At Willowbrook Elementary School (IA), kids have been instructed to eat lunch in silence, and Joanne Jacobs is not too happy about that:
Lunch period at Willowbrook Elementary School in Altoona was quiet enough Wednesday to hear the crunching of potato chips and the slurping of juice through tiny straws. In the background, classical music played.
The Southeast Polk school district is trying something new this year: silent lunch.
Principal Robin Norris said she and her faculty decided they needed to do something to curb the noise level and to encourage children to eat their entire lunch.
Three days into the school year, Norris said it's working - children are eating more and the staff is not dealing with discipline problems such as students calling names or talking inappropriately.
But parents and at least one education expert said the solution to rowdy lunch hour is extreme.
Joanne agrees: Parents protested, Drudge spread the word and the silent lunch policy was rescinded. These are small children, not Trappist monks.
I agree that this all-or-nothing policy is a bad idea. Kids often can't talk during class, at least not out of turn (in classes where teachers enforce classic discipline), and with many schools abolishing recess, lunch is the only time kids have to socialize.
So the trick is to let them socialize, but also teach them what a proper public noise level is without singling out anyone in particular for punishment. The "silent" method isn't going to do this, because kids are going to notice that people do talk in restaurants and diners, so they need to learn how to do that.
My nephew's elementary school came up with a novel way to do this. They bought a real traffic light (these look tiny hanging in the air, but are huge when you see them up close), installed it in the lunchroom to be within the view of every kid, and put someone in charge of it during lunchtime every day.
When it's green, all's okay. A yellow light is a warning to the kids that the noise level is getting too high. Red means everybody shut up for a moment and take a breather.
This method teaches kids that there IS such a thing as a non-silent proper noise level, and it teaches them the concept of go, slow down, and stop with traffic lights. What's more, it's not teachers singling out certain kids for too much noise, but a warning to all. I thought it was a cool concept, and the kids did too.
Posted by kswygert at August 22, 2003 11:34 AM