Prayer in Schools

There are many instances of prayer being in public schools. From the Pledge of Allegiance to Friday night football pre-game rituals. Or if you grew up in mostly conservative, Northwest Iowa like me, as you ran to get in line for lunch at a public school, the teacher would ask the person in the front what prayer the class would like to recite today. My teacher taught us many, my personal favorite was Johnny Appleseed. Being in second grade I had no idea this was against the law. Looking back on my education, do I feel like praying before lunch or saying the Pledge of Allegiance hindered my learning? Not at all. But what if I practiced a religion other than Christianity?

I think I would have been confused and have an internal battle between what my teacher (the person I think knows all at that time in my life) teaches and my family teaches me.

The United States of America was founded on freedom of religion. Saying the Lord's Prayer before high school football games or Johnny Appleseed before school lunch is not representing freedom. Instead the time could be used for a moment of silence. One could pray, one could reflect, or in second grade, a child could think about how fast they were going to eat in order to get out for recess. It leaves the freedom up to the child without placing one's own religious beliefs upon the students.

Chocolate Milk contest

After hearing about the chocolate milk contest that happened at the community school I attended, at first I was proud that my school had won! When looking at all the details, it appeared to be a bad idea...

The school system had entered into a chocolate milk drinking contest against other schools in order to win $15,000 from the Midwest Dairy Association. This was a fun way to have the students participate in helping the school. The students were trying to see how many cartons of chocolate milk they could drink in about a month's time frame. Hearing about this contest, a couple of questions came to mind...

How does this become a bad idea? When I found out chocolate milk has just as much sugar as pop! Looking at the different figures including chocolate milk having 3 teaspoons of sugar per carton and each student averaging a little over 3 cartons per day is promoting unhealthy habits.

Since our society likes to blame somebody for effects, who is to blame for all this sugar in the schools?

If you look at the Dairy Association, they want to make money like everyone else. If it had been white milk, there would be some extreme milk drinkers that would get really into it and try a gallon challenge, but I don't think there would be 62,289 cartons drank at one school alone. Students like chocolate milk. The Dairy Association's role in this contest is to promote milk drinking so they can make money. In this sense, I don't blame them for the "unhealthy" use of chocolate milk. They are a business trying to make a profit and this was a very creative and successful way to do it.

So then does it come to the schools?

When reading the article about the chocolate milk promotion throughout the schools, I think the teachers did a good job of incorporating it into their curriculum through speech presentations, research about chocolate milk, and having the whole school participate. It also seemed that the school was unaware of the sugar or unhealthy milk they were promoting. They probably looked at the chocolate milk contest as a healthy alternative to pop or sugar juices. I am not a chocolate milk drinker, so I was not aware how much sugar was in chocolate milk. This could be the same for the administrators, lunch personal, or whoever agreed to the contest.

I think the problem lies in a bigger issue. We all stick up our noses at the school food because it doesn't taste good and it is not as nutritious as we would like. However, I think the schools are doing the best they can. They have a tight budget, as well. If the school is going to provide lunch/breakfast/snacks/etc., they have the responsibility to keep the meals healthy and nutritous. I believe it would be beneficial to have a nutritionist as part of the school staff. This person would be able to spend their time examining the menu, finding sources for nutritous food that can be prepared by the lunch/breakfast cooks, and could educate the school and students on what is healthy. This person could possibly serve as a health teacher as well. Then, maybe next time there will be a white milk drinking contest for the schools?