This summer we had the opportunity to participate in the Teachers College Reimagining Education: Teaching and Learning in Racially Diverse Schools Summer Institute 2018.
Through attending the plenary sessions and workshops, we learned different techniques educators are using to engage students. We discovered the unique challenges teachers face to capture students’ attention in an over-stimulated culture, as well as the importance of reflecting on our own experiences and how those experiences influence our professional practice. These sessions highlighted how teachers can turn missions of diversity and inclusivity into lesson plan activities and resources that recognize and appreciate individual learners.
Our workshop, Bringing Food Education and Food Justice to the Table, imagined schools where students learn about healthy eating in engaging ways that connect what they learn in the classroom to social justice, equity, and to a school cafeteria environment, and school community that supports healthy eating. Participants shared their school lunch experiences as both students and teachers, and realized that, “we can’t expect students to eat food they do not have a relationship with,” and that they should be thoughtful in how they talk about school lunch so as not to deter students from eating a nutritious meal they may need.
As students get ready to head back to school, we are thinking about ways we can be better partners to school educators, administrators, and staff for supporting healthy eating and food justice One of our workshop participants plans to learn the names of the school food staff when she returns to school. Here are a few other “Day 1” suggestions for back to school.
- Creating “lunch jobs” on a daily or weekly job chart: this might include a student writing the menu on the board, being the line leader for lunch and saying hello from the class to the lunch staff.
- Announcing the daily menu and salad bar items just before you have the students line up for lunch.
- Posting the lunch menu in the classroom.