Unearthing issues at Heart--a Classroom Compromise

The unreported fact of the classroom is that students are not more engaged in classroom work because they are not asked to come forth with relevant cultural background to the issue. In other words, they are not being asked about what matters to them. In reaction to such disregard, students will not proscribe to the same morals and ethical codes authorities do. This inevitably leads to conflict. This conflict always results in a renegade class and wasted time. With this sense of disenfranchisement, the personal content of students, often confused for idleness, is squandered. Inviting that youth perspective into the classroom through engaging activities can produce thoughtfulness and significant discussion that has the potential to change attitudes.

Looking realistically at classrooms, I understand students assets to be the recollections of food experiences, so our goals must be to put them in a position to narrate and direct stories based on food events from their life. In order to make this connection, I invite students to use their collective imagination and judge nutrition issues. In this way we can connect experiences relevant to students to our prescribed nutrition content. Thus the classroom compromise consists of intertwining the cultural background of students with the intended content of the teacher.

If educators do not negotiate with students in the classroom about nutrition content, then the activities will not work. They will not work precisely because they marginalize student experience thereby relegating them to voicelessness. Naturally then, they claim their voice by resisting and misbehaving. Instead coupling the two, the teacher will simultaneously become a student of the experience and engender far more fruitful conversations than by just dictating lesson material. The compromise leads to an inclusive classroom, greater knowledge retention, and a cultural relevance extending beyond the school and into the world students know very well. A world we cannot reach unless we invite it into the classroom.