and most definitely greasy, alternative. Researching for a school paper, I found that a startling 90% of all materials used in Hamilton lunches are either canned or frozen. Sufficient nutrition and health classes are lacking. As of now, LAUSD food is despairingly unhealthy, sadly under-portioned and, frankly, disgusting.

Until the administration sees fit to change this riddled and unsatisfactory system, Hamilton cannot deem that we, the individuals, with our backpacks stuffed with 99-cent Lays and gym bags filled with doughnuts, are the problem. When my school district truly turns towards healthy, organic and hormone-free alternatives, I will be perfectly happy to relinquish my well-crafted ruse.

Photo: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[teddi tindall]

A few things strike me about including graffiti as a class in school:

1) Assuming it would be an elective, in my opinion, it would rank lower than exercise or music.
2) Wouldn’t teaching graffiti be like teaching impressionism or cubism…a narrow view of art rather than approaching the field as a whole?
3) Is there a practical application for graffiti or a career path or is it a fad?
4) I don’t believe graffiti will ever be a respected art from as long as it is so closely linked with gangs and vandalism. Two local people have been killed as a result of graffiti and countless dollars (public and private) have been spent to remove it from property (also public and private).
6) Would it encourage more people to deface public property?
7) I hate that it is forced on me. I am willing to go somewhere to experience art; I don’t want to sit in freeway traffic being assaulted by such things as the defacement of the LA Marathon mural. I used to enjoy looking at it for people I “recognized.”

So I guess with these things to consider…no, I think teaching graffiti would be a waste of time and education dollars.

[Steve Wimer]

Teaching graffiti would at least be a subject of interest to lost students. By opening their "affective domain", such interest could be slowly transfered to teaching art. It's not like teenagers today are studying traditional subjects. A former colleague informs me 95% of his students refuse to do any classwork at all. This teacher is brilliant, teaches without a textbook, draws comics to draw students into history, and a Berkeley High school and University graduate. Imagine what these same students are doing in the classes of rookie teachers using traditional lesson plans!

[Ellen]

Hey Steve, you know what those students are doing with "rookie" teachers using "traditional lessons?" They are doing their work! Because 75% of my students do theirs. And God forbid, I do use a textbook some of the time! The horror! And I teach my students to answer essay prompts.

I'm so happy Berkeley is producing teachers with such high standards. Perhaps if he demanded something of them, they would perform.
Students who can't read a textbook will not survive even a vocational training program because they do use textbooks in those classes.

Don't insult students by assuming they are not interestede in anything that is not "cool." You would be surprised.

[taytay]

???????
this article istalking about food in schools,not grafitti...isnt it?