Lunch Break

The grade six counselor came into my classroom today for our monthly class meeting. It was an open meeting; we let the students make the agenda by listing a few things they'd like to talk about. The five classes had some overlapping agenda items, but the one item that made each and every class list had to do with the lunch menu.

According to the students the lunch menu stinks. They spoke of hamburgers with unidentifiable, pebble-like objects inside them and lasagna with mushy white stuff that felt funny on their tongue. There was also talk of chicken nuggets as hard as rocks and cartons of frozen milk.

When I was a student I was always jealous of those lucky kids that got to buy their lunch every day. I would sit with my brown bag lunch containing one PB and J and a Ring Ding wishing I could go through the line pushing a lunch tray along the metal counter top. Today I found out I wasn't missing much.

I ate school lunch one time, during my first year of teaching. I ended up with cold pizza that tasted more like ketchup spread on a piece of cardboard. I've packed my lunch ever since. Today I advised the students to do the same.