Classroom Communities

Many might doubt my reasons for using a pedagogy grounded in group work and student content creation as I am only teaching Nutrition. Why would any student need nutrition to be taught through a group process? They might say. For sure, anyone making a food choice has little to no reason to consult with someone else about their choice once they have made it. But as with most disciplines, the history of the decision is about as important as the decision itself. Before someone makes a decision whether about their food, politics, or money, they are in fact consulting an inner dialogue about their own values and beliefs about the impending choice. Now, if there choice is regarding a food and they don't think anything of nutrition, that reflects an absence of nutritional motives from their past. On the other hand though, you can find students who have had plenty of nutrition lessons, eating the worst kinds of foods. The point is that students are incorporating more than just your lessons of the value of nutrition into their decisions. There is a constant tempting of young people's attention in the marketplace. Through the immersion of values and beliefs of popularity, power, and sexiness into the marketplace, young people are convinced to buy all sorts of food products that will contribute little to their health.

It is the innovation and advertisement apparatus of the food industry that must be counteracted by student critical thought and action. Without a mind for their own demands they are totally vulnerable to a class of confusing food claims and vendors without a mind for a young persons best interests. Amidst a community of people not thinking of you, we need an outlet where we can care about ourselves and that which we put into ourselves. In a significant way I am building a community around the premise of critical thought, action, and reflection.

In the classroom, an educator can create a safe space for that same reflection again and again. Through such an engrossing and interactive process anxious ideas of nutrition are channeled into energy for the appropriate expression of culture, personal intellect, and creativity.

When all is said and done, I am working to create a critical community of young people. Through activities raising democratic dialogue and creativity, the students and I are progressing to a point where we care enough to talk at length about our hopes for the health of ourselves and our communities. If someone values their bodies enough and they value their community enough, they will fight to preserve and optimize it.