For the second July in a row, my husband and I are with George Mason University students studying abroad in Oxford University’s Exeter College. Oxford, founded six hundred years before America’s oldest university, clearly has roots in the past. But I see lessons for the future in the way it operates.
Oxford was built around a culture of community. Student scholars eat with members of their own college — the largest only 741 students. Oxford tutors, who were not allowed to marry until the Victorian era, originally lived and ate in the colleges where they taught, encouraging intellectual discourse at mealtimes.
In the dining halls of each of the 38 colleges, students and tutors sit at long tables (think Harry Potter) and conduct lively discussions about books and politics. Students tell me the level of discourse is far different from what they are used to back home.
Harry Potter may be fiction, but the tradition of communal meals spans English public and private institutions. It is not just for the few who can attend Oxford; it is a universal school goal, regardless of budget, and one worth emulating.
Most college students in the United States go to schools where they are anonymous — making some friends in class, but not welcomed into a ” school family,” and rarely sharing meals with both students and teachers. From my observation of conversations during Oxford meals, U.S. schools at all levels could increase student intellectual growth by providing communal meals for adults and students. That increased dialogue would be as valuable an educational tool as reading or writing.
How does food play into this scenario? I have argued for better food in our nation’s school lunches, but I’ve never argued that fresh, nutritious food will encourage intellectual growth. I am arguing that now, based on what I’ve seen here. The Exeter kitchen cooks three meals a day for 200 to 400 students, and easily provides fruit, vegetables, whole grains and unprocessed alternatives to the mass-marketed fast foods our school cafeterias depend on.
What kids are reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories. Information on the books below came from Amazon.com’s list of children’s best-sellers.
Books about fresh food
1. Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs by Rozanne Gold and Phil Mansfield (young adult)
2. We Eat Food That’s Fresh by Angela Russ-Ayon and Cathy June (ages 4 to 8)
3. Janey Junkfood’s Fresh Adventure! by Barbara Storper and Frances E. Schneid (ages 9 to 12)
4. Get Fresh!: Creative Cookery by Bernice McMullan (young adult)
5. Eating for a Fresh Start by Marcia Singer and Camille Rendal (ages 9 to 12)
6. Good Enough to Eat: A Kid’s Guide to Food and Nutrition by Lizzie Rockwell (ages 4 to 8)
Lunches are usually cold, consisting of several salads such as: asparagus and pine nuts; tomato with cucumber, olives, and capers; and couscous with nuts, raisins and diced cooked zucchini. There are plates of cold turkey or roast beef, smoked salmon, and an assortment of cheeses. Students recognize that, as they load up their plates with salads, they not only “strive for five,” but eat more than five vegetables just at lunch. The food is fresh, tasty and makes students feel virtuous. They then sit down to discuss “Middlemarch” or Heidegger. We can feed our children better, and encourage them to have serious discussions at meals if teachers, parent volunteers and administrators sit with them. I predict that adults eating with students will change cafeteria menus faster than the child nutrition bill bouncing around the House and Senate, due for passage in September.
Initially, there would be a hue and cry from adults asked to eat with students, but it would be a first step toward changing our school culture into one based on community and shared conversation. We would simultaneously nourish body and mind. It might even become the dinner conversation we all long for in our own families!
Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at mailto:[email protected] “>[email protected].
