Yo! How did you manage to get suspended from the bus for two days, throw a graham cracker at the cafeteria lady, trash the classroom and have your parental unit come to school to take you home all by 10:15am? We've had some bad days in our classroom but this takes the cake. In case you are not aware you just read an idiom. And they say you can't teach and old dog new tricks.
Our cafeteria choices for breakfast remind me of one of my favorite adult beverage destinations in New York City. Located on East 7th Street in what I believe is the Bowery neighborhood is a place called McSorley's Old Ale House. McSorley's is the oldest Irish bar in NYC. On my first visit my daughter explained the beer choices. There are two she said either light or dark. Don't ask for a beer by brand name. Don't ask for a list of either craft beers or microbrews. You have two choices, light or dark. Ok, I got it. Barkeep I'll have a light. A short time passes and the barkeep returns with two mugs of light beer. Two? Hmmm! I take my daughter's advice and keep my mouth shut pay the man and head to our table. Sorry Dad I forgot to tell you that if you order a beer you get two because the mugs are small.
Like McSorley's our cafeteria has only two breakfast choices hot or cold. There is also a food rule that has consequences if you break it. At no time can you mix the two. If you chose one hot item in combination with a cold item you break the rule. You only have one option either hot or cold. There are a lot of things I like about our school but this cafeteria rule is not one of them.
Eighty nine percent of our scholars are eligible for free or reduced price meals. That is a pretty high percentage so scholars coming to school hungry because the didn't have breakfast at home is fairly common. We have two scholars EM and Jake LaMatta that even after eating breakfast at school are still hungry. If any of our five other scholars have uneaten food one of these two scholars will immediately ask for it. Jake LaMatta got a package of grapes from a scholar the other day. He rapidly ate the grapes and then proceeded to lick the inside of the package to get all the juice. When you see stuff like this you wonder why a scholar who selected a hot item plus a gram cracker would be told you can't have that graham cracker with the hot item so put it back. The scholar is hungry and the cafeteria personnel decide to enforce the stupid rule about hot and cold items is just dumb.
So you can get an idea on how dumb this rule is I'm going to walk you through the cafeteria breakfast tray line. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it there is no tray. In fact the scholars don't even eat breakfast in the cafeteria. They have to carry their selected food items in their hands to their classroom. Here is a sample breakfast menu. The hot item is a cinnamon Texas toast and the cold item is cereal and graham cracker. As you enter the tray line you see the drinks. There is milk in one section and juice in another. You can have one of each. No, you can't have two of one item and none of the other. That is against the rule. You also have to take one of each. If you don't take any that is against the rule. Next is the hot item which is held in a wax paper like container sealed in clear plastic. It is now decision time. Do you want the hot item or do you want the cold item. Remember it is against the rule to mix hot and cold. It is also against the rules to select none of the above. You have to choose one. Today you select the hot item and move on to the final stop where you pick up your spork, straw and napkin which is also wrapped in plastic. As you exit the tray line there is a table on your left hand side. Any food item that you were required to take but you don't want you can place on this table. So if you took the hot item and would like to have a graham cracker and one is on this table you can take it. Now you are happy as you have a hot item plus the graham cracker you were not allowed to touch twenty feet back in the tray line. It gets even better. If you are really hungry you can take anything you want from this discard table. Want a second juice or milk no problem. Want a second hot item no problem. Want a box of cereal with a graham cracker no problem. You can eat as much as you want from this table but you just can't eat what you want when passing through the tray line.
I had dinner recently with two good friends. They were passing through Indianapolis on their way to
see Dorothy and Toto in Kansas. One of my friends was a school principal and the other one was one of those hoity toity school superintendents. You know the type. Personal driver to transport him from school to school and an office that is the size of a tennis court. In hindsight I wished I'd asked them about their school tray line procedures. Oh well maybe the next time I see them we can discuss the matter.
By the way I informed them about my blog. I also hinted that the should be careful about what they say to an old man who has a view from the back of the room because it my end up in my blog.
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