SWA #12 - 02/17/12 - "A Healthy Consitution" Annotation & Questions

Waters, Alice. A Healthy Constitution. The Nation. 2009. Print

In this article the author is arguing that schools should incorporate food education into the everyday maths and sciences. Waters wants there to be healthier meals, and she wants the students to be involved in the growing of these foods. She believes children consume too much processed food in cafeterias. This in turn will lead to students learning responsibility, sharing, stewardship, and they’ll connect with their peers. The whole idea is that they learn about the process of growing something and then the get to reap the benefits by eating what they grow. Waters is biased in this article because she obviously supports these programs. She herself developed an organization to network food activists and make these edible education programs a reality.

According to Waters, food can be used “to teach values that are central to democracy.” She believes that teaching the Constitution isn’t the only way to instill these types of values into students. Her logic suggests that when these edible education programs are instilled, students will be more “connected to their communities and the land in more powerful ways.” Waters believes that having that sense of connection will further implement democracy based values in students and further educate them. In addition, Waters attempts to connect healthy meals to learning. She does this by suggesting that when students are depended on their responsibility to grow the food, they are educated with responsibility and sharing skills. Furthermore they learn how much farmers depend on land, how much citizens depend on farmers, and how the nation depends on the process. Her evidence for this theory is a few quotes from students who have been in one of these edible education programs. They provide some insight and generally praise the program. However, their words sound very fabricated to me, so I wish she had provided more sound evidence pertaining to why her argument is a good idea. It would have definitely strengthened her point.