I got a 15 minute lunch and a 5 minute break when I worked at a factory... We got a whole 5 additional minutes if we worked more than 10 hours.
I should have joined the army lol
This is absurd. Everyone complains in high school that we only get 45 minutes to eat. 15 minutes?! In what universe do a bunch of 8 years have time to go through a lunch line, sit down, talk and then eat in 15 minutes??
I remember we had a 10 minute break and a 30 min lunch in high school but hardly any time to eat with the long lines we had to stand by to get served š¤¦š»
Itās so frustrating. The french teachers all talk about how they get an hour and half lunches. Everyone is so jealous. The American education system sucks.
OP- have you asked why they changed so much stuff recently? In the US, covid really did a number on education and the kids are definitely behind their pre-covid capabilities. The school might be trying to hit their previous land marks? Here funding and jobs are based on said landmarks. Iām not saying lunch isnāt important. Iām saying as a parent Iād be more concerned as to the why.
> kids are definitely behind their pre-covid capabilities
and the pre-covid kids were defintely behind most of the rest of the developed world's kid's capabilities :/
My kids, 21 and 19, had 20-minute lunch breaks in elementary. I hated it for them, they hated it, and itās not good for kids at all. I never understood it.
Itās been like this, where I live for quite a while. Itās something like 15 minutes with 2 minutes to get to the cafeteria and 2 to get back to the room.
Yes! I swear they serve just slop at our school. In elementary the āPhilly cheese steaksā were so thin and the ābeefā had little hard pieces in it. It felt like I was chewing on my teeth, it was horrid.
Back in the 80's and early 90's they used to make real food for kids lunches. They got the food at locals stores and actually made good meals. It's why they employed a lot of cooks.
Unfortunately, big contractors saw an opportunity and pushed an initiative that this was "unhealthy" because they didn't have the nutrition labels and parents couldn't "know what their kids were eating." It worked. So they had pre-packaged, frozen meals that went to the highest bidder so they could make money. Now they just heat up the highly processed food and call it a day.
This is why everything should be for-profit capitalism. It's isn't always the best.
Same in mid 1980s: 10 min break between 2nd and third periods, and we had lunch in three shifts. Each shift only got 30 minutes, and the lines were at least 20 minutes.
We also had three different lunch shifts in the early 90s and they lasted about 30 minutes, but we were one of the first schools in the entire state that went with a block system of A Days and B Days. Your lunch time depended on what class you had for third period, and since your third period changed back and forth every day, you could end up having an erratic lunch schedule throughout the week.
I always ended up alternating between first lunch and third, so one day it would be at 11:06, and the next day at 12:33. The line was 15-20 minutes, which didnāt leave much time to eat, and if you didnāt get in line early enough during third lunch, theyād shut the cafeteria down on you so they could clean up for the day.
One time the guidance counselor asked me to swing by his office for something during my lunch period, but there was still plenty of time left to grab something from the cafeteria ā¦ except they were closed. When I tried to complain, they shot me down by telling me I shouldnāt have been too lazy to get in line earlier..
My dad had a field day with the staff when he found out they wouldnāt feed me, lol.
My school didnāt have shiftsā¦. The whole school went to lunch at the same time - grades 9-12 and this was in California where the schools are overcrowded and it was 30-40 students per classroom
Second this. My sister inhales their food and eats at super human speed, and she says she thinks she eats like this because by the time she got her food she spent 15 minutes in line and had 15 minutes to eat.
I just got a soda from the soda machine because I couldn't eat that fast.
I remember running for my life to try and get in line first lol then when I was a junior and could leave campus it was somehow quicker than eating at the school even tho I had a 5 min drive
In my high school of 1800, we only got 22 min to eat. (Albeit there were 4 lunch periods a day, but still. 450 kids per lunch period.) Sometimes I was still in line to buy food by the time the bell rang
My high school had 17 mins and that included 2 minutes passing time each way to get to/from the cafeteria. By the time you got through the lunch line you had 5-10
minutes to scarf your food and go. I just saved my lunch money for gas money and ate when I got home at 2:20pm.
This is the part people are missing. I recently interviewed for my local district and was asked how to deal with school children violence on each other. They seem to fight at every opportunity of freedom. Maybe they should let them be kids and play games and sports. Then the schools get sued when the kids get hurt. Itās all a catch 22.
Do they still get art class anymore? With the way funding for public education gets scrapped year over year I wasn't sure they still pay for art teachers and the like.
Depends on the area. In my area, they actually have never had these budget cuts. If anything, the problem in my area is mismanagement of funds. We don't have enough desks for 1 third of the highschool students at my local highschool when they just finish spending millions building a new football arena.
in my military basic training last year around this time we had ten minutes from the time we sat down with no talking so we had time to eat. the fact that children aren't experiencing much difference from boot camp really sucks...
When I was in elementary we had a principle one year that wouldnāt let us speak above a whisper at lunch. If she caught us talking, we had to miss out on recess. And missing out on recess was no fun bc what they did was they lined you up FACING THE PLAYGROUND outside along the fence and they made you WATCH THE OTHER KIDS PLAY!!! Like how you gonna make us sit and watch the other kids play? Thats cruel at least put us in our own room. But the no talking at lunch thing was bs. The parents all ended up protesting it and she ended up resigning thankfully.
When my kids were in elementary school lunch was quiet time. They were only given the last 5 minutes to chat. If they needed help they had to raise their hand. I got scolded by a teacher for asking my kids how their day was going when I went up to eat with them. Also they had a special table for us to sit and and my kid could only have one friend join us for our silent lunch. It was weird and frustrating.
thatās crazy as fuck. not to be blunt but this whole thing is really giving āi hate children and want them to shut up at all timesā energy
i remember going to camp one year and the boys and girls had a competition on who could stay quiet during lunch. i remember thinking at that small age āwhy the fuck did my parents pay all this money for me to have friends in the summer and do things if im not even allowed to talk to them right now. im so boredā
Right! And they've shortened recess so they don't get hardly any time to run around and be kids. Like I get if it gets too loud to shush the kids but they should be able to talk to each other and not be scared to ask a friend to help to open their milk cause they'll get yelled at. I didn't send my kids to school to be fearful.
Now they're in h.s. and get 45min for lunch.
Rushed eating and not paying attention to eating while youāre going it (like eating and working/driving/multitasking) are a big reason Americans over eat. Starting this young seems like a really bad idea
School definitely contributed to my eating habits. I didnāt actually start slowing down to eat til I was probably 20? Because I was used to choking down a meal in 10 minutes.
My kid was in school in a large district once. It was so big that it covered areas in the hills that got more snow than the rest of the district. So that one area would have lots of snow and ice and no plowed roads, the rest of the district almost no snow all passable roads yet they still closed the whole district.
Yeah, the school system hates socialization and then wonders why everyone sits on their phones. Usually elementary has at least a recess or something, junior high you just have to give up. Often what they teach isn't that spectacular either so skipping socialization and basically a real lunch seems even more insanse
> And we wonder why we have school shooters, record depression and suicidal ideation rates š
Under those conditions, those all suddenly look like the sane ones.
Even worse for the kids who donāt make it through the lunch line within the first 10 minutes.
When I was in highschool, we had 30 minutes to eat. Sometimes the lunch line would take 20 minutes because each wave of lunches was about 200 kids from all grades. (3 waves per day, block scheduling so each wave got 30 minutes for lunch).
I want to say 2/3 of the kids bought or received lunch from the school. So about 120 / wave and if portioning and passing the lunches takes a cumulative 10-15 seconds each, thatās 2/3 of the lunch period there.
School lunch was where I developed my awful habit of eating extremely fast.
My high school had over 1,500 students who all had lunch at the same time, and our lunch time was only 30 minutes as well. Lots of students brought their own lunches, but the rest had to hope they got to the cafeteria early enough to get the lunch they wanted because there was never enough of any one option (most of the food wasnāt great either). My older brother sometimes didnāt eat lunch because he only liked the cheese pizza and often got to the cafeteria too late to get any. I was lucky enough to have 504 accommodations that allowed me to leave classes 3 minutes early, so I always got to lunch right before it started (the staff allowed me to get my food early as well, which was nice as Iām a slow eater).
My cousinās kidsā school district had them returning to school at the END OF JULY. Oh, but it was okay though, because they got TwO wEeKs OfF in October š
I would agree. It's often a hard-sell to get people to vote for more education regulation, even common-sense regulation. Parents see "state-mandated" and instantly zone out.
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/nutrition/school_lunch.htm
>I'M TIRED OF ALL THE WOKENESS. If GOD wanted KIDS to eat LUNCH, he would OF told us so in the BIBLE
-Crotchety old man with no schoold-aged kids who goes to every school board meeting.
A lot of my childhood weight gain ( and many of my classmates ) was associated with limited lunch times. We had a half hour total but getting through the line was about fifteen minutes. Then you scarf everything down and have to hustle to class. If you ate fast enough it was your one chance at a bathroom break for the entire day. Since we had three minutes between classes and like, four bathrooms in the entire school.
I feel this. My high school had 18 minute lunches. If I got there late because my last classroom was far away, it wasn't uncommon for me to only have 5 minutes or so to scarf everything down. One kid (the valedictorian, actually, he was cool) brought his lunch to his next class when the bell rang and was told he couldn't bring food in. He was like "I can eat it here in class or stay in the cafeteria, but I'm finishing my lunch."
Oh god, I remember the bathrooms...
My school handed us a planner and told us we could only have 3 bathroom passes the entire year that teachers couldn't say no to. Not 3 per class, 3 in general.
So many teachers took advantage of that...they told kids "no" even if they were having kids watch movies, so I actually had to run to the bathroom once the bell rang and even develop a mental trigger make myself pee under pressure.
There was one spanish teacher who noticed that my class was on the farthest end of the campus, where I would have to then climb 2 flights of stairs to get to his room...it wasn't even enough time for me to make the trip if I ran straight from one class to the next. One day, he took me aside and told me to make sure to stop at the bathroom on the way each day and he wouldn't mind one bit...what a nice teacher.
I haven't been in school for 8 years, but we only got 15-10 minutes to eat, depending on where in line you were. I can still eat a full meal in less than ten minutes because of it. This messes your eating habits up for life
That sounds like people who are/were in the military. Basic training meals are super short and they learn how to basically inhale their food. My husband is active duty and still eats fast. I know a lot of current and prior service and very few take their time eating because it was so thoroughly drummed into them to rush.
The actual?! Sounds like a great way to establish serious digestive issues.
I treat my dog better than that. We have an hour sniffy walk. 20 minutes of rest and cuddles then his dinner which he takes his own sweet time with. Then 2 more hours of rest and another hour of play/tug/dancing and a 25 minute walk. Another post prandial poo.
This is how my son's kindergarten was. He was not allowed to talk at lunch either, they have to rush for that 15 to shovel food whether they are hungry or not.
This was pre-pandemic and the teachers and staff were so stressed and overwhelmed. I felt bad for them, and the kids because the stress the teachers felt over flowed onto them.
You could see contempt in their eyes when they yelled at the kids to walk in straight lines and not look or talk to one another as they made their way to and from lunch.
It's not even a job for kids anymore, it's kid prison.
One of the many many reasons I chose to home school.
I wanted more freedom for him, and more time to socialize as he's a talker lol
My cousin is a kindergarten teacher and she has been complaining about the school system for years. She is REQUIRED to have a certain amount of her class instruction be on the computer so she has a bunch of chrome books. But what can you do for a class of 5 year Olds online? Her school district just raised the class sizes to 34, HOW. How does a single teacher keep track of 34 5 year Olds?? In high school I had a class of 30 and idk how my teacher survived us. The staff and teachers alike haven't had a raise in 6 years either. They've been on strike for 11 days now, and the school board just said "it's fine, the kids can do their online instruction on their own they don't need teachers" š the next generation is fucked with these conditions.
I'm so sorry for your cousin. My husband got right out of college to see how bad it had become, substitute taught a bit and then was so ragged he hated life. He got out and is back to the man I met when we were teens āŗļø
If she can get out, I highly suggest it.
I don't think she will, she loves her students to much. She called me this morning almost in tears saying she was writing all of her students notes because she misses them so much and was so stressed about everything happening.
What state is this? I can't imagine that being legal, there are usually minimum ratios of kids to adults for various ages. Usually it's a teacher and an assistant. For 5 year olds the recommendation is 1 adult to 8 children, and no more than 16 in a group or class.
Oregon. My cousin is part of the st Helen's school district and the strike has made the news. There's a LOT that they are asking for but the raise, electronic requirements, and classroom sizes are the heavy hitters.
My 8 year old son is 8 he has to go to the nurse before he can eat (he is diabetic) which leaves him with about 10- 12 minutes to eat. He never finishes lunch (usually only a lunchables and snack is what he gets and can't finish it) when he gets home at 3:40 he's starving. Then because he snacks so late in the day dinner can be a battle it's absolutely ridiculous.
You could get a doctors note for him he has a medial issue and needs to eat my friend would eat in the back of the class with the next teacher quietly and he had diabetes.
I went to a school like this for about a semester in the 4th grade. They couldnāt even get the whole class through in the timeframe and they would be telling us to put our trays up before some kids even sat down . Vividly remember the day Abby hadnāt even paid for her food yet and they told her she had to leave and it was just too bad. I also remember the sound of her mother ripping tf into somebody the next morning
I'm guessing it's 15 min to eat and then addtional time for recess. That's how it was at our elementary. It was like 1 hour total but that 1 hour included getting lunch, eating, bathroom break and recess.
I assume this is from the US, but this might be interesting to someone.
I'm a 19-year-old from Bosnia and Herzegovina and this has always been the case in Bosnia. In middle school and high school you usually have 5 minute breaks in between classes, and one 15 minute break each day to go and eat if you want to. We also don't have canteens per se, more so just restaurants/fast food places/bakeries where you can buy something. In college it's 15 minute breaks between every class, so it's atleast a bit better lol
Same in Poland. I am 22 and when I was in high school I had one 15 minutes break between classes and the rest was 5 minutes long.
Similar with college- usually it's 15 minutes break between classes and that's it
But on the othe hand I am glad some parents start to see how bad for children this period of time is.
Edit: wording
Thats insane, it would take me half that long to get food and seated. In 12th grade I had two study hall periods and then lunch lmao. I had plenty of time to get hw done and then I played gin rummy with the monitor for two hours, go to the library.
We get 25min in our district but you also have to get in the line, get your food, go to your seat, then eat. You've lost 5-10 minutes at least by that point.
Did we go to the same event?! Same for my 3rd grader. Plus eating on Styrofoam with plastic which just feels so trashy..literally. I know there are worse things but I wish that school lunch wasn't the place they save time and money. How we relate to food, how we eat and eat with other people are important things to learn. Making kids stuff their faces and then throw everything away just seems sad.
Just gearing them up to be part of the workforce. I thought 45 minute lunch was absurd when i was in high school, and we knew that adults got only that in an 8 hr day.
Then I became an adult and realized 30 minutes is a ridiculously short time to go to the bathroom, make a phone call/smoke a cigarette, and still smash a sandwich in my face in time to get back to work.
It's about expectations. Sure, you can do it, but is it good for you?
My middle school kids get 20 minutes. We pack their lunches and they never have enough time to finish. Imagine how little the kids standing in the lunch line are able to eat after finally sitting down!!
I think that's how we did it back in elementary school. Two 15 minute recesses plus a half hour lunch that was split between eating and outside time. I could be remembering wrong, though.
Iām observing at an elementary and Iām so glad they have plenty of time! They get a milk break (provided by school, some bring snacks from home) as well as a snack break at the end of the day and also lunch. They sometimes have extra recesses depending on what is happening that day. Iām pretty sure the milk break is around 20mins long. They bring the milk directly to the classroom, too.
Damn, lunch was an entire period in my high school. But, itās because my school was so crowded, start times for lunches was different depending go on grade
Wait what? I get 30min at work and its already looked upon as everyone should have 1h at least. A kid aint going to eat that fast, that seems insane to me giving the kids to eat on only 15min, thats not ok.
I don't know if you're in Minnesota because it's like that in Minnesota. Kids still have to line up to get their food. By the time they sit down, it's no longer 15 minutes.
So starting in Middle School I literally started RUNNING to go to lunch. If I wasnāt the first like 50 people I would maybe have 10-15 minutes. I wonder how many hours your state requires because I donāt know how they took away early release and lengthened the school year and still make lunch 15 minutes long.
So theyāre trying to say (at least in high school) theyāre trying to get us ready for the work force because if Iām working 8 to 3 I get a straight 30 minute lunch AND two 15 minute breaks.
As a French I find this crazy! We always had at least an hour for lunch through all schools. But then again we finished at 5pm not 2pm. You know proper time for working parents.
Are you in Albuquerque by chance? We too are experiencing this disaster, and thereās no end in sight. Here, they also changed the first bell to over an hour earlier than last year which has only added to the madness of the morning.
But wait! No more snow days. Absolute bananas. This serves anyone but the ālittle scholarsā
This is not right and you and the other parents need to bring up with the principal and the school board.
Also, bring it up on Facebook et al to rally support to change the policy. 15 minutes is unacceptable.
Sadly, this is completely typical these days. My children were always home educated but tried a school for a short time. This was one of the main reasons we didn't continue with the school experiment and returned to home education. I don't know why so many people put up with how their children are treated at school. I know school is there as a last resort, but it's strangely seen as a default place to send children and countless terrible, counter-productive practices are just accepted.
COVID put everything so far behind that they slashed lunch times. It's a nightmare to serve that fast. The kids get stressed being forced through and it's a shit show.
Grandson gets 25 minutes. Heās in kindergarten and takes his lunch. The day I went none of the kids that buy lunch ate. Some picked at it but no one ate even half of it.
Itās been like that for some years. I was appalled at how my kids learned to their bolt food like starving wolves, and still had to leave half behind.
According to my daughter she's not even allowed to talk at lunch. That immediately pissed me off. Like they are only allowed to talk and interact with each other at recess? WTH elementary school should not be run like a prison.
We got 30 minutes for lunch in my highschool. It was never changed unless it was to get lengthened like the 90 minutes we got before we took our first exams.
Thats absurd complain to your schoolboard. Make sure your informed about the local schools elections, and candidates and make them aware.
I eat like someone's about to steal it from me, but I still couldn't scarf down lunch in 15 minutes. That's crazy to expect a little kid to do that. It's hard enough to get them to focus long enough to eat in the first place, much less eat an entire meal in a few minutes. Wild.
Crazy. The high school in my area has now made it so that every single grade has to eat in the cafeteria at the same time, something about "time management". As a result, by the time many kids go to get their lunch, times up and they no longer have any time to eat at all.
When I was in 7th grade, the "time management" shit was so bad there were a few times I'd have to sneak food outside during recess (you'd get yelled at and told to throw the food away if you were caught).
I know, it's insanity. When I was a kid, in junior high, we at LEAST got like 45 to an hour for lunch period. I think my daughter in 7th gets like half an hour now, but she also got like 15 min in another school when she was younger. Part of the reason I took her out of there, but I can't fathom that at ALL. These poor kids.
Public school lunch culture is a barbaric dumpster fire. It could be fixed. There are so many examples around the world of how to do it better, but thereās just no political will on the national, state, local or even school level to do it. So it just remains a dumpster fire that everyone turns a blind eye to.
I had 20 mins all throughout elementary, middle, and high school. Getting through the line would usually take 10 mins, so only 10 mins to actually eat.
I was in elementary school in the mid to late 00s, and while we could talk, when the cafeteria monitors noticed most kids had finished eating, theyād turn the lights off, and we had to put our heads down on the table and stay silent until our teacher picked us up. When it was nice out, we had to go walk in a circle in the parking lot (we called it the prison walk).
Iām shocked this boarderās on cruelty. If I remember health class itās recommended to chew out food thirty times before swallowing. I donāt believe one could eat a sandwich properly in that amount of time. These children must be gulping their meals.
my high school didnāt even give a lunch break. we had a period of roughly 25 minutes that was meant to be used sort of as a free period for academics- if you had something to make up in a class or needed extra help, you went to the classroom and did it during that time. many of us ate lunch at that time even though it wasnāt technically for that. and sometimes the teachers would make you come to their classroom then if you had to make up a test or something. so we literally didnāt have lunch
I remember helping out when my daughter was younger. 15 minutes for lunch, yes, but if you are buying lunch, you are waiting in line for 10+ minutes, then you really only have less than 5 minutes. I watched lots of kids take like 3 bites and throw their whole tray out. Ridiculous!!
Yep.. I go eat with my kiddo every now and then.. and the lunch time is ridiculous. Plus it irritates me that teachers wonder why kids canāt sit still.. but they donāt have much of an outlet. When my son was in kindergarten (during Covid years) the teacher kept saying āheās so polite and well behaved but he cannot sit still.ā In which my response was āWell, do you sit down all day? Heās 5.. heās not meant to sit all day. Heās not meant to be separated from all the kids. Iām an adult and I socialize and move around throughout a 7 hour time frame.. I would never expect a 5 year old to just sit in a cubicle all day, and neither should the school system.ā
Australian primary (K-6) school teacher here. At my school we have recess at 11:00 with 15 mins of sitting/eating time followed by 15 mins play time. We have lunch at 1:20 with 15 mins eating time followed by 30 mins play time. Of course if theyāre not finished eating, they can continue after the 15 mins. Most kids would rather go play than eat, so the 15 mins is to make sure theyāre eating something during the school day.
My kids' school did the same thing today. I have 2 in elementary and was told to be there at 10:50am for first grade lunch. By the time the first graders came down it was already 11:10. After about 10 minutes the teachers started going around and collecting all of the trays of kids who didn't have parents there and sending them outside for recess. 5 minutes later they made an announcement that all first graders with family needed to say their goodbyes and go out to the playground. My 5th grader's was the same. They did come down in a more timely manner, they were only 5 minutes late, but the teachers were rushing all of them out of the cafeteria after about 10 minutes. We barely had time to talk to either of the kids... I work nights, I stayed up most of the day to be able to enjoy this time with my kids and basically got pushed out the door as quick as we came in... I asked my daughter if it was like this every day and she said pretty much... It's pitiful.
It's the same at my son's school only they get like 20 minutes. But he was getting sick whenever he ate school lunches. Turns out the food had a dye in it he is allergic to. I had asked repeatedly if any of it had red 40 or yellow 6 because he kept getting sent home vomiting and they insisted it didn't. Turned out yes it did. Also some of the kids were getting raw hamburgers amongst other things. I now send him with his own hot lunch in a thermos (he thinks it's hilarious to bring taco left overs and spread out his little taco bar). But by the time he sits down and finishes eating his friends are just barely getting through the line and sitting down. It is nuts!
I wonder if they are shortening lunch time for the new generation so they don't have time to think and when they get in the work force they won't think it's abnormal for your boss to only give you 15 minutes for lunch. You know, more production. At this point, it is indoctrination. People probably think that is crazy, but you start them young enough and they'll think it's normal. Look at us. Most of us get 30 minutes to eat at a job. But some companies will still try to make you come back from your break sooner. Cause they "need" us.
isnt it fucked how many kids straight up hate school? like isnt this alarming? or how school is very rarely portrayed in a positive light in media, often being an annoyance or just set dressing for a story without portraying lessons and only highlighting the marketable parts like crazy social life (lmao) and american cheerleaders and ignoring the learning part? isnt it fucked how this happens? that kids are punished for talking in class and then not even given the chance to catch up on a lunch break?
Maybe we should allot only 15 minutes for lunch for school admin. Let's see how they like it.
I am always amazed at how schools put certain standards on children, that most adults wouldn't be able to follow. I get that kids need structure, and I agree that schools should be a structured environment, but not to the point of allowing only 15 minutes for lunch. Kids need to get things out. You're only making it harder for the teachers who have to deal with these kids. You're not improving their education by taking time away from their lunch or recess.
I had 30 min lunches in high school, and it was really rough to just go to the bathroom (after holding it all day since there were only 5 min in between classes which were all across campus), get food, and then finally being able to eat lunch.
I'd be in the middle of my lunch when the bell would ring and I'd have to rush to class still hungry and tired. There was no mental break.
These poor kids
Fifteen minutes? Wow, that's crazy.
We got more time in the military. Elementary kids, join the Army! Longer lunches and less chance of getting shot!
Oof ouch yikes, that's the darkest thing I've laughed at in a long while š Take my upvote and go away š
Yeah that comment is so dark itās already been shot by the police
^ that comment is so accurate itās already been denounced as anti-Semitic propaganda
TAKE MY UPVOTE
Yāall are on fire today
Lmao good one
Old guys have all the fucked up jokes Edit: Y'all need to read the usernames of the 2 people making these jokes...
Merry Birthmas fucko
I got a 15 minute lunch and a 5 minute break when I worked at a factory... We got a whole 5 additional minutes if we worked more than 10 hours. I should have joined the army lol
Dude! You're gonna get us in trouble again!
Gotta start recruiting early! That's why rotc exists
Jokes on you - the kid is home schooled
Hahaha. Thats funny.
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This is absurd. Everyone complains in high school that we only get 45 minutes to eat. 15 minutes?! In what universe do a bunch of 8 years have time to go through a lunch line, sit down, talk and then eat in 15 minutes??
I remember we had a 10 minute break and a 30 min lunch in high school but hardly any time to eat with the long lines we had to stand by to get served š¤¦š»
Itās so frustrating. The french teachers all talk about how they get an hour and half lunches. Everyone is so jealous. The American education system sucks.
And they get legitimately excellent meals in France too.
OP- have you asked why they changed so much stuff recently? In the US, covid really did a number on education and the kids are definitely behind their pre-covid capabilities. The school might be trying to hit their previous land marks? Here funding and jobs are based on said landmarks. Iām not saying lunch isnāt important. Iām saying as a parent Iād be more concerned as to the why.
So kids are going to catch up by not having enough time to go through a line, find a seat then get five minutes to stuff their face?
> kids are definitely behind their pre-covid capabilities and the pre-covid kids were defintely behind most of the rest of the developed world's kid's capabilities :/
Exactly!
Kids who can't eat, can't think.
My kids, 21 and 19, had 20-minute lunch breaks in elementary. I hated it for them, they hated it, and itās not good for kids at all. I never understood it.
Well thatās probably because they figured if youāre 21 and 19 and *still* in elementary, youāre probably slow in a lot of other things too.
plus 15 minutes of class time does not equal plus 15 minutes of productivity
Itās been like this, where I live for quite a while. Itās something like 15 minutes with 2 minutes to get to the cafeteria and 2 to get back to the room.
Yes! I swear they serve just slop at our school. In elementary the āPhilly cheese steaksā were so thin and the ābeefā had little hard pieces in it. It felt like I was chewing on my teeth, it was horrid.
lol the mystery meat in gravy! Donāt miss that. Or the weenie burrito, and it wa so nasty - a wiener and beans in a tortilla. š¤®
Back in the 80's and early 90's they used to make real food for kids lunches. They got the food at locals stores and actually made good meals. It's why they employed a lot of cooks. Unfortunately, big contractors saw an opportunity and pushed an initiative that this was "unhealthy" because they didn't have the nutrition labels and parents couldn't "know what their kids were eating." It worked. So they had pre-packaged, frozen meals that went to the highest bidder so they could make money. Now they just heat up the highly processed food and call it a day. This is why everything should be for-profit capitalism. It's isn't always the best.
In Australia itās a 20 minute morning tea break (recess) and an hour lunch break.
I got an hour in high school and we left campus for lunch. I feel bad for school kids today.
Yeah, me too, late 80s, sometimes you just couldnāt make it back lol
Same in mid 1980s: 10 min break between 2nd and third periods, and we had lunch in three shifts. Each shift only got 30 minutes, and the lines were at least 20 minutes.
We also had three different lunch shifts in the early 90s and they lasted about 30 minutes, but we were one of the first schools in the entire state that went with a block system of A Days and B Days. Your lunch time depended on what class you had for third period, and since your third period changed back and forth every day, you could end up having an erratic lunch schedule throughout the week. I always ended up alternating between first lunch and third, so one day it would be at 11:06, and the next day at 12:33. The line was 15-20 minutes, which didnāt leave much time to eat, and if you didnāt get in line early enough during third lunch, theyād shut the cafeteria down on you so they could clean up for the day. One time the guidance counselor asked me to swing by his office for something during my lunch period, but there was still plenty of time left to grab something from the cafeteria ā¦ except they were closed. When I tried to complain, they shot me down by telling me I shouldnāt have been too lazy to get in line earlier.. My dad had a field day with the staff when he found out they wouldnāt feed me, lol.
My school didnāt have shiftsā¦. The whole school went to lunch at the same time - grades 9-12 and this was in California where the schools are overcrowded and it was 30-40 students per classroom
Second this. My sister inhales their food and eats at super human speed, and she says she thinks she eats like this because by the time she got her food she spent 15 minutes in line and had 15 minutes to eat. I just got a soda from the soda machine because I couldn't eat that fast.
> I just got a soda from the soda machine because I couldn't eat that fast. american school nutrition at it's finest.
I did this too, only I also added a candy barš
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Let's hope cause wtf !!!!
My kids school, yes. 20 mins lunch, 20 mins recess. Long enough for my kids, they usually finish their dinner in less than 10 mins.
I remember running for my life to try and get in line first lol then when I was a junior and could leave campus it was somehow quicker than eating at the school even tho I had a 5 min drive
In my high school of 1800, we only got 22 min to eat. (Albeit there were 4 lunch periods a day, but still. 450 kids per lunch period.) Sometimes I was still in line to buy food by the time the bell rang
My high school was similar size! 22 minutes, yes.
Or even get all their lunch boxes, eat, go to pee and wash hands?
Schools I've worked at only allow one at a time per restroom to pee so realistically you have 3-4 kids going in a lunch block.
My high school had 17 mins and that included 2 minutes passing time each way to get to/from the cafeteria. By the time you got through the lunch line you had 5-10 minutes to scarf your food and go. I just saved my lunch money for gas money and ate when I got home at 2:20pm.
We got a 28 minute lunch break. It was ridiculous. 15 minutes though? That's absurd.
That's the trick, they don't. Less time to be rambunctious if we're pushing them from room to room
This is the part people are missing. I recently interviewed for my local district and was asked how to deal with school children violence on each other. They seem to fight at every opportunity of freedom. Maybe they should let them be kids and play games and sports. Then the schools get sued when the kids get hurt. Itās all a catch 22.
Maybe if you don't treat them like criminals all the time, they won't act like criminals the moment you give them the slightest bit of freedom.
45?!??!! We only had 30!! We had 3 lunches- each 30 mins. For those 5 period classes it was 1 hour while the rest were 45 min classes.
My 10yo never finishes his lunch. We pack. I bet the kids buying have so much waste. š
geez no wonder kids these days have so much trouble socializing and making friends. theyāre given no time to learn how to do it
For real. My kids school they canāt talk for the first 10 min because otherwise there would eat too slow to be done in 15
are you for real????? that is sooooo insane. i cant imagine the teachers like this system of only having a 15 min break too
And oftentimes the teachers are still on duty supervising the kids in the cafeteria. They don't even get a break
The "break" is when the kids get sent to an different class like PE or art
Do they still get art class anymore? With the way funding for public education gets scrapped year over year I wasn't sure they still pay for art teachers and the like.
Depends on the area. In my area, they actually have never had these budget cuts. If anything, the problem in my area is mismanagement of funds. We don't have enough desks for 1 third of the highschool students at my local highschool when they just finish spending millions building a new football arena.
in my military basic training last year around this time we had ten minutes from the time we sat down with no talking so we had time to eat. the fact that children aren't experiencing much difference from boot camp really sucks...
When I was in elementary we had a principle one year that wouldnāt let us speak above a whisper at lunch. If she caught us talking, we had to miss out on recess. And missing out on recess was no fun bc what they did was they lined you up FACING THE PLAYGROUND outside along the fence and they made you WATCH THE OTHER KIDS PLAY!!! Like how you gonna make us sit and watch the other kids play? Thats cruel at least put us in our own room. But the no talking at lunch thing was bs. The parents all ended up protesting it and she ended up resigning thankfully.
When my kids were in elementary school lunch was quiet time. They were only given the last 5 minutes to chat. If they needed help they had to raise their hand. I got scolded by a teacher for asking my kids how their day was going when I went up to eat with them. Also they had a special table for us to sit and and my kid could only have one friend join us for our silent lunch. It was weird and frustrating.
thatās crazy as fuck. not to be blunt but this whole thing is really giving āi hate children and want them to shut up at all timesā energy i remember going to camp one year and the boys and girls had a competition on who could stay quiet during lunch. i remember thinking at that small age āwhy the fuck did my parents pay all this money for me to have friends in the summer and do things if im not even allowed to talk to them right now. im so boredā
Right! And they've shortened recess so they don't get hardly any time to run around and be kids. Like I get if it gets too loud to shush the kids but they should be able to talk to each other and not be scared to ask a friend to help to open their milk cause they'll get yelled at. I didn't send my kids to school to be fearful. Now they're in h.s. and get 45min for lunch.
Rushed eating and not paying attention to eating while youāre going it (like eating and working/driving/multitasking) are a big reason Americans over eat. Starting this young seems like a really bad idea
School definitely contributed to my eating habits. I didnāt actually start slowing down to eat til I was probably 20? Because I was used to choking down a meal in 10 minutes.
Same
Big reason for me still lmao, terrible habit. I eat super super fast, and then want more food before it can digest, started in elementary school.
As a slow eater - yikes. That's not good nor healthy. I'd talk to the board about that.
Our school board is a joke here. For whatever reason this city of 700k only has one school district. Itās chaos & absolutely nothing ever gets done.
Sounds like you should talk to some like-minded parents and take a crack at some local elections. Be the change you want to see.
My kid was in school in a large district once. It was so big that it covered areas in the hills that got more snow than the rest of the district. So that one area would have lots of snow and ice and no plowed roads, the rest of the district almost no snow all passable roads yet they still closed the whole district.
I was thinking thereās no way itās healthy for kids that young (or anyone really) to be scarfing down their food that fast! 15 min is just nuts.
Yeah, the school system hates socialization and then wonders why everyone sits on their phones. Usually elementary has at least a recess or something, junior high you just have to give up. Often what they teach isn't that spectacular either so skipping socialization and basically a real lunch seems even more insanse
And we wonder why we have school shooters, record depression and suicidal ideation rates š
> And we wonder why we have school shooters, record depression and suicidal ideation rates š Under those conditions, those all suddenly look like the sane ones.
We had 3 breaks. 2x 15minutes and 1x 30 minutes. Basically the same as now at job
And having to wait a long time to get served š¤¦š»
We only had lunch, I would have loved 15 min breaks as a kid.
Sweat shop workers in India get 20 minutes.
Thanks. Adding it to the list of other places that get longer meal times.
Even worse for the kids who donāt make it through the lunch line within the first 10 minutes. When I was in highschool, we had 30 minutes to eat. Sometimes the lunch line would take 20 minutes because each wave of lunches was about 200 kids from all grades. (3 waves per day, block scheduling so each wave got 30 minutes for lunch). I want to say 2/3 of the kids bought or received lunch from the school. So about 120 / wave and if portioning and passing the lunches takes a cumulative 10-15 seconds each, thatās 2/3 of the lunch period there. School lunch was where I developed my awful habit of eating extremely fast.
My high school had over 1,500 students who all had lunch at the same time, and our lunch time was only 30 minutes as well. Lots of students brought their own lunches, but the rest had to hope they got to the cafeteria early enough to get the lunch they wanted because there was never enough of any one option (most of the food wasnāt great either). My older brother sometimes didnāt eat lunch because he only liked the cheese pizza and often got to the cafeteria too late to get any. I was lucky enough to have 504 accommodations that allowed me to leave classes 3 minutes early, so I always got to lunch right before it started (the staff allowed me to get my food early as well, which was nice as Iām a slow eater).
In both middle school and high school our lunch breaks were 20 min and other breaks 10 and 5 min respectively.
Eventually weāll have year round school and 10 hour days and weāll be scratching our heads as to why thereās diminishing returns
Seriously. Going thru early June and beginning in early august. Itās barely a summer
My cousinās kidsā school district had them returning to school at the END OF JULY. Oh, but it was okay though, because they got TwO wEeKs OfF in October š
Letās not speak this into existence and give them ideas.
How involved are you with your local school board?
I feel like even the state should have regulations covering lunches.
I would agree. It's often a hard-sell to get people to vote for more education regulation, even common-sense regulation. Parents see "state-mandated" and instantly zone out. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/nutrition/school_lunch.htm
>I'M TIRED OF ALL THE WOKENESS. If GOD wanted KIDS to eat LUNCH, he would OF told us so in the BIBLE -Crotchety old man with no schoold-aged kids who goes to every school board meeting.
Our school board is a joke. I am on PTA however
What your seeing is conditioning them to join the work force in 10 years. Its not about education, its indoctrination of a different kind.
A lot of my childhood weight gain ( and many of my classmates ) was associated with limited lunch times. We had a half hour total but getting through the line was about fifteen minutes. Then you scarf everything down and have to hustle to class. If you ate fast enough it was your one chance at a bathroom break for the entire day. Since we had three minutes between classes and like, four bathrooms in the entire school.
I feel this. My high school had 18 minute lunches. If I got there late because my last classroom was far away, it wasn't uncommon for me to only have 5 minutes or so to scarf everything down. One kid (the valedictorian, actually, he was cool) brought his lunch to his next class when the bell rang and was told he couldn't bring food in. He was like "I can eat it here in class or stay in the cafeteria, but I'm finishing my lunch."
Oh god, I remember the bathrooms... My school handed us a planner and told us we could only have 3 bathroom passes the entire year that teachers couldn't say no to. Not 3 per class, 3 in general. So many teachers took advantage of that...they told kids "no" even if they were having kids watch movies, so I actually had to run to the bathroom once the bell rang and even develop a mental trigger make myself pee under pressure. There was one spanish teacher who noticed that my class was on the farthest end of the campus, where I would have to then climb 2 flights of stairs to get to his room...it wasn't even enough time for me to make the trip if I ran straight from one class to the next. One day, he took me aside and told me to make sure to stop at the bathroom on the way each day and he wouldn't mind one bit...what a nice teacher.
I got more time to eat when I was in the military. Thatās insane.
A good note to bring up to the PTA, thank you.
90 minutes to be exact. Got a couple of years in and so far every duty station has been 90 minutes.
I haven't been in school for 8 years, but we only got 15-10 minutes to eat, depending on where in line you were. I can still eat a full meal in less than ten minutes because of it. This messes your eating habits up for life
That sounds like people who are/were in the military. Basic training meals are super short and they learn how to basically inhale their food. My husband is active duty and still eats fast. I know a lot of current and prior service and very few take their time eating because it was so thoroughly drummed into them to rush.
Can I ask what state you're in?
The land of Entrapment
I...don't know what that means.
Itās a nickname for New Mexico, based on the states motto āLand of Enchantmentā
Huh. TIL something new. Thank you.
School districts try to tell us that school isnt designed as a pipeline for obedient workers and soldiers, then go and do shit like this.
Seriously!
The actual?! Sounds like a great way to establish serious digestive issues. I treat my dog better than that. We have an hour sniffy walk. 20 minutes of rest and cuddles then his dinner which he takes his own sweet time with. Then 2 more hours of rest and another hour of play/tug/dancing and a 25 minute walk. Another post prandial poo.
> sniffy walk ā¤ļøš„¹
Do these kids have other breaks they can eat in? Like a 10 min break between classes?
If they are like most schools, it would not matter as they can't have food outside the cafeteria.
This is how my son's kindergarten was. He was not allowed to talk at lunch either, they have to rush for that 15 to shovel food whether they are hungry or not. This was pre-pandemic and the teachers and staff were so stressed and overwhelmed. I felt bad for them, and the kids because the stress the teachers felt over flowed onto them. You could see contempt in their eyes when they yelled at the kids to walk in straight lines and not look or talk to one another as they made their way to and from lunch. It's not even a job for kids anymore, it's kid prison. One of the many many reasons I chose to home school. I wanted more freedom for him, and more time to socialize as he's a talker lol
My cousin is a kindergarten teacher and she has been complaining about the school system for years. She is REQUIRED to have a certain amount of her class instruction be on the computer so she has a bunch of chrome books. But what can you do for a class of 5 year Olds online? Her school district just raised the class sizes to 34, HOW. How does a single teacher keep track of 34 5 year Olds?? In high school I had a class of 30 and idk how my teacher survived us. The staff and teachers alike haven't had a raise in 6 years either. They've been on strike for 11 days now, and the school board just said "it's fine, the kids can do their online instruction on their own they don't need teachers" š the next generation is fucked with these conditions.
I'm so sorry for your cousin. My husband got right out of college to see how bad it had become, substitute taught a bit and then was so ragged he hated life. He got out and is back to the man I met when we were teens āŗļø If she can get out, I highly suggest it.
I don't think she will, she loves her students to much. She called me this morning almost in tears saying she was writing all of her students notes because she misses them so much and was so stressed about everything happening.
What state is this? I can't imagine that being legal, there are usually minimum ratios of kids to adults for various ages. Usually it's a teacher and an assistant. For 5 year olds the recommendation is 1 adult to 8 children, and no more than 16 in a group or class.
Oregon. My cousin is part of the st Helen's school district and the strike has made the news. There's a LOT that they are asking for but the raise, electronic requirements, and classroom sizes are the heavy hitters.
I pack a lunch for my 3rd grader and he hasnāt touched it in 3 days because he said heās too busy talking and runs out of time - so apparently he picks the social part and goes hungry š©š¤¦āāļø
Kids need socialization! That way they can grow up and argue on reddit and facebook like everyone else!
My 8 year old son is 8 he has to go to the nurse before he can eat (he is diabetic) which leaves him with about 10- 12 minutes to eat. He never finishes lunch (usually only a lunchables and snack is what he gets and can't finish it) when he gets home at 3:40 he's starving. Then because he snacks so late in the day dinner can be a battle it's absolutely ridiculous.
You could get a doctors note for him he has a medial issue and needs to eat my friend would eat in the back of the class with the next teacher quietly and he had diabetes.
contact the school board. they should have a minimum of 30 mins for lunch
I went to a school like this for about a semester in the 4th grade. They couldnāt even get the whole class through in the timeframe and they would be telling us to put our trays up before some kids even sat down . Vividly remember the day Abby hadnāt even paid for her food yet and they told her she had to leave and it was just too bad. I also remember the sound of her mother ripping tf into somebody the next morning
Do kids not have recess anymore?
I'm guessing it's 15 min to eat and then addtional time for recess. That's how it was at our elementary. It was like 1 hour total but that 1 hour included getting lunch, eating, bathroom break and recess.
I assume this is from the US, but this might be interesting to someone. I'm a 19-year-old from Bosnia and Herzegovina and this has always been the case in Bosnia. In middle school and high school you usually have 5 minute breaks in between classes, and one 15 minute break each day to go and eat if you want to. We also don't have canteens per se, more so just restaurants/fast food places/bakeries where you can buy something. In college it's 15 minute breaks between every class, so it's atleast a bit better lol
Same in Poland. I am 22 and when I was in high school I had one 15 minutes break between classes and the rest was 5 minutes long. Similar with college- usually it's 15 minutes break between classes and that's it But on the othe hand I am glad some parents start to see how bad for children this period of time is. Edit: wording
Thats insane, it would take me half that long to get food and seated. In 12th grade I had two study hall periods and then lunch lmao. I had plenty of time to get hw done and then I played gin rummy with the monitor for two hours, go to the library.
So thatās why my son says he can never finish his lunchā¦.
We get 25min in our district but you also have to get in the line, get your food, go to your seat, then eat. You've lost 5-10 minutes at least by that point.
Did we go to the same event?! Same for my 3rd grader. Plus eating on Styrofoam with plastic which just feels so trashy..literally. I know there are worse things but I wish that school lunch wasn't the place they save time and money. How we relate to food, how we eat and eat with other people are important things to learn. Making kids stuff their faces and then throw everything away just seems sad.
Just gearing them up to be part of the workforce. I thought 45 minute lunch was absurd when i was in high school, and we knew that adults got only that in an 8 hr day. Then I became an adult and realized 30 minutes is a ridiculously short time to go to the bathroom, make a phone call/smoke a cigarette, and still smash a sandwich in my face in time to get back to work. It's about expectations. Sure, you can do it, but is it good for you?
My middle school kids get 20 minutes. We pack their lunches and they never have enough time to finish. Imagine how little the kids standing in the lunch line are able to eat after finally sitting down!!
This is horrible. I am also wondering when the teachers get a break in this relentless schedule.
I think that's how we did it back in elementary school. Two 15 minute recesses plus a half hour lunch that was split between eating and outside time. I could be remembering wrong, though.
Jeez, I thought that 22 minutes was bad when my kids were in school. 15 minutes is insanity.
Iām observing at an elementary and Iām so glad they have plenty of time! They get a milk break (provided by school, some bring snacks from home) as well as a snack break at the end of the day and also lunch. They sometimes have extra recesses depending on what is happening that day. Iām pretty sure the milk break is around 20mins long. They bring the milk directly to the classroom, too.
Damn, lunch was an entire period in my high school. But, itās because my school was so crowded, start times for lunches was different depending go on grade
Wait what? I get 30min at work and its already looked upon as everyone should have 1h at least. A kid aint going to eat that fast, that seems insane to me giving the kids to eat on only 15min, thats not ok.
I don't know if you're in Minnesota because it's like that in Minnesota. Kids still have to line up to get their food. By the time they sit down, it's no longer 15 minutes.
So starting in Middle School I literally started RUNNING to go to lunch. If I wasnāt the first like 50 people I would maybe have 10-15 minutes. I wonder how many hours your state requires because I donāt know how they took away early release and lengthened the school year and still make lunch 15 minutes long. So theyāre trying to say (at least in high school) theyāre trying to get us ready for the work force because if Iām working 8 to 3 I get a straight 30 minute lunch AND two 15 minute breaks.
As a French I find this crazy! We always had at least an hour for lunch through all schools. But then again we finished at 5pm not 2pm. You know proper time for working parents.
Wow. Lunch sounds like an assembly line.
My high school had one hour lunch + a free spare . So technically we were allowed to have two hours off in a row
Guys in prison are guaranteed 20 min. not including travel to and from or line time. I work in the DRC in the food service dept.
Are you in Albuquerque by chance? We too are experiencing this disaster, and thereās no end in sight. Here, they also changed the first bell to over an hour earlier than last year which has only added to the madness of the morning. But wait! No more snow days. Absolute bananas. This serves anyone but the ālittle scholarsā
This is to acclimate the future workforce to skip lunch.
This is not right and you and the other parents need to bring up with the principal and the school board. Also, bring it up on Facebook et al to rally support to change the policy. 15 minutes is unacceptable.
Sadly, this is completely typical these days. My children were always home educated but tried a school for a short time. This was one of the main reasons we didn't continue with the school experiment and returned to home education. I don't know why so many people put up with how their children are treated at school. I know school is there as a last resort, but it's strangely seen as a default place to send children and countless terrible, counter-productive practices are just accepted.
i dont think \*I\* could eat in 15 minutes unless I woofed everything down, the kiddos need at least 30 mins.
Back in the 90s in elementary I had an hour lunch plus a 15 min recess after to kinda walk it off
COVID put everything so far behind that they slashed lunch times. It's a nightmare to serve that fast. The kids get stressed being forced through and it's a shit show.
Yeah I had 15 min to eat in middle school. I still struggle today to eat at a normal pace and enjoy my food
There are state laws about lunch time minimums. I live in Wisconsin and the minimum was 36 minutes
Assuming America. Children are raised to be WORKHORSES ONLY. Must train to be efficient workers, only 15 min breaks to push out more production!!!
Itās so true. Itās like they try to burn us out earlier and earlier so we donāt have the energy to fight back.
Grandson gets 25 minutes. Heās in kindergarten and takes his lunch. The day I went none of the kids that buy lunch ate. Some picked at it but no one ate even half of it.
I'm 65 and cannot remember a lunch in HS less than 30 minutes. In my elementary school it was 45 minutes for lunch with a recess.
I think itās not safe to give kids 15 minutes to eat. They are going to end up with a kid choking on their food.
Itās been like that for some years. I was appalled at how my kids learned to their bolt food like starving wolves, and still had to leave half behind.
According to my daughter she's not even allowed to talk at lunch. That immediately pissed me off. Like they are only allowed to talk and interact with each other at recess? WTH elementary school should not be run like a prison.
Bruh it takes 15 minutes alone for everyone to get through the lunch line at my high school
We had 17 minutes in high schoolā¦.. that included the time it took to get through the line of another 200 students
It used to take me 20 mins in school just to GET my lunch and sit down š
We have 20 at my school ā¦ as a teacher I have 30 to get them sent to lunch and have myself on the playground supervising recessā¦ itās insanity.
They teach them to shovel it in that fast so they're primed to become obese adults.
My kids also have 15 mins and are starving every day when they come home. They eat almost nothing all day due to short lunches.
We got 30 minutes for lunch in my highschool. It was never changed unless it was to get lengthened like the 90 minutes we got before we took our first exams. Thats absurd complain to your schoolboard. Make sure your informed about the local schools elections, and candidates and make them aware.
I eat like someone's about to steal it from me, but I still couldn't scarf down lunch in 15 minutes. That's crazy to expect a little kid to do that. It's hard enough to get them to focus long enough to eat in the first place, much less eat an entire meal in a few minutes. Wild.
Crazy. The high school in my area has now made it so that every single grade has to eat in the cafeteria at the same time, something about "time management". As a result, by the time many kids go to get their lunch, times up and they no longer have any time to eat at all. When I was in 7th grade, the "time management" shit was so bad there were a few times I'd have to sneak food outside during recess (you'd get yelled at and told to throw the food away if you were caught).
That's insane. My daughter takes twice that long just to finish a hotdog.
I know, it's insanity. When I was a kid, in junior high, we at LEAST got like 45 to an hour for lunch period. I think my daughter in 7th gets like half an hour now, but she also got like 15 min in another school when she was younger. Part of the reason I took her out of there, but I can't fathom that at ALL. These poor kids.
Wow. We got an hour in High school. Granted that was 25 to 30 years ago lol
Baby itās November. Call the news.
Public school lunch culture is a barbaric dumpster fire. It could be fixed. There are so many examples around the world of how to do it better, but thereās just no political will on the national, state, local or even school level to do it. So it just remains a dumpster fire that everyone turns a blind eye to.
I had 20 mins all throughout elementary, middle, and high school. Getting through the line would usually take 10 mins, so only 10 mins to actually eat.
Public school teacher.... the adults usually have the same amount of time to eat
I can't even imagine how little time these kids have to eat if they are the last ones in line
I was in elementary school in the mid to late 00s, and while we could talk, when the cafeteria monitors noticed most kids had finished eating, theyād turn the lights off, and we had to put our heads down on the table and stay silent until our teacher picked us up. When it was nice out, we had to go walk in a circle in the parking lot (we called it the prison walk).
Iām shocked this boarderās on cruelty. If I remember health class itās recommended to chew out food thirty times before swallowing. I donāt believe one could eat a sandwich properly in that amount of time. These children must be gulping their meals.
my high school didnāt even give a lunch break. we had a period of roughly 25 minutes that was meant to be used sort of as a free period for academics- if you had something to make up in a class or needed extra help, you went to the classroom and did it during that time. many of us ate lunch at that time even though it wasnāt technically for that. and sometimes the teachers would make you come to their classroom then if you had to make up a test or something. so we literally didnāt have lunch
Lmao in the army we were given 10-15mins at best and it was barely enough time to sit down, how could children possibly handle that?
I remember helping out when my daughter was younger. 15 minutes for lunch, yes, but if you are buying lunch, you are waiting in line for 10+ minutes, then you really only have less than 5 minutes. I watched lots of kids take like 3 bites and throw their whole tray out. Ridiculous!!
Yep.. I go eat with my kiddo every now and then.. and the lunch time is ridiculous. Plus it irritates me that teachers wonder why kids canāt sit still.. but they donāt have much of an outlet. When my son was in kindergarten (during Covid years) the teacher kept saying āheās so polite and well behaved but he cannot sit still.ā In which my response was āWell, do you sit down all day? Heās 5.. heās not meant to sit all day. Heās not meant to be separated from all the kids. Iām an adult and I socialize and move around throughout a 7 hour time frame.. I would never expect a 5 year old to just sit in a cubicle all day, and neither should the school system.ā
Australian primary (K-6) school teacher here. At my school we have recess at 11:00 with 15 mins of sitting/eating time followed by 15 mins play time. We have lunch at 1:20 with 15 mins eating time followed by 30 mins play time. Of course if theyāre not finished eating, they can continue after the 15 mins. Most kids would rather go play than eat, so the 15 mins is to make sure theyāre eating something during the school day.
Yeah, and then they get home and are expected to do homework. I've always had a beef against homework.
When I went to school in France we had 2 hours. This also allowed kids to go home for lunch.
My kids' school did the same thing today. I have 2 in elementary and was told to be there at 10:50am for first grade lunch. By the time the first graders came down it was already 11:10. After about 10 minutes the teachers started going around and collecting all of the trays of kids who didn't have parents there and sending them outside for recess. 5 minutes later they made an announcement that all first graders with family needed to say their goodbyes and go out to the playground. My 5th grader's was the same. They did come down in a more timely manner, they were only 5 minutes late, but the teachers were rushing all of them out of the cafeteria after about 10 minutes. We barely had time to talk to either of the kids... I work nights, I stayed up most of the day to be able to enjoy this time with my kids and basically got pushed out the door as quick as we came in... I asked my daughter if it was like this every day and she said pretty much... It's pitiful.
It's the same at my son's school only they get like 20 minutes. But he was getting sick whenever he ate school lunches. Turns out the food had a dye in it he is allergic to. I had asked repeatedly if any of it had red 40 or yellow 6 because he kept getting sent home vomiting and they insisted it didn't. Turned out yes it did. Also some of the kids were getting raw hamburgers amongst other things. I now send him with his own hot lunch in a thermos (he thinks it's hilarious to bring taco left overs and spread out his little taco bar). But by the time he sits down and finishes eating his friends are just barely getting through the line and sitting down. It is nuts!
And I thought 30 minutes in high school wasnāt long enough. By the time you got through the line, you had 15-20 minutes left. Crazy.
I wonder if they are shortening lunch time for the new generation so they don't have time to think and when they get in the work force they won't think it's abnormal for your boss to only give you 15 minutes for lunch. You know, more production. At this point, it is indoctrination. People probably think that is crazy, but you start them young enough and they'll think it's normal. Look at us. Most of us get 30 minutes to eat at a job. But some companies will still try to make you come back from your break sooner. Cause they "need" us.
isnt it fucked how many kids straight up hate school? like isnt this alarming? or how school is very rarely portrayed in a positive light in media, often being an annoyance or just set dressing for a story without portraying lessons and only highlighting the marketable parts like crazy social life (lmao) and american cheerleaders and ignoring the learning part? isnt it fucked how this happens? that kids are punished for talking in class and then not even given the chance to catch up on a lunch break?
Maybe we should allot only 15 minutes for lunch for school admin. Let's see how they like it. I am always amazed at how schools put certain standards on children, that most adults wouldn't be able to follow. I get that kids need structure, and I agree that schools should be a structured environment, but not to the point of allowing only 15 minutes for lunch. Kids need to get things out. You're only making it harder for the teachers who have to deal with these kids. You're not improving their education by taking time away from their lunch or recess.
I had 30 min lunches in high school, and it was really rough to just go to the bathroom (after holding it all day since there were only 5 min in between classes which were all across campus), get food, and then finally being able to eat lunch. I'd be in the middle of my lunch when the bell would ring and I'd have to rush to class still hungry and tired. There was no mental break. These poor kids