In the past few weeks I have come to the realization that my new supervisor will be actively reducing the influence nutrition educators have over their lesson formats and implementation. For this reason I have come to the decision to equip myself with as strong an argument for personal creative control over activity design and implementation. This new interest in understanding the informational content of USDA approved information and Penn State approved curriculum is necessitated because of the threat to my non-approved curriculum and activities. Their exists a growing conflict between my supervisor's educational theory (banking of approved content into the minds of students) and my educational theory. It is clear that my theory will not prove superior without a proper argument to be brought into conflict with my supervisor's.
These two points captures the implications of the food environment as it exists today and our role (as nutrition educators) in it:
It occurs to me that if we as educators are solely concerned with the memorization of certain facts and data points then why not just rely solely on the empowerment packets? Would this not do just as much good as educators riddling off approved nutrition facts?
How do we educate our children to take their place in the food environment of the 21st century? Given that we cannot change the strongest influences to their diets and health in the classrooms using USDA approved facts.
Can we connect nutrition to what students believe to be important about themselves? And if so, ought we focus on the connection as much or more than the USDA data points?
Finally, why do students care about our USDA data?
