“Are you with me now” A J Ryder
PRIMO If you give people time, they learn.
SECONDO I don't have time for them to learn! This is a restaurant, not a fucking school!
The history of the movie Big Night is in big part the history of the elevation of eating in America. It coincides with the Food Network and the promotion of the chefs in the back coming out to the front of the dining room and gaining a rightful place in the food chain. All that said, there are serious ethical questions to eating. The hot dog dialog between two brothers, one a chef and one a businessman is about more than a restaurant. The reference to what you want schools to be as places where learning takes time around what you love to do is a question of ethos. Are schools really places that give children time to learn around what gives their lives meaning or are they more like restaurant businesses that are willing to cut corners to make a buck? Yes, learning takes time and with few exceptions, schools operate more like the restaurants that Primo wants to run lacking soul and values.
And….
This week was a landmark week in the food wars. Joey Chestnut, the champion of the Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog eating contest was cancelled because of his endorsement of the Impossible Foods “hot dog.” It may sound funny and it is but there’s also a tell-tale here showing us how challenges are met by the food industry. The Impossible Dog doesn’t have that much less fat or salt than a regular hot dog but the process is way better for the environment. This alone is a challenge to food companies. Joey Chestnut is the embodiment of the change and he’s paying for it. This is not the first time a contract cancellation has happened. Takeru Kobayashi, the Godfather of competitive eating was also banned from the Nathan’s Hot Dog contest because he wouldn’t sign an exclusive to only appear at Nathan’s contest. The food industry has loads of ethical issues that need reckoning.
Gregory Gourdet Best Chef in the Northwest - Celeste Noche for The New York Times
Talkin’ ethics in the food industry, The James Beard Award winners were announced. I’ve followed these awards because unlike education standards, the standards in the food industry keep changing and over time have become more inclusive and more in sync with the times including judging restaurants and chefs for how they treat employees; what kinds of food they use that are environmentally friendly; their commitment to their community; and how healthy the foods they serve are. These are just a few of the new categories. This year the lifetime achievement award was given to Ruth Reichl. In her acceptance speech she stated, “People finally understand that eating is an ethical act and our food choices really, really matter.”
All this said, Jen G sent an email to Danique, Carlos and me about getting BPL Living measures more and more into the body of our work. BPLiving is about living and aging well as we do the things that matter to us. Yes, as Ruth Reichl, Joey Chestnut and Primo point out, food choices are an ethical act and really matter.
This article on the decline of PISA scores in Finland caused by smartphone use misses many points and leaves many questions that need to be addressed. First off, the PISA test is really no indication nor of little value when considering what students in Finland achieve through the Finnish system. It is solely testing a narrow band of academic skills – literacy, numeracy and science in a text-based modality. Next, if students are not engaged in math class might there be something wrong with the math class? Reasons for disengagement in a class need to be addressed through ways to engage, not through blame on smartphones as a distraction. Also, the study only looked at students who were identified as disengaged. It says nothing about the students who are engaged. Were the disengaged students disengaged prior to smartphone use? If we keep using the same measures and not see the forest from the trees where other work is giving students the skills and knowledge they need to navigate, we will continue to use the same measures and make the same mistakes. This article creates the case for the IBPLC as does this opinion piece on What Happens to Gifted Children by David Brooks who in the end comes to a conclusion that sounds like BPL - “Arguably the most widely agreed-on finding in the talent development literature is the inordinate amount of time truly outstanding performers give to their craft.” …. “Great accomplishment is the marriage of ability and interest.” If Brooks really did a deeper dive into the research, he would also find out how important strong personal relationships around an interest are to learning.
Be it the ethics of what we put in our bodies or the sorting of students on narrow assessments around who is smart, it all points to the need for new ways, new forms and new measures.
Lots of good news about schools in Indonesia and students getting accepted to Canadian universities using the IBPLC. Next week, I will meet with Scott Boldt in Dublin.
Be well!
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