School Lunches: Cultural Relevancy in the Cafeteria (Early Grades)

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Objectives
Activities will help students:

• understand how students’ home cultures, religions and ethnicities affect their school lunch experiences;
• develop empathy and respect for students of different ethnicities, religious backgrounds and faith traditions, and
• share their learning with other students.

Essential Questions

• How do students’ cultural backgrounds affect them at school?
• What dietary rules do different religions have?
• How can school cafeterias accommodate and respect students from diverse ethnic, religious and other backgrounds?
• How can students participate in making schools more culturally relevant?

Materials

• Materials for making posters, such as: poster board, markers, crayons, magazines, construction paper, scissors and glue.

GLOSSARY
ethnicity [eth-nis-i-tee]
(noun) Identity that is based on cultural similarity. Ethnicity may be based on common heritage, ways of life, nationality and/or religion.

halal [huh-lahl]
(noun) An Arabic word meaning “permitted.” The opposite of halal is haram, which means prohibited. For Muslims, most foods are halal, but some are haram. For school lunches, haram foods include: products made from pigs, animals that were not slaughtered according to Muslim laws, carnivorous animals, and blood and blood byproducts.

kosher [koh-sher]
(noun) A Hebrew word meaning “proper” or “pure.” Kosher refers to a system of dietary rules based on Jewish law. Kosher food excludes: shellfish, products made from pigs, and blood and blood byproducts. Kosher rules also define how to slaughter animals, and exclude those that were not slaughtered properly. They also prohibit eating meat and dairy products together.

vegetarian [vej-i-tair-ee-uhn]
(noun) The practice of eating only foods that come from plants rather than animals. For many Hindus, vegetarianism is part of sadhana or spiritual practice, although Hinduism does not require that Hindus be vegetarian. Rather, it identifies the benefits of not eating meat.

Procedure
1. Look at the words your teacher has written on the board: halal, haram, kosher, vegetarian. Listen as she explains what each word means. Answer each of these questions with your classmates: With which religion are halal and haram associated? With which religion is kosher associated? With which religion is vegetarianism associated?

2. Look at the word ethnicity that your teacher has added to the list on the board. Listen as she explains what it means and names some ethnic foods. Keep in mind the religious restrictions and the ethnic foods as you do the next part of the lesson: the trip to the cafeteria.

3. With your class, go to the school cafeteria. Walk through the line together. As you go through the line, identify any foods that you see that are common to any of the ethnic groups you talked about before. Then your teacher will ask you to identify which foods an observant Muslim student could or could not eat, which foods an observant Jewish student could or cannot eat, and which foods a vegetarian student can or cannot eat.

4. Return to the classroom. Think about how you would feel if you were a member of one of the groups with dietary restrictions you have been talking about. How would you feel going through the cafeteria line? Discuss your answers in class. Think, too, about the lunches that students bring with them to school. Do you sometimes see foods that are not familiar to you? Have you asked your classmates about such foods? Have you tasted them? How comfortable are you and your classmates with the variety of foods people bring from home?

5. Now that you have learned about foods that some Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and other vegetarians can and cannot eat, teach what you have learned to the rest of the students in your school. With a group, make a poster to share what other students should know on the subject. Use whatever materials you like. You may want to draw, or cut out pictures from magazines or construction paper. Be sure that your poster tells people which ethnic group’s food or which religion’s food rules you are showing. Get permission from the school’s leaders to put the posters in the cafeteria where other students will be able to see them.

THINKING ABOUT HOW YOU LEARN
Effective learners know how they learn best. Think about how you learned the material in this lesson. Use these questions to guide your thinking:

• Did I learn best when the teacher read aloud?
• Did I learn best when I read?
• Did I learn best when I talked about what I had heard or read?
• Did I learn best when I created a visual presentation?
• Did I learn best when I wrote?
• If I were going to change this lesson (not the content, just the activities) to suit my learning style, how would I change it? Why would the changes make it easier for me to learn?

You might want to find other students in your class who learned the way you did. You can talk together about your learning style, and adapt future lessons to suit your preferred ways of learning.