Does your child have a Ratatouille Moment like Anton Ego?

Does your child have a Ratatouille Moment like Anton Ego? 

ratatouille from www.bonapetit.com

Anton Ego is the food critic in the animated film Ratatouille. He was such a big name in the culinary industry that one good review from him will surely add a star to any restaurant. The irony is that Ratatouille, originally a peasant food, brings out the perfection that Ego was looking for. The simple reason is that it stirs a most touching memory that even a heart as hard of a diamond would melt. No wonder Ego’s palate is hard to please, he has an extremely high standard - mom’s cooking! Watch the film and see if you would have the same conclusion. Never mind if filthy rats cooked the food but the 2-minute scene from Ratatouille should make us reflect on many things that matters in values education.

Three weeks ago, I asked my grade 8 students to record their daily meal for one week. The objective of doing this task is to have firsthand data which we can use when we analyze the interconnections of BMI, eating habits / diet, and physical activity -the usual lesson on food pyramid but with updates on the MyPlate trends. Majority of the students were very diligent and really recorded their daily meals painstakingly; and what they have written directed me to another perspective. To an ordinary teacher, the meal diaries would just be a pile of worksheets to rate. But as I read on my students’ meal diaries, there were questions that keep on popping out of my head, some even pinch my heart.

Out of the 70 students, only one actually wrote a fruit as part of the meal. What does it tell me? Was it either due to economic reason or ignorance about good food? No, it actually made me want to ask if my students’ mothers actually have a regular marketing day on weekends to have enough time to look for fruits in season. Only 15 of them actually mentioned a specific, traditional Filipino dish like singing, nilaga, tinola and adobo. These home-cooked viands were usually eaten during the weekends. What they usually eat on school days-  fast foods, canned foods, fried meat, or they have no idea at all. I wonder how many of my female students actually spend time with their mothers cooking, following grandma’s recipes, or making a kitchen adventure using a cookbook. How many of the girls, when they become mothers themselves, would hand down traditional recipes to their own daughters? How many of the male students look forward to a Saturday or Sunday backyard barbecuing with their father? How many of the boys, when they become fathers themselves, would wake up early on weekends so they can prepare a brunch for their kids. The 21st century learners must be more techie but nothing can replace a meaningful moment with mom or dad. Gadgets become obsolete but a happy memory such as a home cooked meal eaten together is a shared history. 

Seventeen of my students actually skipped lunch and/or dinner at least four times a week,  14 skip at least twice in a week. Why do they skip meals, dinner particularly? Perhaps, their parents come home past their meal time or their bed time. When they come home there is no cooked dinner yet so they make themselves full with snack foods. My worst inference is that their families do not eat together during dinner. I am not an expert on family matters but common sense would tell us that a family dinner is one of the most opportune time to establish good communication and relationships. Eating a balanced diet together is more than getting our nutritional needs. Family meals would teach our children about respect, responsibility, morality, and spirituality. I wonder if my students ever get excited to come home eager to know what their mothers are cooking for dinner. I wonder how many of them patiently wait for their fathers who promised to bring home something special for dinner. I just hope they have as many good memories just as I remember what used to be our traditional home-cooked meals when I was growing up. Until now I can vividly remember what we would always have for christmas, new year, fiesta, and holy week. I can still remember how usual it is for my father to cook kare-kare, grilled relleno, and kaldereta on a Sunday. My mother would make sure there are morning and afternoon snacks standing by on our kitchen counter - spaghetti, turon, mais con yelo [during summer], and all sorts of fruits in season. It was a happy childhood not because we were well-fed but because our meals brought simple joy to a child and happy memories to an adult. 

 

Five students actually skip breakfast at least three times in a week and 13 once or twice even on weekends. As for the snacks, less than 10 listed especially cooked / prepared foods. Majority listed  junk foods with empty calories. Again, I would like to ask, how many of the students actually wake-up with their mother cooking breakfast or at least insist that they take something to jumpstart their day.  As a teacher, I think it is also my concern how many of the boys and girls actually have mothers or fathers who would take time preparing their breakfast and lunch in the morning. The mere act of waking up early and preparing the food is a good indicator of parenting style. Or is it more correct to say that times have changed and that students prefer lunch money over lunch box? 

Why do we need to bother ourselves with what and how our students eat? As educators, we have the duty to make sure that their character building is holistic and that we can assume that they would mature as well-rounded personalities once they leave the portals of our institution. Our school canteen also has the great responsibility to augment whatever is neglected at home. Meal habits, palate preferences, and eating manners are more than nutrition and discipline. What we eat makes us what we are. How we eat determines who we are. 

If you are an educator, have you had a Ratatouille moment?

What about the children in your care?

Do you think they have? will they ever have? 

What educators can learn from Mamasapano massacre

As a patriotic and nationalistic Filipino, what do you think about this video?
from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTNNwP-Iobc

How about this?



from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5XlPdJr-2w

"arrogance" "doublespeak" "lack of leadership"

"should take responsibility" "fiasco"

These are harsh words, in fact, disgusting as well as insulting, for a nation who put their hope and thrust in a president who proved to be a weakling. For a man whose parents are heroes but instead takes after a sister who blemished the family's reputation, who would be proud to have Pnoy as a leader and father of a nation? If a student would honestly tell what he/she thinks about the ambiguity of Pnoy's stand, how should a Filipino educator respond?

The Mamasapano issue is a very good material and now is an ideal teachable moment for almost all subject areas to infuse values and morality. For a "highly respectable person" he should not have acted like a young brat when he berated some members of the clergy in front of the Holy Father. When he attended a ribbon cutting ceremony instead of grieving for the Fallen 44, I asked myself if Pnoy simply lacks sensitivity or he lacks common sense; maybe he lacks both. For a student to ask a teacher, "Bakit po sinasabing walang delikadesa si Pnoy at si Purisima?" it means we adults must have done something right in forming the young. As for what our president and his friends are doing, we still need to ask, what kind of education has the Catholic schools and the Filipino society have done to create such monsters?

A leader must know where his loyalty lies, in his friends whom he trusted? from whom he owes his success or to what is right and true? For teachers who needed to reprimand students, it is easy to use school policies as bases of our arguments. However, we sometimes find ourselves too emotional because some students remind us of our own personal issues. In the process of redeeming our self esteem, we forget that our duty is to help the young rectify their mistakes and renew their self-worth. Instead, we lose our dignity by allowing us to compromise our principle  and unconsciously lose our dignity. Let us remember that every white lie that we allow our students to make or any laxity for discipline that we tend to dismiss, puts our students at risk of losing their soul to the devil. For educators, most especially those who hold administrative position, keeping our integrity and upholding the truth becomes more difficult. In any organization, relationships tend to become political at some degree. Even the president highlighted his personal relationship and his "utang na loob" and "pinagsagmahan" when Purisima resigned as PNP director.


from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6GvGLnMhxA

The Mamasapano incident only shows us that when a leader rules with dishonesty and inconsistency; when persons in charge refuse to take full responsibility or protects on the basis of personal reasons; when the ambiance has become too toxic because of so much deception, and when the standards become compromised, an organization is headed for doom. If we know that our colleague is already committing a disgrace, should we keep mum about it or should we make our own sacrifice for the sake of what is right and true? Would you be like Pnoy or would you lose a friend to save your own dignity? As role models, educators must always uphold truth and justice.  In the enterprise we find ourselves - that is, EDUCATION, how difficult it is to encourage every stakeholder to follow the same level of professional ethics. However, regardless of the social changes or social mores, Christian values remain steadfast and we should never forget that when we deal with moral values, we must keep in mind that we are like stewards of the future. Whatever our students become in the future, me must have taken part in their journey.

There are protocols in the workplace simply because they keep things in order and to provide a system for transparency. As a Catholic educator and as a true Christian, each of us has the responsibility to choose between truths and uphold what is good and just for all. I have never read a Catholic reference that says "we have the liberty to choose between good and evil" for true freedom applies only when we are discerning between two truths. As a teacher, and molder of future leaders, what is the message of the Fallen 44 to you?