Aibu to think that wasting eggs in this way is wrong?

[WillyNilly00]

I'm a TA at a school and today the teacher was telling me about a Russian roulette style game she planned to play with the children before Easter. It involves the children picking 1 of 2 eggs to 'back', then the eggs are dropped to see which is hardboiled, until just 1 child wins. Apparently 10-15 eggs are used.

Now I am against encouraging children to throw eggs at all but aibu to morally object to this game? Surely in this age of encouraging children not to waste anything and teaching them to be environmentally conscious this is inappropriate?

The teacher I work with looked at me like I had 2 heads when I raised this point.

I don’t understand how blasé people can be about resources like food.

Every day the news is full of war-torn countries, refugees, Brexit paranoia, climate change stories. And yet some people think it’s a laughing matter to be wasteful with what we are fortunate to have in this country?

To me this isn’t a question of usage. It’s a question of wastage. Any resource used properly is fine. If there were no other way to teach probability than by smashing raw eggs, fine. Children need to learn about probability.

But there are many, many ways that don’t require eggs or other limited resources. Why go out of your way to source eggs and waste them, instead of tossing a coin?

I think the answer is that the children will find it fun, and that means the teacher will think there’s a greater chance the children will retain the lesson. Tossing a coin isn’t as fun, and wouldn’t retain a child’s attention so well. It’s a failure in the teacher’s ability to engage their pupils and teach effectively.

It’s the same thing again and again. People expect others to pay the price for their own failings. Can’t be bothered to wash and fill a water bottle every day and carry it around? I’ll just buy a 50p bottle in Boots every lunchtime. Can’t be bothered to wash out a lunchbox every day? I’ll just bung it all in a plastic bag. Can’t be bothered to get up 10 minutes earlier and walk to school? I’ll just drive the half mile there and back.

So lame.

Dear lord.... 😩

I'm assuming it's an effective tool to teach something like probability. in the great scheme of things I can't get hung up about it

I'm all for creativity, and effective tools to teach probability, but it sounds like a complete waste of good food to me!

To take against this benign game is po-faced misguided virtue signalling

oh and

lol

What about books are they a waste of paper? Trees no more when we could just use kindles?
It’s really fine to use eggs in this way.

@DrCoconut Ruining good food while people are going hungry is just immoral (see also cake smashes and "sensory play")

Ooo! Sorry, don't mean to go off on a tangent, but had to respond to this - do not even get me started with cake smashes lol.
Where to start?! "Haha, look at little Tarquin covered in cake, funny /cute etc, and how I'm showing him to bash the shit out of food and throw it instead of eating it!" Not to mention the poor sap who probably spent a lot of time and effort making that cake just for lil bubz to face plant/trample it cos mummy and daddy think it's cute.
Er, no.

Sorry. Sorry, as you were! Eggs! Lol

I can't put this in the same box as a cake smash. The amount of eggs being used for this activity is probably the same number as goes into one cake for one child to smash (though we all know it's for the parents really). Cake smashes are purely social media fodder and waste more food than these few eggs.

This egg activity will engage a whole class.

I'm not totally comfortable with the food waste in this egg activity but, assuming the hard boiled eggs could be eaten, it's only a small number that will actually go to waste.

Food waste is immoral - what about fat people, are they immoral?

Did you miss the 15 page thread the other day about fat people?

Is there a learning intention behind it?

Coin is tossed

Have you any idea how polluting the copper mines are that produce these coins? I suppose you just don’t care given those mines aren’t in the UK - it’s someone else’s land being ravaged!

This is a Greek Orthodox game played every single Easter. I used to play it with my great granny who died age 97 in 1986. So maybe some RE will also be taught in this lesson.

The eggs are still used and eaten, just scrambled or baked into a cake. I get this might not happen at school, but if they do it before lunch then maybe they'll be used up (or you could donate your time to do some baking).

Something like 700 young male chickens are slaughtered every second to give us meat. The same number of female chickens are raised to produce another 700 eggs before they are also slaughtered.

Pretty sure a hen can lay more than one egg in a lifetime...

@Rosieposy4 learn to read tongue in cheek comments andnyou will go even further in life than understanding the life cycle of an egg, my friend 😂

You are all beyond hysterical. I'd be more concerned with the millions of tons of food waste the EU generates with their veg and growing guidelines than 15 eggs which will help your children to grasp useful concepts.

I might go and buy a dozen tomorrow just to smash for the shells to use in protecting my veg garden... If the slugs ate my chard that would be food waste too wouldn't it??

"DD's playgroup stopped making necklaces out of pasta when one of the children tried to take everybody's home for tea."

imo what's wrong about deliberately destroying food in front of school kids is that some of them may come from households where there is insufficient food

e.g. benefits stopped, or the wait for UC changeover

and the EU doesn't generate "millions of tons of food waste with veg guidelines"

The best lesson I had in primary school (20+ years ago and I still remember it to this day) was being given a minstrel and a chocolate button in each hand and using probability to work out which would melt first, then washing our hands and seeing the difference it made. And we got to lick all the chocolate off our hands after. Way more exciting than smashing eggs.

So... @LimeKiwi would you rather see a photo of little Tarquin donating his cake to a food bank or a homeless shelter and then have that virtue signalling all over facebook, instead of a toddler having sensory fun and enjoying messy play?

What if the school used their smashed eggs to bake little Tarquins cake? Would that be acceptable, as that'd be two birds with 15 eggs... Or would that be a double whammy of waste?

Maybe you can stir the cake mix with that wooden stick up your rear end and then bake it with all of the hot air you just spouted?

That'd be more eco friendly than using the electric whisk and gas oven, surely 🤔

Really? 15 eggs, 30 pupils what's the problem? Half an egg a child, what meal does your child not loose/leave more than that?

Tarquin can enjoy his cake at home
If his parents smashed the cake in front of a homeless shelter, that would be pretty pointed

Like the wealthy Bullingdon Club student at Oxford deliberately burning a 20 quid note in front of a homeless person as an initiation.

Enjoy your money
Enjoy your food
just don't destroy it in front of people unless you know they aren't going without

In a lot of schools, some kids are coming in not having been fed

Oh I'm sorry, I misread that she's intending to drop them. Our game is to tap them together....and actually they're all hardboiled and the 'strongest' one (last one to crack) wins. can't believe I forgot that crucial bit of info!

Maybe she could do that instead though, then they can make sandwiches for lunch?

YANBU and yes @BigChocFrenzy is quite right to point out that some kids do go to school without being fed - it wouldn’t be “just a few eggs” to them and their family

These children should be taught that food is a precious commodity and should not be wasted like this.

Goes without saying that there are millions of children around the world who'd love to have those 16 wasted eggs to eat!.

So... @LimeKiwi would you rather see a photo of little Tarquin donating his cake to a food bank or a homeless shelter and then have that virtue signalling all over facebook, instead of a toddler having sensory fun and enjoying messy play?

No, have a cake for his birthday or dont, thats up to you.
Not sure the relevance of translating what I said to meaning virtue signalling all over FB with photos of cake donating to foodbanks as I wouldnt particularly like that either.
It would be nicer though as at least people would get to eat it instead of getting baby flinging it about for the laugh.

Ugh no. I really can’t stand blasé wasting of food.

I would be pissed off if our school did this unless they used the broken eggs for food afterwards in some way. And they made a point of telling the kids what it was going towards- so it’s made obvious that it’s not OK to waste food for fun.

Or if the teacher wants the kids to smash something in a messy way, could they make those folded paper water bombs that we used to fold up and fill when we were kids? At least paper’s easily cleared up and recyclable.

Oh gosh I'm in two minds about this.

I agree with you OP.

On the other hand I'd feel silly making a fuss, when just that class probably wastes more food at one lunch break. And in the discussion of food waste it's always missed that any time you eat food you don't need it's just as wasteful as throwing it away.*

*Im a fat person btw, who definitely wastes food by eating it, before anyone says I'm some skinny mini who doesn't understand.

If you want to take this kind of extreme view of food waste, using eggs (or anything else for that matter) to make cake is a waste. Eating anything other than the bare, plain essentials is technically a waste. Have you really never eaten anything you didn’t really need to? Added anything to your cooking purely for taste? Eaten something for enjoyment rather than need? Honestly? I find it hard to believe that anyone is as virtuous about their food consumption as some of you are claiming to be.