I read a recent article on a drastic safety measure taken by a Rhode Island school. The school decided on having a "silent lunch" after three students choked during the noon hour. Now, thinking back to my internship and being a lunchroom supervisor I can see the reasoning behind this and understand that it probably cut down on the schools choking problem. This being said, I do feel that the noon hour should provide students with unstructured social time, which is a much needed part of any students academic life and that having a "silent lunch" may not be the wisest strategy to dealing with the problem. My questions to the strategy were 1. how will this be enforced? and 2. how will this affect classroom management after the noon hour? The article said that the school did not expect total silence, just enough to be safe, and that they would issue lunch detentions as a consequence. Unfortunately, I have no answers to my questions, but rest assured I will put this safety strategy right up there with "remove the slide but let them tobbaggan towards the street" strategy.
Here is a link to the article
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1 comment:
I pretty much agree with you, Jackie. I think there has to be some other way to enforce safety besides having the children eat silently. Personally, not only do I think this rule would be nearly impossible to enforce (wow would it be hard to be consistent), but I also can't see how taking away social time from the kids will help with classroom management outside of the lunch room. Good post and interesting article! :)
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