To think a 'hunger banquet' is a bizarre way to teach children about food inequality in the western world?

[electra]

I can't really put my finger on why but I don't really want my child to participate. It seems like a psychological experiment and on that basis inappropriate for children.

I will, however be donating money for Haiti.

Feel free to tell me I'm over analysing!

ArcticFox and dittany - you have said what I wanted to so much better!

I wouldn't be very impressed in primary school, but high school is a different matter.

I 100% agree it sounds horrible. there is enough nastyness in the world without subjecting children to this.

and agree, with child neglect many kids might not be fed properly anyway

bloody stupid idea

I don't think it is a good idea. I think it will go over the heads of many 7 years olds and they won't really grasp the whole debate part of it and what it is supposed to be about long term.

I think there are far better approaches which would work more effectively.

indeed, Hulababy

Ridiculous to do this with 7 year olds, most of whom won't understand the meaning of debate let alone be able to do it.

However I do think it's a good initiative amongst senior school aged children.

Surely deabte at 7yo will, for many, just be arguin and shouting at one anothe. The debate aspect will nee very ood management byt he teacher for infant school pupils o get anything at all out of it.

Agree with what most others have said. 7 is too young. My parents used to go to 'hunger lunches' at church (80% just rice, the rest got proper meal) - thats fine. Would be OK for secondary school too. But for infants - even juniors - well, I know my DD would prefer bread, cheese and water to most school lunches so it'd be wasted on her.

psml at silverfrog's school's starvation lunches:

"we used to have starvation lunches at school (they were prob called something really PC, but that's what we called them!) where "all" we would have was a bowl of soup, bread roll and a piece of fruit"

That (minus the piece of fruit) was the standard Wednesday lunch in my Swedish state school. We did not aspire to pudding. Didn't realise I'd had a deprived childhood.

I used to have lunch with my dad at his theological college in the 80s (because there were no school dinners - teachers went on strike and wouldn't collect dinner money).

Every now and then they had a Frugal Lunch of bread and cheese and the profits went to charity.

I would have been about 7/8 and I did understand them, it was a good experience for me. Big difference is though that 100% of lunches were the same rather than some having fancy stuff. So it was purely about raising money and thinking about less fortunate people - not trying to recreate the world's situation in a college dining room.

There's a difference between having bread and cheese though (yum) and "hardly anything at all".

Electra do you know what they are actually planning on feeding them? "Really unappetising food" - maybe water and, um, ?

totally agree, cory

but, we really did have excellent food at my school, I honestly can't think of anyhting that was not edible at all.

(although the soup was, tbh, a bit ropey - manky packet stuff rather than nicely cooked form scratch perfection we were all used to!)

Bread and water, I think.... I'm wondering if it's just an opportunity for them to get the children herded into the dining hall so they can get on with something else

Bread and water is hardly the end of the world though..

I mean if they're not actually going to let them go hungry, which is what I was thinking they were going to do.

Yeah but I just find the whole idea bizarre......and I think 7 is way to young anyway.

I don't (and I think the majority of posters don't) disagree with the charity lunch aspect. most 7 year olds surely know there are people less fortunate than themselves, and having a plainer lunch (although not going hungry) is not a bad thing.

but the whole rich man's lunch/poor man's lunch is an unnecessary way to do it, imo.

It doesn't help the charity anymore to have only some children missingout, and I am not sure that all 7 year olds would grasp what that was about- it would be all too easy for it to be misinterpreted by children.

in fact, I don't think having the full lunch/starvation lunch angle is helpful to anyone, at any age, taking part in siilar events.

you either have everyone taking part, or you don't.

silverfrog that's exactly it. Great idea to give the children a plain, basic lunch, donate the difference to charity or use it as a starting point for a debate. But wtf is this business about 10% or whatever having a three course meal all about? Completely stupid, pointless and designed to start a fight, not provoke a debate. Absolutely crazy idea from right on hippies who think that you can simulate a problem like world hunger in the classroom. Obviously the same twunts who think that standing on a moving platform at the Nat Hist museum whilst watching a video of an earthquake in Japan gives you an idea of what it's like to be in the middle of it .

Stupid idea, why should 7 year olds need to be worried about hunger anyway? Surely just telling them that not enough people have enough food is sufficient. And what if there are children who don't have enough food in the group. The idea of a more simple lunch and money saved going to charity is a good idea.
I'm a secondary teacher and my form did an assembly where a few kids came on carrying a huge bag of fake money and a large group came on sharing a tiny bag - made the point perfectly clearly without a silly fuss.
I think I'd be tempted to speak to the head and find out the rationale behind this idea.