My next Sunday school class

by Don Wheeler

Something I do in my "spare time" is teach a class for fourth, fifth and sixth graders at the First Unitarian Church of South Bend. This turns out to be way more challenging than any reasonable person would expect -- but that's a topic for a later post.

We have just finished viewing and arguing about the classic Henry Fonda production "Twelve Angry Men". The overall scheme I had was to introduce philosphy and look at justice issues. Critical thinking was what we were particularly focusing on. Despite the many challenges, for the most part, the kids ate it up. There were a lot of jokes about the age of the actors, all the smoking...but I think they got something out of it.

I want to make the next class a pivot point of sorts and the students were very interested in voting along with the jury in the movie, so it seems clear the next session should be highly participatory.

The answer, I think is an age appropriate, at least slighty complicated issue to argue about.

Then I remembered fake consultant 's work about "alternate" school lunches, which appeared here last summer.

http://www.progressivessouthbend.org/2007/07/on-teaching-debt-collection-to-kids-or.html

In an effort to recover modest debts, some school systems have adopted a strategy many of us would object to.

Per fake, referring to an LA Times article:

...the Chula Vista (a suburb of San Diego, CA) Elementary Schools District's "alternate meals" plan, which works something like this: If a parent owens the district more than $5 in meal money, the district will send a letter home, put a sticker on the child's hand, and eventually, hire collection agencies. If all that fails, the district will basically...repossess lunch. How is that possible, you ask?

Picture two second graders in the cafeteria line. As they get to the yummy pizza, the first little girl gets her slice of pepperoni. But not the second girl. She gets a cheese sandwich. That's right -- this school district, and numerous others nationwide, have special school lunch options" for those students who have parents that owe money -- and in Calloway County, KY, it only takes $3.

You may want to go back and click that link I offered you earlier. Scarlet letter seem about right? Mr. consultant went on to write two followups, also well worth a look.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see what the class thinks about this practice.