To not see the big deal about Jewish and Muslim dc wearing red disks

[BrandNewAndImproved]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-school-forces-muslim-and-jewish-pupils-to-wear-coloured-discs-a6669396.html

So basically it stops dc being given food they can't have at lunchtime and no way imo can it be compared to the yellow star.

I might be biased in that I am a school cook and before that a nursery cook where every dc had a placemat with their photo and dietary preference. Schools don't do this instead we have a list with photos on and what they can't have but we have had near misses with jelly for example. A child who couldn't have the jelly asked for the jelly knowing they couldn't have the jelly and luckily as soon as the server put the jelly on the plate the child said but I'm not allowed this it's not halal and she had a fresh new plate of food.

Something for the cooks to see in primary schools to avoid mix ups is a great idea. The only problem I see with what the French have done is not to do it for all dietary requirements like allergies and intolerances

I think glasshouses is spot on too.

Spanisharmada I suggested the discs but it was that every child would have a disc , not just the Jewish/ Muslim children.
I see someone else said their nursery uses wristbands of different colours and that's probably even better. As long as all the children are given one.

Identifying different dietary requirements is common in primary schools.

Publicly emblazoning those children with those requirements (which are religious in nature) is not common. And it is particularly problematic in a country where Jewish children had to wear the Star of David. In a country which takes laicite extremely seriously, to the point if banning schoolchildren from wearing religious emblems.

You must be either spectacularly thick or stupefyingly racist to think this isn't an issue.

There's no hand- wringing.

I'm curious why though, when there are other methods available , posters are so passionate about this one- despite knowing the connotations and the precedent.

That's not been my experience of France at all Malaguena. What media were you watching to see that?

So why shouldn't it be possible to give every child a band or similar to indicate a meal choice? Why is it OK to single out specific children?

In my school all the children with dietary restrictions wear a lanyard with a badge. This includes vegetarian and allergies and some of the children who are responsible for helping clear the table which is a prized job, so it seems like something positive, especially as it is the same style as the teacher's name badges which all the teachers wear. We don't want to make them feel uncomfortable, but it is so easy to make a mistake during a busy lunch service and the badges are really helpful. Another point is that they only wear the badges during lunch not all the time.

I can understand why this is a sensitive matter and we must be careful to bear history in mind. If people aren't comfortable wearing a badge a different way of identifying pupils at lunch must be used.

I'm happy to be corrected but I'm not convinced schools here or in France are serving halal- buying in halal meat yes but preparing it halal? Separate fridges pans chopping boards changing gloves and covering surfaces etc to prepare?

I won't eat halal or kosher if avoidable. IE at a Muslim or Jewish house or celebration I would have to. Saying/ playing prayers over meat is just creepy.

Single out specific children as what, though? Red badge for halal, yellow for vegetarian, where's the shame? Why does it need to be hidden from view like an embarrassing secret? It's just lunch choices! If they give every other child a green badge just so everyone had a badge would that then make it OK?

Well this for example is from a popular tv show broadcasted yesterday, and the woman is a prominent EU MP from Sarkozy's party: tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/politique/20150927.OBS6599/race-blanche-et-autres-aberrations-proferees-par-nadine-morano-sur-le-plateau-d-on-n-est-pas-couche.html. In the last year we have had PM Manuel Valls talking about 'Islamo-fascism", we have had the right wing mayor illegally recording information about children to document the supposed 'invasion' of Muslims (based on their names 'sounding Muslim'), we have had another mayor from Sarkozy's party saying he would only accept Christian refugees and the list goes on and on and on. Racism is pandemic. Do you have French Muslim friends Twist? How do they feel about their children potentially being labelled as 'halal-eaters'?

I can't believe anyone doesn't have a problem with this.

I can understand why people thought it might be easier, but there is so much fail here due to the historical connotations.

Having said that, I'm an atheist and spectacularly against the concept of 'religious children'. It's not about what they 'can and can't eat'. A Jewish child will not go into anaphylactic shock if they break the religious rules and eat a bacon sandwich. If it matters to the parents that much, let them provide a packed lunch (appreciate this might not be an option in a French school).

The lush not even vegetarians get their own ovens and oven trays ect. The standard red raw meat board is used for all meat. Vegetarian food will be cooking in the same oven as sausages.

We do wash and anti bac wipe the probe between different food and wash up obviously to avoid cross contamination. Where I worked before a Hindu family sent their dc in food as they're beliefs were that strong they only let their dc eat fruit from our kitchen and nothing cooked or in anything that previously had meat in.

brand

Sorry only read part of the thread but had to say that in our infant school the children have cards

Sounds like the same sort of school as ours...the cards are coloured though with yellow ones for any intolerances

Back to the thread...

brand

Saw your post to hula

In our school the servers don't touch the cards, the children put them in a pot, the servers are told that its class 4b red dinners coming in for example

Different schools and different methods i dont like the idea of badges though

I understand the argument that runs that all slaughter is cruel and therefore Halal slaughter isn't worse in that it's equally inexcusable.

I don't accept it.

Why is this even a story in the UK?

This was an initiative in one school, and lasted one day, before the local authority got wind of it, and stopped it immediately.

Are we just trying to stroke ourselves about how wonderful and tolerant we are, compared to those barbaric French?

FFS, are you on glue? Jesus. Yellow star/red disk, why not just hammer nails through their little hands so they can be properly stigmatized or tatoo numbers/barcodes on them. For fucks sake, this is insane.

sanity you are of course 100% correct but this is AIBU where getting in a froth when not in possession of the full facts is a local tradition

It was a wrong-headed local initiative, the local council stamped on it pretty quickly because despite what has been said above about French racism (with a lot of truth, it has to be said), badges for Jewish kids is even less acceptable in France than it would be in the UK.

lush no idea about the UK but it would astonish me if halal meat was used in our local state secondary schools and I've never heard it raised as an issue despite many years of participation as a parent representative at my children's schools. It may be an issue in some more devout communities but I guess they would choose religiously-affiliated schools for their kids if they felt strongly about it.

Oh sanity, did you not realise it's ok to discuss any sort of news from anywhere in the world and thanks to the Internet everything's accessible.

Johnwick your completely overreacting. It was to help lunch staff, veggies were also given disks and no one was singled out.

brandnew it's fine to discuss thing and actually I've found this an interesting discussion (mainly because I am so surprised to find that there are british people who think this is OK), but Sanity is correct that the British press often take a very strange angle when reporting French news.

I find the cultural differences interesting. In the UK I guess this could just be seen as a practical way of distinguishing between meal choices, as you are arguing, but I promise you that in France (which was occupied by the nazis remember) this has very obvious anti-Semitic connotations plus it's totally against the "republican values" that get drummed into the heads of little french citizens from the start of primary school!

Misti I sort of see what your saying. I don't think the school thought of it like that and I think the parents have overreacted. It's interesting to hear what people have to say about it though.

I'm one primary school where I worked every child looked at the menu/had the menu explained to them and then chose a meal and received a small piece of laminated card to represent that meal. (Eg, green triangle means sandwich choice 1, green square is sandwich choice 2, red circle is hot choice 1, red square is hot choice 2)

When they went to lunch they handed their card to the catering staff. Every child. It stopped them forgetting, changing their minds etc.

So the teacher would be able to intervene if wee johnny veggie opted for beef burger and say 'are you sure? That's not the veggie option'

And it meant no one was singled out. It was arduous for the teacher in the morning, especially for really young children but it worked well.

brandnew there's a cultural context here that you won't be aware of - in France, school canteens are run by local councils NOT by schools, and local councils are often to the right of national politics. This happened in a national political context where, in some areas (not the one in this story though), Front National "racist and proud of it" councils are actively removing pork-free meal options in a very provocative way.

In the UK, it's commonly accepted that children have the right to eat meals that are culturally appropriate. I completely accept that giving kids a coloured sticker would have no racist overtones in the UK (as long as they all had one). But this really is different!

Misti the school kitchens over here are run by councils to. But yes I see what your saying.