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Big Brother In the School Cafeteria?
AustinSlacker writes "An Iowa school district's lunch program asks children as young as 5 years old to memorize a four-digit PIN code so it can monitor what they eat in the school cafeteria - prompting some parents to claim it's an unhealthy case of 'Big Brother.' An over reaction by parents or an unnecessary invasion of privacy?"
I predict that at the end of next month, little Debbie Povunktuk will be recorded as eating 500,000 calories all in mashed potatoes.
C'mon... kids that age share all sorts of things... they won't understand that sharing their secret PIN is wrong. Mainly because their mom&dad said to report anyone that tells them "it'll be our little secret"
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
Perhaps an interesting point if the data is accessible to parents and the kids themselves. Some adults I know would pay for this service in the real world... It's time to teach kids what they're eating affects their health.
That being said, it should be opt-in.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Schools really should be more mindful of what [i]they[/i] serve. If a kid wants to bring their own lunch that's fine, but the school provided meals should be healthy and balanced. Let's get rid of the candy and soda machines while we're at it. Not only does it promote unhealthy lifestyles, but is a disgusting display of consumerism within a so-called institute of education.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Does this mean they don't eat?
Maybe it's training them for air travel - bizarre and excessive punishments for simple infractions.
"We're making sure that as they're leaving the lunch line that the menu items they've selected match up with state law, so they're selecting a meal that has all the basic [components] of good nutrition," said school district spokesman Jarrett Peterson. "We're not tracking what each individual child eats."
If that were true they would not need a PIN, just a pass/fail for whatever is on their tray. Pass you get to go and eat, fail you get back in line and get your vegetables.
When I was in public school we didn't even have a choice - everybody's meal was exactly the same. Other than outliers with food allergies, why aren't they doing that? No need for any of this technology crap (which, I'd be surprised if it weren't a sweet-heart corporate socialism deal for some company that is owned by a member of the school board) and they probably save money by streamlining preparation and purchasing too.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Yeah, like 5 year olds should have the right to decide their consumption of tobacco, liquor and drugs, engage in sex, as well as eat whatever they want, because, dangit, we don't want those who are responsible (parents or en loco parentis) to look after them--that would be an infringement of their obviously informed consent to live free and party.
Keep Doing Good.
Perhaps not. A short pin number is easy to remember. You're not going to send your five year-old to school with a pocket of cash for lunch. Often times schools will simply have a running tad, controlled via an identifying number. It can be paid off as the semester goes, or filled with credits ahead of time. I seriously doubt that most schools offer much variety in food, so tracking what they're eating isn't going to varying much from student to student. About the only thing it'll show is who does or doesn't bring their lunch from home.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
1984 here we come! This is absolutely outrageous. They say it is for ensuring that what the school feeds the kids comply with sate laws. My question is that is this statement implying that the students MAY receive meals that go against these new laws? Wouldn't the better and less intrusive way to ensure the food served is "nutritious" is to only ship certain foods to the schools to serve? That sounds a whole lot less expensive than setting up an electronic system that DOES track what each individual student eats.
You mean it's not where you live? Where is that? Exactly? And how many people live there?
"We’re making sure that as they’re leaving the lunch line that the menu items they’ve selected match up with state law, so they’re selecting a meal that has all the basic [components] of good nutrition,” said school district spokesman Jarrett Peterson. “We’re not tracking what each individual child eats.”
So, no one thought of serving only nutritious food that meets the guidelines? Instead they spent (I'm sure a fortune) on an electronic system to track this stuff. And you just know that the school district is or will have budget problems and it won't occur to them as to why.
I so fucking disgusted right now.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I predict that at the end of next month, little Debbie Povunktuk will be recorded as eating 500,000 calories all in mashed potatoes.
C'mon... kids that age share all sorts of things... they won't understand that sharing their secret PIN is wrong. Mainly because their mom&dad said to report anyone that tells them "it'll be our little secret"
But sharing is evil! The RIAA told me so...
And remember to say that when politicians ask for money...
How can they possibly justify the need to monitor what children eat. When they are either eating what their parent gave them or what the school gives them. This is has no purpose other than to get kids used to being monitored. For crying out loud, if you're worried they're eating too much junk, stop giving it to them.
recording what our children eat in school is not a bad idea, I don't see it as big brother and the school's response is completely reasonable: "The program is intended to provide the children with more food options while ensuring compliance with new and stricter state-mandated nutrition requirements."
I would appreciate it if my kid's school would tell me what he was eating or if he was eating.
Makes sense to me, wonder if these parents complain when their children take state mandated tests.
Also why is the parent making a huge deal about memorizing 4 numbers? Don't these children know their 7-digit home phone numbers?
I feel very sorry for whatever teachers and administrators that have to deal with Garry Howe, the parent making a big deal about nothing, hate to see what happens when one of his kids bring home a B!
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Obviously the fnord agency is trying to get our youth preprogrammed and conditioned to accept monitoring as a normal part of membership in our society.
And this is certainly the first time a school has done anything like that . . .
I am not a crackpot.
Protest by having all the kids use the same PIN.
That's a huge school !
Nullius in verba
...in my kids' school district, each child receives a 6-digit PIN, in kindergarten. The children are expected to memorize their PINs in kindergarten, where they must use the PIN to purchase lunch. So there's really nothing new under the sun here. Identification numbers are a fact of life: You'll get one in primary and secondary school, you'll get one in college, and then you'll get an employee ID when you get hired on. Every aspect of one's life is dictated by an identification number.
My kid's school gives them credit card like objects with their picture on them so they can do the same thing but it works great because I can log in and see that my kid ate what I told them to eat.... or at least purchased what I told them to.
I used to take $1.25 to school every day for lunch. Today a kid would get robbed and killed for that much. I'm guessing this setup is to monitor food inventory and how much to charge parents' for each kid's food.
I actually just have a personal identification number. I think a personal identification number number would be a bit harder. Is it like a matrix of vectors?
Like PIN[0]=1234, PIN[1]=5678. So my PIN number for school would be 1, but my PIN number for my luggage would be 0.
Now from the summary I don't even know what a personal identification number code is. Unless you have a secret code to unlock a little brief case that contains your PIN.
Beyond the privacy concerns you also have the real issue that the busybody teachers that would be in charge of this have no clue and are not terribly literate.
They are going to give kids flack when they really don't warrant it and push them to eat trash because of deceptive packaging.
Simply OFFERING civilized food would be a welcome change.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I don't really see the huge deal here. A lot of it can be technically done already with pre-existing technologies. I remember that my school had lunch cards where they scanned in what you ate with a bar code, granted it only told the prices but once the technology improved I figured that inventory management would be the next thing. I understand the root of the problem, the government should never mandate what someone can and can't eat, on the other hand, its something easy to implement technically and essentially something I did in elementary school, you scan in your lunch card and it has your lunch account balance on it. College was the same way. I don't see whats too shocking other than what they use the data for.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Miami public school system has had the PIN code system for cafeteria purchases since 1990 at least.
Whatever happened to the days when there were no choices for lunch at school. You ate the slop they served or you went hungry. Worked just fine when I was a kid (~30 yrs ago). The food wasn't even that bad and we got all milk refills we wanted (was served from cafeteria-style dispensers not tiny cartons).
There were no kosher menus, no vegetarian menus, no alternates if kids didn't like something, no alacarte line, and no salad bars. Kids with food allergies had to bag it when they couldn't eat that day's lunch (menus were posted monthly so parents could keep track). The only food served other than that day's menu was PB&J (with milk and some sort of fruit), which was always available, even for kids who couldn't pay and weren't on free lunch program.
A simple menu would be cheaper to serve, both in terms of food costs and labor (kitchen and serving), and easier to track who ate what: (a) school lunch, (b) bag lunch, or (c) PB&J.
Nutrition tracking in the middle of an obesity epidemic isn't a privacy issue, it's a small step in the right direction.
That doesn't really sound like the best way to implement it though. On the other hand, it should at least sort of work, which is better than nothing.
Seriously! My elementary had a PIN code to pay for lunch over 20 years ago. It was a very helpful system that allowed parents to deposit money into the lunch account. Kids didn't have to worry if they had money or not in the account either. The account would go negative and a letter would be generated to be sent home reminding the parent to deposit money into the account.
The only difference between then and now is that school districts are watched under a microscope about what food is being fed to the kids. So now the lunch lady records what food you eat so the school can use that data to improve the food and prove they are meeting state/federal guidelines. Where is the harm in that?
I'd certainly like any school to stop my kid from draining his lunch account by buying nothing but Twinkies!
Keeping track of food consumption, and maybe supplying that information to parents, sounds like a good idea. It is not like a school, especially in the lower grades, don't already know what kids eat.
This is clearly an attempt by the fast food people to stem this rise of healthy eating that the schools are trying to promote. 'Let the kids eat whatever they want so we will have fat happy customers in the future. Keeping track of what your child eats is facism. They want the fruit roll ups and skittles. If we fortify them with vitamins and minerals can we serve those for lunch. Sure if nobody is looking.'
The rational person might assume that new options are to try to give kids choices so it is more likely that they will eat the food instead of throwing it away. Since the diet is not preplanned to insure it meets federal requirements, such data must be taken to insure that the lunch program meets guidelines.
It is like the customer affinity card at your supermarket. If you don't want them to know what you eat, then don't use the card.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I don't know whether school lunch programs actually increase student performance or not. It is unconscionable that children go hungry while others eat in front of them, so I consider the programs necessary.
The three of my four kids who are in school take a lunch box. One of them is overweight, and we found out he was spending his allowance on a la carte junk food in the cafeteria line, particularly ice cream bars.
Frankly, there isn't any reason for the junk food to be there in the first place. I was astonished to find out that the school policy is to not enforce parents' requests to not allow children to buy junk food in the cafeteria.
It's not realistic for most parents to be with their kids all the time. It takes a village to raise a child. I don't think secret PIN numbers are necessary to help kids eat better in school. I think we just need to get the junk food out of the cafeteria. If parents *want* their kids eating crap, put it in the lunch box, but don't try to sell it to my kids while I'm not looking. I don't think we should expect teachers or lunch workers to be food police. Get the bad food out so they don't have to deal with it and parents don't have to worry about it.
Check out the source of the story, folks. It says at the top of the page that it's coming from an organisation called "Fox News, Fair and Balanced".
Just thought you should know.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
At my old high school the card system did not work that well at times.
This was years ago but what I saw was Power over Ethernet cash registers / POS with 2? Line mini LCD's that did not work that well. Some student said they were getting over billed on their cash / free lunch card. The systems when down many times and lunch stuff had to write the card numbers down and the cost of the food. Some times when paying with cash they would ring it up look at the price (to high) says that's not right and have to start over. It seemed like it had a poor keyboard that doubled press at times.
Most schools already issue student ID cards with bar codes on them, why not just scan that? If the school doesn't already have a student ID system then it sounds like the perfect time to start. For the younger aged students who would be less likely to remember their ID every day perhaps the cards can be stored in the classroom; the teacher can issue them prior to lunch and collect them after.
What if 20 years from now an insurance company could give you higher premiums because you didn't eat the right things when you were 7?
unhealthy foods are cheaper then healthy stuff and schools don't have the funds to have good healthy food. Also some of fatty foods / vending make cash for the schools.
I was born in 1990 and every single meal I purchased while I was in public school was through a computer system that kept track of when we ate, and later, what we ate. The excuse was that our state school system subsidizes only one meal per day per student (or two if they eat breakfast, at a different rate), so if you bought two meals, you had to pay about double the normal price for the second one. It's a sad realization that the school district is actually raking in $6 or more per every single tiny and disgusting portion they sell to students.
Yet these same parents willingly sign up
Keyword is willingly
Training kids to eat poorly and to select the wrong foods is a form of child abuse. I do realize that our society has wrecked the idea of mom being at home to instruct children properly and many people simply do not take care of their kids. A school using technology to catch these problems sounds like a great idea to me.
Those sniffers that can spot drug use of parents in the home from the child's clothing are also fine with me. Let the light shine in!
You don't have to buy a school lunch.
You're not going to send your five year-old to school with a pocket of cash for lunch.
That's how it used to work and it was never that big a deal.
'the agency'?
I suspect the CIA has better things to do with our time than brainwash our children.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
And it only happened 15 years ago!
They need to be using biodegradable RFID tags instead. If we can make edible underwear, why FFS can't we make edible RFID tags? Think of the (unhealthy) children!
You know, I scanned the first 75 replies or so and I cannot recall a single one being from someone who actually claimed to have a kid in a school. So here's my take on the situation, as someone who has had 5 kids in school.
1) This isn't news. This has been going on for a long time now, as school districts strive to stop handling money. As a parent, I would *FAR* rather write a check every few months (or, better yet, this year they take Paypal!) to pay for my kids lunches, than try to find the exact damn change every day for my six year old.
2) I have a child who has struggled with weight issues from birth. Seeing as how she has two rail thin sisters (and they eat the same things), we have been working with her for about a year to emphasize better food choices and controlled portions. However, the simple fact is that schools do have choices in the cafeterias, especially starting in middle school. As such, I consider it a good tool for me to keep track of all my kids *SPENDING* and eating habits. I can tell if my high school freshman is guzzling down four packages of twinkies a day, or eating a real meal.
3) What, exactly, does anyone believe the schools will do with this information? They are already legally restricted in terms of dietary requirements (by state and federal regulation) and they are already legally restricted from divulging personal information of students. So, does anyone her seriously believe that they will start selling Hostess the names and eating habits of every child? Or that they will start writing contracts with companies simply to, what? Increase profit margins? Violate laws by bringing in unhealthy foods? Sorry, it won't happen.
I think that the bottom line here is that this really isn't a privacy violation. It's a tool to allow parents to control diet and spending of kids who might not be able to make the best decisions about such issues.
Bill
That is what they made you think when you where 5.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You know, maybe I need to patent that process.
I wouldn't know, personally. I brought my own lunch 99% of the time, right up to when I left public schools altogether.
I imagine however that there are plenty of nerds her eon Slashdot that might disagree with you. Certainly the lunch money stealing bully has some basis in truth? :P
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
My girlfriend from Iowa said they were doing this in her middle school(different school district) 10 years ago.
That was an awesome post. I look forward to your pointing out acronym-aided redundancies in the future.
If you tag them with subcutaneous microchips, they can't trade pins! Also, you could put their social security number on it and they'd be able to access accounts with a simple swipe for the rest of their lives! And if they're ever horribly dismembered, they'd just need to find the body part with the chip in it to figure out who they were! It's a win-win!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yeah, this is nothing new. My school system implemented a system like this years ago. My school system assigned 6-digit student IDs when I was in 4th grade or so, probably around 1997. I don't remember when we implemented debit accounts for lunches - maybe 5 years later. It's convenient.
I'm 23. My middle-class public HS had pizza and Taco Bell on campus. We'd buy the food with our own money, at ~$5 per serving. If someone had attempted to steal my food I would have kicked their ass, or had my ass kicked in turn. But that never happened.
I don't even understand this idea that data about your eating habits is yours to keep secret. It's not like going to a doctor. If you ask the lunch lady for mac and cheese, and no chicken thank you, she's not legally bound to respect your privacy.
People seem to be saying "the human element is fine, but systematic tracking of eating habits is a concern" but that doesn't make sense. Either it's protected or not, there's no sense of security in relying on people's poor memory to ensure your privacy. If someone wants to spy on you and know what you're eating for lunch, then they can ask the lunch lady, there's no expectation of privacy.
In some ways, this was genius. While you couldn't control (or tell) exactly what they purchased, you at least had control over how much they spent. Also: there was no risk of lost or stolen lunch money.
On the other hand, it was a privacy nuts worst nightmare - scanning kids. There were assurances that the ID gathered from the thumb was reduced to datapoints which could NOT be used to produce a new image, so no larger database concerns, but still creepy.
In the end, we just had our kids bring their lunches. The school lunches were high-fat crap, usually something fried or made entirely of cheese. Best estimates from our kids was that over half the kids brought lunch, and this was a reasonably affluent town. Crud, if they would just throw in an apple or something once in a while, they'd get more takers.
I also forgot to mention, there was a Carls Jr. down the street of my school. We were allowed to leave the campus at will during lunchtime. And that all occurred only 6 years ago. I can imagine the parents screaming for closed gates, metal detectors, and RFID card checks in today's schools.
Hey now, let's not get personal...
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
I went to a private military academy. We had a cafeteria with a well stocked salad bar, and at breakfast we had eggs cooked to order, and at dinner, if it was appropriate, we had our meat cooked to order also. And this was way back in the early 80s.
I sign up for all of these things. Hell, for the last two weeks I have been signing up for a Sheetz reward card and registering it on the website to get my first purchase of gas for .50 cents a gallon off the posted price. And after I get the .50 cents per gallon off, I toss the card into the trash. Signing up for stuff is easy, and no one is required by someone pointing a gun to your head to use your real name and data. Figured an AC would understand that.
Wow, you just named a lot of allergens!
I know someone allergic to lettuce. I dated someone who was allergic to fish. A lot of people are allergic to legumes. Almonds are a common allergen, as are most tree nuts.
Google can find you examples of famous people with allergies to every one of those things you mentioned.
-- Terry
So the plan is to allow a 5 year old to pick whatever he wants, a la carte, for his lunch, then you are going to see if it matches state guidelines? Here's a hint. It won't. Ever. Then what, you send him back to start over? Best of all is that somehow they expect this to make things go faster. I don't think so.
My children each have a seven digit code, given to them in kindergarten. Its sole purpose is to track money on their account so they don't have to carry cash and the school doesn't have to make change. As for meals, they have a choice of two preplanned meals, pb and j, or they can pack. There is no a la carte and each meal costs the same. In addition, the school takes a count of each type of meal at the beginning of the day so that they have a good idea of how much to prepare. It would seem to me that a la carte choices would really complicate things.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Your school's cafeteria suck. Over here we actually have a variety of stalls for food.
Program website:
http://ankeny.schoolfusion.us/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=190047&sessionid=5df71ce111dfbc72890cf7f887fa1c5c
More info:
http://ankeny.schoolfusion.us/modules/cms/pages.phtml?sessionid=5df71ce111dfbc72890cf7f887fa1c5c&pageid=64839&sessionid&sessionid=5df71ce111dfbc72890cf7f887fa1c5c
Maybe instead of quoting/directing to "Fox News", interview the person in charge (page 1, bottom). /. can do better.
My children have had this set up in their school since my daughter started 4 years ago, but we don't use it. We pack our kids' lunches. Not really that expensive to do if you want to ensure your kids are eating healthy.
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
Now from the summary I don't even know what a personal identification number code is. Unless you have a secret code to unlock a little brief case that contains your PIN.
Obviously it's the code you'd use to decrypt the DAT tape on which your PINs are stored, including this one, the one for ATM machines, the one for EBT benefits, and so forth.
Ftfa: the number will pull up the child's photo so the cashier can verify the identity.
That little check is in place at least.
That said children can go and purchase meals for each other. But it's pretty hard to purchase meals on someone else's account.
Over here we don't make our kids eat [in|from] the toilet.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The funding of the schools is a matter strictly between the school and the appropriate agency or bureau. The second this becomes a problem of the students, someone has failed to do their job.
Yeah, that way by the time he or she an adult, there is no real resistence left for the dehumanization that this represents. It has now become a norm and the only thing the person has known for years. Thanks but no thanks. Truly good ideas with inherent virtue don't require a lifetime of training to accept.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
'the agency'?
I suspect the CIA has better things to do with our time than brainwash our children.
If this is a high priority for the CIA then they will find themselves among plenty of competition.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
she's not legally bound to respect your privacy
This way of thinking is why we have more laws than anyone can keep track of. Do you really want to live in a society where the goal of the legal system is to completely and fully represent an "ideal" system of ethics? Perhaps the lunch lady gabbing about what your 5-year-old has for lunch is a bad example (anecdotal observations of this data are probably less than worthless), but in general should we really justify an activity by pointing out that there is no law against it (or excuse lack of an action by pointing out that there is no law obligating the action)?
At my high school, we had an hour break and were allowed to leave, so the nearest McDonalds, nearest pizzeria and such got a lot of business.
But as I later did in college, I packed lunch very often, both to save $ and avoid making the trip.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Was told so by others, but kind of supprised how fast they got slavery back into America.
Guess Iowa's potentates want to make sure there property is properly fed.
This is a troll? Why, because the previous slavery in America was based on race and race is a soft spot for you? Get over it. Meanwhile... rest assured, the new economic slavery is not remotely so personal. The only color it cares about is green.
Think about it another way. Property may need careful numbering and identification and inventory control. Why would humans need the same? Why especially would children need the same except that it provides early training? Adult supervision alone isn't enough to meet their needs? Why not, especially not when there are other ways of solving any problem this is meant to address, such as tracking the number of free school lunches served?
You may agree or disagree that this is about treating other humans as little more than slaves merely because of their ("commoner") socioeconomic status. That doesn't make it trolling to suggest that this is an angle to consider. Serfdom of one form or another, subtle or in-your-face, is not exactly a new phenonemon in human societies.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I scanned the first 75 replies or so and I cannot recall a single one being from someone who actually claimed to have a kid in a school.
It's quite understandable to miss when skipping, but here's one:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1781340&cid=33516052
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The name of the song is called "Haddock's Eyes."
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Make them take it doesn't mean that it will actually be eaten...
Make them use a PIN doesn't mean it will actually be eaten...
I was in high school 9 years ago. Lunch was LOCKDOWN. You had to present your school id to get in, which was color coded to define your appropriate lunch period. Once in, you needed just about a medical emergency to get out unless the lunch period ended. The "recreation yard" felt more like a prison yard... it was a 50 by 50 paved concrete yard with two potted trees that was part of the interior of the school. The only way out of the yard was back into the cafeteria. Mainly people went out there to smoke.
I never ate in the cafeteria, so the easy thing to do was to just skip going. I got friendly with a teacher who ran peer mediation, which was about training kids how to be moderators when two other kids beat the crap out of each other and had to resolve their conflict afterwards (or face detention). So I would just hang out in his office during lunch... do homework in peace, nap if I needed to, and basically just relax. It was a much better experience than sitting around the goths smoking pot in the 'yard'.
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
I'm just curious, your reply implies that there is somewhere which that is the case. Where might that be?
My school had a pretty simple system. You had a choice of a meal or a salad bar. The meal got you a choice of Main A or B, Side A or B, and then you had a small choice of little desserts - cupcakes, etc. The main course choice was one item that changed daily, or a hamburger. (More like soyburger.) The side choice was one "healthy" choice which changed daily - broccoli and cheese, jello with fruit, corn, etc; then you had your staple french fries. It was a simple setup, and easy enough to keep track of. A person either usually got the circulating items 99% of the time, or a burger and fries 99% of the time, or a salad/baked potato 99% of the time. You were also allowed to purchase everything a la carte, all items cost $1 that way. The meal purchasing was $1.75, or $1 for a baked potato and toppings from the salad bar. You had the options of paying cash, or purchasing a "lunch card". You paid $10 on monday and got a little paper card, and it had 5 spaces on it. Each time you got the basic lunch, they punched a hole in one of the spaces. If you were on a free or reduced-lunch system, they had a big book full of names, and they would scan the appropriate barcode. It worked fine, and there certainly weren't problems with it. The lunch ladies would make polite, helpful suggestions during the junior high lunch hour, but during the other two lunch hours, they shushed and let the high schoolers make their own choices. And it worked. My graduating class had all of 3 overweight people, and *I* was the only one considered "obsese". I'd like to point out that my weight was solely from eating at home - I had anxiety issues and wouldn't even go into the school lunchroom. Therefore, I have doubts about this entire system in the first place. Using the book of barcodes and pictures was the only system throughout elementary school, and that was perfect then as well. Memorizing PINs just seems like a useless idea, no matter the grade of the student.
then of course, there's the human factor of being able to choose wtf we want to eat. sometimes, it's ok to say 'fuck science, I want a burger and fries.'
For an adult I completely agree...but as an adult you are deemed to be aware of the consequences of your actions whereas children are not. It is reasonable to expect an adult to know that it they eat a burger and chips every day there will be health consequences and so this is likely to temper the enthusiasm of most adults. However a 5 year old is extremely unlikely to be that restrained and will quite likely reason "I like burgers so I'll order one" every single day.
To me this school program sounds enlightened. It lets the kids choose what they want but still monitors them so that if they do make bad choices like burgers every single day they can take corrective action. This is EXACTLY what schools should do: let them make their own choices and then catch them if they make bad ones and the teach them about why the choices are bad. That way when they do become adults they are used to making decisions and, being aware that those decisions have consequences, their decisions will be informed ones.
It was even easier in my schools growing up. In grade school the teacher would ask who brought their lunch for the day and send the list to the cashier. In middle school there were choices on food (a la carte stuff, the standard meals were a fixed price) so the cashier looked students up by name and class until they remembered everyone. In high school it was buffet style where you had open access to the cafeteria (I can't recall anyone bringing food from home since there was enough selection to accommodate allergies and such, and high-schoolers love to conform; visitors had to find someone so they could pay).
The conditioning happens earlier than that, I'm afraid.
You need to put a television show on aimed at preschoolers. Make it have a fuzzy stuffed bear who helps kids with things they don't know how to do themselves. Make it a "special assignment" for this bear to help the kids.
The kids are told to do X or Y (make their bed, change the lining in their rabbit cage) by themselves with no parent guidance. That's key number 1.
So how does this external agent, this "stuffed bear" change agent, know how to visit the children to help them? How else? A flying ladybug, that conceals a camera in it. The camera flies in the neighborhood, sees the conundrum of the child, deploys the camera and takes some footage. It then flies to a line-of-sight position, and sends the signal to an orbiting satellite, from where it's beamed to the special agent bear's headquarters. His employer then takes him off of whatever he's doing to go help the child with what they want to accomplish. After all, "it's all part of the plan" (we'll make that a tagline of the show, too.)
Farfetched? No, it's going on right now, unfortunately.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
I'm old enough that there weren't any lunch choices when I was in school. You got whatever the day's meal was. The military was like that back then, too. Federal prisons still work that way; the menu repeats every 35 days.
"Some adults I know would pay for this service in the real world..."
In the 60's we had a thing called a "lunch order". The parent would write the lunch order on a plain envelope and put the money inside. This was given to the teacher in the morning and at lunch time the lunch would be delivered to class with your name on it.
The results were; Kids didn't spend half their lunch time waiting in line, nor could they blow their money on sweets. Parents knew exactly what their kids were getting for lunch, and bullies had little opportunity to steal the money.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Wow. My high school simply had a private mom-and-pop (literally) fast food joint in the basement. It's still there AFAIK, 15 years later. Just like then, you can get pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers, pastries, sweets and pop. Prices are and were reasonable and toned down to clients' abilities. You won't get a filet mignon there for sure, but I remember it fondly as a respite from lessons on floors above it ;)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Agree. My kid does the same thing. It's just a way to do accounting. She used to go to a small school, and the numbers were 3 digits long -- there were only 300 students or so. Those are account numbers, not PINs! They are there to track your spending, it's really honor-based and if you get caught misusing the system (using someone else's number), you will face consequences -- that's the way it should be. Now she goes to a bigger school, and the numbers are 5 or 6 digits long. But we send lunch with her, so no need for her to learn yet another number.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
In theory, I'm ok with the whole "accumulated market data used to determine insurance rates / mortgage / credit / etc..".
I pretty much agree with that, but there is some precedence in this country for separating childhood actions from adult ones. Juvenile records are typically sealed. I have to wonder if there are any such precautions about this data.
The only reason I care is because it seems so false on its face. If they want to know what kids are buying they just need to look at what they are selling.
My kids lunch code is 10 digits.
Seriously he's 6 years old and needs to enter a 10 digit PIN to spend $2.20 on his lunch...
How on Earth is it "dehumanization" to enter your fine account number at the "register" in order to deduct lunch funds from your account?! Get real.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Woosh, stalls, anyone, hello?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
If my school had had a Taco Bell, adults would have come to school to eat as it would have been the only fast food place for 30 miles. :)
Why can't Johnny just give his name to the cashier?
Technology blah blah blah tracking food habits blah blah blah but you can do it all by just asking the kid's name.
There's something about yesterday's meat on a tomorrow's sandwich. The taste is just too good to be true, almost. I would do the same with the meatloaf sandwiches. My wife makes a mean sandwich paste from leftover grilled meat (steak, chicken, burgers).
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Oh, so that's what it's name is called!
blog.sam.liddicott.com
All data about me is mine to keep secret. I don't understand this idea that it's OK to stalk you and record everything you do. Did some people read the Lord of the Rings and miss the part where the Lidless Eye was a symbol of evil?
The lunch lady is unlikely to memorize what hundreds of kids have for lunch, day after day, week after week. A computer, on the other hand, can do that easily.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Finland, judging by my memories.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If the child forgets the PIN, it will go hungry that day?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Duh, your personal identification number number is so that you can get money from the automatic teller machine machine.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
"If you ask the lunch lady for mac and cheese, and no chicken thank you, she's not legally bound to respect your privacy."
Then explain laws against stalking. Following someone around in PUBLIC continuously is illegal. These two ideas aren't comparable, that you have no right to privacy in public and that you aren't allowed to follow people in public.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Like market stalls? Hot dog stalls?
blog.sam.liddicott.com
PIN code = RAS Syndrome
s/number/code;
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I took cash (or prepaid meal tickets) to elementary school - I wasn't five, but maybe seven or eight during the period when I wasn't bringing a lunch from home. Plenty of other students my age did the same. It's really not that complicated. Of course a few years later they switched to some bar-coded cards instead, but those were really just makeshift prepaid cards, not some sort of crazy tracking system. Adding a PIN to something like that just makes it a little harder to use other kids' cards (it's not like the minimum wage lunch ladies would give a damn).
Anyway, it's not like the school would gain anything from knowing who's eating what. And if that kind of thing bothers you, I'd suggest you only ever use cash for purchases.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Why not? It worked just fine when "I" was a 5 year old in school. Granted, I usually ate my lunch my mom packed for me in my Snoopy lunchbox...but when I did eat cafeteria, I took my lunch money with me and bought my lunch and milk.
Are kids incapable of that today?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yeah, and let's not forget about the fluoride in the water. What a sweet deal government has with that one. First, the aliens land at Roswell, then the fluoride, now this. It all fits together now.
I took my lunch money with me and bought my lunch and milk. Are kids incapable of that today?
No, but I expect in your day there were times when children
- forgot their money
- spent their money on the way to school
- lost their money on the way to (or at) school
- had their money stolen from them on the way to (or at) school
- spent tomorrow's money after school
- bought unhealthy/expensive/inappropriate food from a shop near school, instead of the school cafeteria
so I can see why the system is useful for schools, parents and children.
When I was 5-11 school meals were a fixed cost per child, so my mum paid in advance at the start of the term. You could also pay in instalments. (Or, you might be eligible for free meals, but the other kids wouldn't know.) 12+ we used cash, but it was a private school and most of the kids had loads of money anyway. I didn't, so I took sandwiches.
This is about my 1st-grade child. I want to know what she eats. I, in fact, DO look over the report and check out what is happening with her. This is not about her right to privacy. This is about my knowing what she is up to.
Now, if the feds take this info and use it to apply individually to my daughter, THAT is big brother. But if I apply it, that is simply good parenting. And to be honest, I HOPE that the feds will take that same data, clean all the names and then make good use of it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just like then, you can get pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers, pastries, sweets and pop
Makes you wonder, why are kids so fat these days when they have quality dining like this available?
Actually the first three are relatively healthy, but the last three.. welcome to obe-city.
which is totally what she said
Not that I'm telling you something you don't know but the first three are typically high in saturated fat and wrapped (or underlayed) with highly processed white flour bread products. Apart from any added veggies, there's very little there nutritionally. Relatively healthier than the other three but by no means good for your health.
Most of this teaches responsibility with money. Lost/spent your lunch money on the way to school? Bout 1pm you'll realize you should have been more careful.
I don't really mind about the saturated fat, the links between that and negative health effects seem to be pretty tenuous - ie people are still biased towards trying to prove how bad they are after 60 years, but the whole cholesterol issue still seems a mess to me - I'm not even convinced that modifying various types of cholesterol levels has an effect on heart disease either - it might just be that we are modifying the symptoms rather than the underlying cause of heart disease. It certainly doesn't seem to be as simple as "saturated fat, bad" like everyone thinks. There haven't been many studies into the effects of carbs on heart disease AFAIK, and there seems to be nothing on protein either.. fats have been victimised for a long time and everyone regards them as bad, when in fact avoiding them is a large part of what is making everyone so hungry and so frickin fat these days.
But yes, white bread is incredibly bad and I generally only eat wholemeal unless I'm exercising and need energy quick. I just didn't want to go on a low GI rant again xD
which is totally what she said
I have a sale on SCUBA apparatus to sell you sir.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
> Obviously the fnord agency is trying to get our youth preprogrammed and conditioned to accept monitoring as a normal part of membership in our society.
Grade school has ALWAYS been a place of indoctrination, intended to get kids get used to being good "cogs in the machine." Getting up and at school on time and presentable, submitting to authority, accepting being not an individual but a part of a hierarchy, accepting and following ridiculous rules, standing in lines, etc. etc.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Hungry kids, or kids who've not eaten a proper meal, are often disruptive. (Ask any teacher, they'll tell you which kids have eaten breakfast in the morning.)
There's plenty of time to learn about money once they're a bit older.
That was a joke. Over here we usually reserve "stall" for the toilet, or perhaps for where you'd milk a cow.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
A four-digit PIN is not "Big Brother" - not by any stretch of the imagination.
How can a parent avoid the glare of Big Brother in this case? Pack a lunch. Or pay with cash.
Would these parents have been happier if the school district asked each parent to fund a lunch account without ANY security? I doubt it.
Would they be happier with three digit PINs? Two? One?
I work in IT for a public school district (K-12), and we have a similar system in our cafeterias - many, many kids have PINs of 1234, 1111 and the like - and that works just fine.
As for checking the composition of a child's lunch, I'm certain it was either asked for or cheered for by a vocal minority of parents. That is how most changes occur in public schools, and they get away with it because most parents are complacent, trusting that the professionals they hired and elected to run the schools know what they are doing.
Ken
After reading the fucking article, it seems to me this is an attempt to comply with a stupid law which, while it sounded good on the ballet, has unintended consequences such as this.
This is actually what I was going to say (who modded this troll?). Many people have told me Animal Farm is awesome and it has a lot of philosophy and school kids should be reading it; all I saw was a story about funny animals. Remember the sheep? Me either, but I think most sheep are going to read the book and go "Baaaaa funny piggies!" We sure as hell don't read 1984-- THAT would open some eyes, even if you've got the addled brain of a pregnant Ewe.
What? Stores always have cameras in the change room, they're watching 12 year olds to make sure they don't steal dresses. This is perfectly normal, they've been doing it since I was a kid. Hell, don't you watch the Simpsons?
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You give them $2. What could possibly go wrong? Some meat head might decide to beat them up and steal their money, and then find out that the kid knows Aikido but decides to switch to Kung-fu mid throw and bruise some ribs.
Give your money to the big heavy weight bully. If you kick his ass... you can keep it.
(Honestly, I'm convinced we need more violence in schools; and I don't mean just the self-defense kind. Kids need to learn to step in and kick someone's ass when they're beating on someone else, too; it's no sense walking away just 'cause you're not the one being bloodied up. What good's defending myself if I can't defend others?)
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I work in an independent school in the UK, and we use biometric (fingerprint) identification for our "Cashless Catering" service, as do many other schools around the country.
Some parents had some privacy concerns, but they were mitigated by the fact that the fingerprints are stored in the DB as hashes, so the fingerprint image can't be extracted from the database, and we're an independent school, so there's no connection to local government etc. The DB records get deleted when the kids leave school.
The system does track what each student buys, but so far it hasn't been monitored to encourage healthy eating, just for accounting purposes. Even if it was used that way, I doubt most people would mind. It's hard to argue against good nutrition, and if you're eating in the school cafeteria, your eating habits are public knowledge anyway.
Needless to say, I don't see the big deal here.
Same age. Mine just had normal school cafeteria lunch but we all paid in cash. $1.75 each day unless you got something from the a la carte line. Issuing PINs and tracking the students is ridiculous.
High school's great because when you're in 12th grade you can screw 10th graders on a whim. They swoon over older boys. You missed out.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
It reminded me more of a concentration camp move than big brother.
Especially since last year they had a card they showed and about an hour after lunch I could log into the parent portal and
see what they got for lunch. So it's that much different than last year.
Whether this is Big Brother or not, one can't deny that something needs to be done to address the obesity epidemic among America's young. It would seem that tracking what they eat would be a sensible step in that direction. In this case, as in many others, it might be reasonable to say that parents in the U. S. have largely defaulted on their part of the responsibility.
I did send my 5 year old to school with money for milk or lunch, and I still send my 8 year old and 10 year old to school with real $$. The school's "debit card" program has both short-term and long-term negative effects.
Short term, the kids don't learn about handling money. This became evident when the curriculum got around to adding up dollars and change. My kids had no problem; most of the class struggled. (Oddly enough, the school apparently didn't see their own involvement in this debacle.)
Long term, the kids get trained into using plastic for every transaction... When they get older, they will use debit cards and credit cards to run transactions through the financial services processing machine where a) banks make money on every transaction, driving up costs for everyone, and b) everything can be logged and tracked for ?? purposes.
Just because technology is available and will make some small problems go away (the cafeteria workers like the debit cards because it speeds the lunch lines, kids can't lose their money) doesn't mean it should be used when there are longer term negative effects (little understanding of money, no hard-learned consequences from losing money). A few cheese sandwiches (all the cafeteria will provide kids who lose their lunch money) and my kids got a lot better at hanging on to their money.
Whether or not your local school milking more and more money from the federal government is good is an open question, is it not? Your assumption that the incessant tracking is good is based on the idea the the feeding at the federal trough is good.
Then again, perhaps your final statement is meant sarcastically?
I attended a private Catholic pre-school and kindergarten. I was then enrolled in a local public school. I left public school after graduating the sixth grade to instead be home-schooled. Interestingly enough, my placement tests allowed me to skip seventh grade altogether. Furthermore, since I was able to work at my own pace once home-schooled, I shaved an additional year from my highschool semesters.
You can rest assured that I'm no dropout, even if I did leave the school system two years early. Do people actually work at car washes? It seems that they're all either automated or require that you step out and wash your own car. Those automated ones never work very well for the price.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
insightful? really? I hate this site.
There wasn't a single overweight kid in my group in high school, and we all ate sweet pastries and drank pop in moderation. This is in stark contrast to some families that only drink carbonated sugary drinks, and nothing else. You can easily spot them at the grocery store. There's no reason for a parent to be loading up weekly on pallets of 2 liter soda bottles, unless that's all you drink at home.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
The buns and pizza dough were often mixed grain and quite tasty. Just sayin'. And the portion sizes were European.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
There are whole countries where white bread is a staple food, eaten for breakfast and dinner, and people used not to be obese in those places. Somehow the fall of iron curtain changed things for worse.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Moderation sure, there's also the fact that you're still growing and generally more active as a kid. I would still eat pasty or cookies or whatever if I've been out exercising and need a quick energy boost. But most people I know just eat stuff like that as some kind of means of entertainment, same as many people regard "drinking" as a valid activity in its own right. I don't have a problem with the occasional treat or occasional drink (say if someone is getting married), but incorporating that stuff into your daily routine is just a bad idea if you actually care about your body.
which is totally what she said
Not when I was in school. School lunch was a buck and nobody would pick a fight over a dollar.
But then nobody would eat the school lunches either. Schools aren't just tracking whether you bring from home or eat at school anymore. Schools have fast food vendors in the cafeterias now.
My former high school (since I left) now has mcdonalds, subway, and dominos pizza. Before they closed the campus (for student safety, though none were ever hurt) dominos would peddle personals out of a jeep next to the school and subway was within walking distance.
The schools might want to track and make sure students are using the vendors otherwise they would cut them and let someone else in.
You're probably right, though it may not be so clear cut in public schools, paid for by the government and where attendance is mandatory.
Why not? The abuses possible are vastly increased by automated systems. A police car can follow you around the neighborhood and write down everywhere they see you go and that is legal. Are you saying it should also be legal to install a tracker on everybody's car? Or to install a sophisticated camera system on every corner that tracks peoples' license plates in order to provide a detailed readout of exactly where they went any given day? After all, they're out in public and it's no different than a police car following you around. Most of us would consider one to be okay and one to be a police state, and I don't find that at all unreasonable. (Why? My suspicion is because we assume that, with limited manpower, the police would be using it on people they have actual reason to believe are doing something whereas with unlimited "machinepower," they'll just watch everybody and see what sticks.)
For what it's worth, I think a child's eating habits at school is a silly thing to care very much about but I also think it's something that shouldn't be done. It's an unnecessary invasion of privacy that accomplishes very little.
Why can't the school simply have three or four or whatever different stations? Station 1: Choose a hot dog or a hamburger or a chicken taco or some pasta or a salad or whatever selection it is you have going that particular day. Station 2: Choose a fruit and/or vegetable. Station 3: A small cupcake or a fruit cup or yogurt or some such little desert entry. Station 4: Milk or water. That way you know that no matter what they actually choose, they have a decently balanced diet. You can't force them to actually EAT these things, of course, but you can't do that with some automated tracking system either. Maybe even add some sort of special treat like french fries or tater tots on (alternating?) Fridays or something. Everything in moderation and all that.
Childhood obsesity (and obesity in general!) is a big deal, and I would fully support things like removing sodas and vending machines from schools and trying, in general, to make the lunch offerings at school more healthy. That doesn't automatically mean that anybody from your parents to your principal needs to know exactly what you're eating, nor does it mean that even if we go to that exreme that we're doing anything in particular to combat the problem. The reason we're fat is because we eat wrong (including--perhaps especially--at home) and don't exercise enough. PE classes and nice school lunches are good, but the problem is societal and parental. If you're doing everything right at home and making sure your kids get out and play outside and get some exercise, it's really not going to matter very much that your kid chooses the hamburger and cupcake every day. If not, they're going to be fat even if their school lunch is salmon and green beans. Assuming they would even eat such a lunch.
That anybody's mind would automatically jump to "LET'S SPY ON THEM!" kind of disturbs me. There are simpler, less invasive, equally-or-more effective and dare I mention cheaper methods.
There are a attendants at the automated ones sometimes and there are higher priced ones where they hand wash.
There is also the occasional jailbait filled fundraiser by the local cheer or volleyball squad.
If that happened, you could "charge" it and make it up the next day. So no, never a big deal.
White bread isn't so much of a big deal if you can't snack in between meals, but high GI foods like that tend to cause large spikes and dips in your blood sugar that make you feel "hungry" more often. If your body is used to having to just eat into its fat reserves when you need energy instead of just snacking each time you feel a bit peckish, it's not so bad. Regular exercise has a similar effect of getting your body used to quickly switching to burning fat when it needs energy.
which is totally what she said
No but long term studies do show that people who eat red meat were 60% more likely to die during the study period than those who didn't.
There are plenty of links between the nitrates in those hotdogs and negative health effects. And of course refined flour is basically just sugar.
The thing is the refined white flour doesn't even really taste better. There is no reason it has to be used for pizza making.
To teachers I'm just another child,
To IRS I'm another file,
Just another statistic on the sheet.
I fell like just a number,
Spoke in a great big wheel.
Just a tiny blade of grass in a great big field.
Free Martian Whores!
You don't see being 5342345 rather than Joe Smith as dehumanizing?
Remember when 6663411 gave his speech about equality and dreams? You might know him as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Missing something eh?
The PIN number is for an account which is billed for their food. It's not to monitor what they eat, it's to monitor that they have actually payed for what they eat!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
By market stalls you mean vegetable stands, fruit stands, flee market stands, and hot dog stands/carts?
Here in the US stall refers to a tight enclosed space and all of those things are open. The most commonly encountered stalls are found in restrooms. Horses are also kept in stalls.
"Ask any teacher, they'll tell you which kids have eaten breakfast in the morning."
And never once discover they don't have this miraculous ability they think they have. I never ate breakfast and never disrupted class.
Tight parental control and making sure lunch money goes where they want it to might be what parents want but that doesn't automatically make it a good thing for kids.
Right, like teachers with 25-45 kids in their class have time to actually give a shit about what they are eating. My kids teacher made her eat leftover lunch from the lunchbox she forgot to take home the previous day rather then letting her get her new lunch out of her backpack. You really think they give a rat's ass what the kids eat?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'd mod you up but I've already posted.
My dad used to teach at a school in a poor area, and results and behaviour improved once the school laid on a free breakfast. Not this school, but same result.
There are exceptions to everything.
I never ate the crap pretending it was food in school.
I ate breakfast before and diner after but I never ate the tasteless, over-processed, artificially-flavored, artificially-colored, overcooked, salt-laden glop that they would slop on the plates.
YEEEWWW!
I am now a healthy, (apart from having contracted MS somehow,) svelte, muscular 56 year old.
I eschew all processed foods and monitor my blood pressure daily. I will NOT go like my 'rents after popping and artery in my brain.
I will go into my grave after all my friends have gone into theirs. Will I enjoy the wait though? Maybe. (Some of their daughters are cute. :-)
At least, I'll look healthy when I eventually do...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yeah I hate how there are virtually no wholemeal pizzas ready made, it makes no sense. Pizza would be a pretty healthy food otherwise.
With the red meat thing it makes me wonder if it wasn't stuff that people were eating alongside the red meat. Here in the UK steak and chips (ie fries) or with potato is very common.
Not saying that it definitely isn't the case that red meat is bad, and I generally eat more chicken than other types of meat at the moment, but so many of the studies in the last 50 years have been trying to vilify fat while ignoring the fact that as we've gone "low fat" and "diet" everywhere, people are just getting fatter. It's pretty much the white flour, corn and potato based foods, as well as "diet" drinks with artificial sweeteners that damage your liver (which makes you more likely to store fat, similar to drinking) that people ingest these days that causes them to get fat and results in so many health problems.
The only category of fat that seems proven to be definitely bad from the studies I saw when looking into all this are trans-fats. I think people would be much healthier eating red meat than the rest of that processed crap.. I mean our bodies have evolved to process meat, but not refined foods with a high glycemic index.
which is totally what she said
Tell this to a kid whose name is Chulalongkorn Ramathibodi. It's a matter of being practical. Those are account numbers, that's all. Ascribing some higher meaning to them is, well, you'll read more about it in psychiatric textbooks.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
You guys really have a way of making an old codger feel his age. Back when I was at school in the '60s and '70s, when the planet was newly cooled, and dinosaurs still staggered around dying of lung-cancer from smoking those non-filtered Gauloises, we had two choices: school dinners (paid for up front as part of the school fees) or packed lunches. I much preferred the latter...
This is all rather fascinating news to me - when I was a school-kid, very few of us ever had any money on us at all - so there was no "industry" in stealing it. Our lunches were either paid for up-front or we brought them with us.
Well, at least the bullies will only have to beat up the other kids once, instead of chasing them down for their lunch money every day. I'm sure they can think of other reasons, though.
They do have the money, and they have additional federal funding on top of that. What happens is it gets spent on other things (uniforms, facility improvements). Then Joe Vendor comes along and offers a tidy sum to 'handle' their lunches. Vendor pays for exclusive access, prices to match or exceed existing prices, then cuts their costs by 50% or more by serving crap. People complain but they have a 5+-year contract ironclad, and besides we already spent the money they paid us.
Some places don't do exclusive deals (like my high school). They contracted each weekday to a different local food service company. Tuesdays was pizza by Little Caesars, for instance. You were required to leave the line with every item on the menu, but you were not required to eat it. Aside from the main course, the food was actually pretty ok for bulk canned goods. It was a simple system: [ ] school meal [ ] home meal [ ] second serving.
Why are we offering so much choice that it's possible to eat nothing but junk food? I think that is the real problem, and if it was addressed there would be no need for dietary tracking. I could understand a choice of menus, maybe three, with one being vegetarian and avoiding common allergens. Many of the same benefits of a single menu system would apply, and students would still have a bit of a choice. No complicated tracking required, not even for account management.
-1 raving lunatic; +6 subGenius... Things even out...
Just a side note: It has actually never been proven that saturated fat is bad for you. In fact, newer studies are coming out saying it's an essential fat.
This is not a case of Big Brother. This is a case of some random parent's paranoia. My daughter has had a 4 digit pin since she started school 8 years ago. Nothing of this program has to do with monitoring what the kids eat. The school has a set lunch, they know what they serve during the week. So they know what meals have what nutritional value already without having to monitor each individual child.
Most likely as with my kid they 4 digit pin is tied to his kids lunch account. Rather than having to take in money each day for lunch, I send my daughter with enough cash for the week, and at lunch it's just deducted from her account. The good thing about this system, is that it any surplus at the end of the year rolls over into her account the following year. So this year her account was already credited with $30. I know cause we received a statement from the school prior to the start of the school year. Her pin hasn't changed in all this time.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Honestly, if this was the case of my kid's school, I would be pretty angry. Doubly so if I were the kid. My reasoning is, roughly, as follows:
1. It is just another implementation of an all-seeing eye that sees all "sins" and reports to some higher authority. This is, in my opinion, a serious threat. Freedom is a real freedom only if it allows an option that can be self-destructive. Without it, we are no longer human beings, just slaves under supervision. Do we really want to teach our kids to be less than humans, to always rely on a higher supervision?
2. The current focus on "healthy" food starts to look like a twisted religion, pretty unhealthy in itself. People seem to believe that just "healthy lifestyle" will protect them against everything, exactly like old Catholics believed that spiritual purity is a key to eternal life. But this is simply not true; there are enormous numbers of illnesses that attack people regardless of what they eat; and finally we all will fall ill and die. Yes, of course the diet makes *some* difference, but it is not a panacea, and it is deeply unfair to poison kids' minds with pretending otherwise.
3. None of us, not even the school board, not even the state, is omniscient. Everyone can make mistakes. And the science of wellness and healthy life is an essay in mistakes; every few years it is revised, sometimes substantially, and every decade or so it is completely turned upside down. What if *we* are wrong and the kid's instincts are right?
4. Finally, every human is unique and slightly different in metabolism. Who is wise enough to decide what is the best for him/her? With problems like this, I always remember the Tales of Pirx the Pilot: "Ground control has no right to muck with the decisions of the captain. The situation may look different from the ground than in the commander's seat." Let the kid, as any other human, be in the commander's seat. It is their body, not ours.
Stop making me remember all of these numbers. I have been storing them on my computer and now it's out of RAM memory!
Yes, but you have to do extra work to keep it secret.. bring in a bagged lunch, eat it by yourself somewhere so nobody can see what you're eating, etc..
From m-w.com
#3: a booth, stand, or counter at which articles are displayed for sale
#5: a small compartment ; especially : one with a toilet or urinal
you do know common usage trumps the dictionary when it comes to language?
No, the state's Board of Education gave me the option to skip seventh grade. My home-schooling was more akin to a charter school in its administration. It had state oversight and teachers on hand when need (via telephone or e-mail). I have a traditional high school diploma because of this, thus negating the need for a GED as many traditionally home-schooled students would have.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I never met a lunch money stealing bully. I have never met anyone who has told me that they have met such a bully. Those bullys may exist somewhere or may just be a myth.
...people who eat red meat were 60% more likely to die during the study period...
That's because none of the non-meat-eaters were at risk of choking on a barbecued brontosaurus rib.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
So let me see if I can get this right. This school wants to monitor what the kids are eating by making them memorize a four digit pin code. Lets see when I was five I was in Kindergarden, I was just starting to learn how to read and write. I had a hard time remembering which stop to get off at on the bus which is why I had a tag for the bus monitor to read and let me know I had to get off at the next stop.
This program has to be costing a fortune in public funds. A four digit pin code means that they are tracking each individual students dietary habits. Which of course requires more record keeping and analysis, for what purpose? Are they going to institute the fat police and call the student into the principal's office if they discover little Jimy isn't eating right and give him detention because he wanted a hamburger, fries, ketchup, and chocolate milk? Or do they intend to call a parent teacher conference to discuss their child's unhealthy eating habits? Or perhaps they are going to stop them in the lunch line, and tell little Suzzy that she can"t have that brownie because she's too fat?
If they really are concerned about the child's eating habbits they can monitor that by simple inventory control and observation of the caffeteria trash cans. They can even set up trash cans so that certain items go in certain cans. Milk cartons here, food there, etc. Much simplier, less expensive and less invasive upon the students. This isn't rocket science, hell it isn't even science. Maybe if we put a rocket scientist in charge of the school lunch program then they can get it all straightened out.
My point is... that a state or committee-dictated healthy diet is impossible to arrive at universally, even if you throw out Kosher/Halal and other cultural and religious considerations out the window. Dictating the foods kids do or don't eat because of some arbitrary opinion on what constitutes "healthy" is doomed to failure.
-- Terry