SWA #12

Emily Wyatt

English 102-111

February 20, 2012

Annotation

Annotation of “A Healthy Constitution”

Waters begins her essay referencing a specific middle school in Beckley, West Virginia from the film, Super Size Me. She explains the role that fast food plays in our lives and the negative effects that it places on us. She states that many students from this middle school are overweight because of the processed foods that cafeterias are serving. Waters then contrasts this with the healthier diet of Central Alternative High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. Central, a school for troubled youth, started to serve healthier food to try to change the performance of students in the classroom as well as give them better attitudes. This turned out to be successful. Waters then ventures to say that healthier diets do more than helping students make better test scores and have better health and discipline. She states that by serving students a healthier menu prepares them for the responsibilities of citizenship. She believes in “edible education, not just school lunch reform.” She proposes that educators integrate classroom instruction, school lunch, cooking, and gardening into the subjects of math, science, history and reading. This would allow educators to teach children where their food originates and how it is made. Children would be able to participate in the making of their food. Waters has founded Chez Paniesse Foundation, an organization that is meant to inspire food activists how to establish edible education programs in their communities. She then using a Thomas Jefferson quote that states that “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens…” Waters agrees with this statement and the fact that our communities are places for our children to learn about the production of their own food. She believes that this would make us a “caring society,” and that edible education promises that.

1. Waters states that the children will be learning from "farmers that depend on the land; we depend on farmers; and our nation depends on all of us." This would instill an idea of democracy into students by teaching them how our goverenment is operated.
2. By highlighting the fact that students would enjoy being able to particiapate in the production of their own food, they would be learning in a way that they would be able to remember in a postivie light.
3. I am not aware of exactly what each school in South Carolina serves. I would not venture to say that many schools in our state serve "fresh, locally grown, low-fat, low-sugar" meals.