The Food We Eat

by Bernice Hauser - Primary Education Correspondent

"What can we do, Bernice, to stimulate my children to use those critical thinking skills, to do stuff that is challenging, fun, and worthy -- and yet won't overwhelm the kids or cost oodles of money?" queried my colleagues at the child-care center of a prestigious hospital in New York City. "We have twenty-four kids enrolled, they range in age from eight months to four years old. We want them using their senses to develop into creative problem solvers. We need to design a long-term activity that most of our three and four year olds can partake in easily and eagerly."

We brainstormed for a while and came up with a theme that can be easily woven into the tapestry of the classroom:

THE FOOD WE EAT.

Every Friday the menu for the next week's lunches and snacks is distributed to the parents. The materials are already in place! Taking a cursory glance at the menu, we note that bananas, apples, fish sticks, string beans, carrots, potatoes and broccoli are listed on the menu. Do these young children think about these foods? Have they truly held them in their hands more than one or two minutes, smelled them, weighed them, eaten them raw, cooked them, cut them, left them to rot, or put them into the sun or into the freezer? Have they mashed them, scraped them, whipped them, fried them? Have they ever cooked banana pudding, smelled banana flavoring, fingered and eaten dried bananas? Have they compared a banana to plantains, do they know how bananas grow, and in what part of the world they are harvested and how they arrive at the local grocery store or at the giant super market (not to mention the national and international impact of the politics of this product)?

The adults are exhilarated. They devise a way of utilizing these foods, of reaching out initially to all the children together at one sitting and ways to engage them into introductory explorations on the material at hand. Every morning at circle time, the children sit together and discuss a myriad of things. They have food snacks and often engage in a common activity to foster both their sense of community and to consider common concerns and issues. The adults select, in dialogues with the children, the foods for investigations -- their choices will be based on factors such as the availability, cost, and appropriateness of the food, the objectives of the activity, and the interest in the food. Thus, after preliminary experiences with each specific food -- in this instance, bananas -- the adults will be better able to initiate small group activities plus individual sessions developmentally appropriate for this age group .

Why foods? Let me quote from a source book that proved to be my navigator through both the turbulent and calm waves of science reforms, With Objectives in Mind (sponsored by the Nuffield Foundation of England, published by MacDonald Educational, 1972): ". . . that a unit of study, to be a good one, must have certain attributes. . . ."

To initiate the discussion, the teachers deliberately choose open-ended questions:

The children's responses are duly recorded for referral and empowerment purposes. Most of the children knew the name of the selected food (banana); they also said it came from the store and that they usually eat it. None mentioned that bananas grow on trees!

Below is a sampling of some of the questions posited by the children as they each handled, examined, smelled, touched, and tasted bananas:

Some scientific and life experiences gained from the exploration of a banana are the following: Changing the substance, stirring, dissolving, using tools, cooking, smelling and tasting, observing, measuring, identifying, classifying, describing, considering cause and effect, selecting, heating, freezing, fostering sound hygiene practices, communicating, comparing, visiting stores, polling people, analyzing, keeping records, viewing specific videos, cooperating, learning new terms, fostering self-confidence, asking questions, sharing data, taking risks, planning nutritious meals, staying fit and healthy, designing packaging, learning about new technologies, discussing modes of transporting this fruit, using all the senses, sequencing, acting out growth and tasks related to the life span of this fruit.

The adults, providing the materials and setting the stage, assist the children in developing critical and creative thinking skills by asking open-ended questions and providing specific projects to foster and enhance interest:

Someone once said that the story of food is part of the history of civilization and that it reflects all the cultures of the world -- from the early hunter to the farmer to the consumer -- from natural plants to processed and biologically altered foods, from the use of early agricultural machines to modern day technology. In a recent press release from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in conjunction with the publication,"Dialogue on Early Childhood Science, Mathematics and Technology," Barbara Bowman of the Erikson Institute stated: "Aside from counting, number recognition, growing plants and learning food groups, math, science and technology are generally given short shrift during preschool years." May I suggest that this is due to lack of faith of adults in the ability to take the leap and embrace the teaching of science and technology as naturally as one endows movement, rhythms, singing and painting activities with these young people, and that adults are stuck in a stage of development whose vision of science is narrow, stereotypical and limited. I'm convinced that once adults realize and integrate the scientific and technological possibilities inherent in practically all early childhood and primary lessons and projects, they will fly with it. The subject of food in particular offers numerous venues for technological and scientific studies.

I'd like to conclude by reconstructing the tail-end of an activity planned with the same group of children who were eating fish sticks at lunch.. The children pretended they were on a picnic, they made or created or discovered in their classroom those items they felt were pertinent to take along to make this picnic fun -- metal plates, a tablecloth, plastic drinking glasses, forks and spoons, a jug of water, napkins, the fish sticks, some salad, some carrot sticks, some fruit, a ball, a kite, a pail and shovel, some books, some toys, a fishing rod, an umbrella should it start to rain, binoculars, salt, and pepper.

The teacher read them a story about a boy named Adam, also on a picnic, whose fishing rod snapped just as he had hooked a fish. She paused and queried how might Adam feel. Comments and discussion ensued and then the teacher commented, "I wonder if there wasn't something else Adam could have used to catch fish?" Needless to say, these young children came up with other ways to fish: "Maybe the string from the kite wrapped around a carrot would work," suggested one boy. "Use the pail," suggested another. "Perhaps a metal plate on top of the water would catch some fish swimming on top," commented a third child. The teacher had them hooked. To plan engaging workable activities using the children's responses would be the next step. And so she did.

Resources

Linda Allison, Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides (Little, Brown & Co., 1976 ). 127 pp. ISBN 0-316-03443-6 (paper)

Stephanie Craven, Fruit (Ladybird Books LTD, Leicestershire, England)50 pp. SBN 0-7214-0488-X

Francoise Blanchet & Rinke Doornekamp, What To Do With a Potato (Barrons, New York, 1979) ISBN 0-8120-5255-2.

Ruth Kraus, The Carrot Seed (Harper & Row, 1976 )

Rosemary Althouse & Cecil Mann, Food (Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1975) 35 pp. ISBN 0-8077-2459-9

Marilyn Burns, Good For Me! All About Food in 32 Bites (Little Brown & Co., 1978) 127 pp. ISBN 0-316-11747-1 (paper)

With Objectives in Mind (Macdonald Educational, 49-50 Poland Street, London W 1, England, 1972) 66pp. ISBN 0-356-0400907



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