The wired article makes it sound like the girl was a political activist trying to force a change in the school lunch program. But if you read her blog, the photos of lunches look pretty good and her "reviews" are mostly positive. It almost struck me that people with agendas are projecting onto this girl's blog, which doesn't seem to be intended to be controversial at all, rather just a chronicle of her lunches - including how many mouthfuls of food each meal contains as well as the color of the wristband needed to get your lunch that particular day! I don't know why the school shut her down, it certainly was not a negative reflection on their lunch program at all.
This did make me remember my school lunch days - basically tv dinners served in aluminum foil tins. I would have loved to have these lunches instead of the crap we had to eat!
Here's one of her typical reviews "Today's Shepherd's Pie was really nice. The mash on top was really creamy and the mince was in lovely gravy. I wonder where their meat comes from. The salad was lovely and crunchy. The cake looked really difficult to serve because the icing was so sticky. I saved my melon until last and it was a great way to end my lunch. Food-o-meter - 9/10, Mouthfuls - 32"
Initially, she did start her blog to change the program - and it worked! The school started allowing students to come back for seconds of veggies and sides. (You can read more about it in the original article, which was posted to HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4009404)
I wanted to know how many CCTV cameras they have. We in the UK are a heavily monitored population (here's a frustratingly thin article with a few details, hinting at a rich data set that is not made available. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8159141.stm) ) It's bizarre that her tax money (as a child she doesn't pay much, but she will pay VAT on a few items and her parents certainly pay taxes) is used to provide state surveillance and to prevent her photographic record of her dinners.
There are many reasons to prevent children taking phones and cameras to school. This reason is a really really stupid reason.
How wrong-headed it is to take active measures against a child who is showing an interest in writing; civics; nutrition; and so on.
EDIT: The father has appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Today" news programme. (about 7:20 for anyone 'listening again'.) He has said that the school has been very supportive, and that the decision was taken by the council. He sounds pretty balanced about it.
We crush the joy of learning out of children.
Ken Robinson, who makes my favorite TED talk IMHO, talks about this and how odd our education system is when looked at objectively from the outside in.
His followup, as well as the RSAnimate (you can find them by clicking "Full Bio>>" on the right), are good followups to his ideas.
One of the most powerful quotes, to me, is from the RSAnimate:
We still educate children in batches. We put them
through the system by age group. Why do we do that?
Why is there this assumption that the most important
thing kids have in common is how old they are? It's
like the most important thing about them is the date
of manufacture.
Not only do we crush learning out of children, but creativity suffers as well.
As a student, I can see the reasons to forbid phones in school (though I believe the advantages outweigh these), but what reasons are you citing in support of camera prohibition?I highly doubt that cameras could pose much of a distraction from classes, and they can't really be used for anything that might be harmful to other students or the school, except by producing hard evidence of something like these lunches, which should be encouraged.
well god forbid that uppity cleaver kids might enjoy school it might impact our plan to game the ofstead inspection so that we get the duffers who are on course for a D up to a C
Everyone seems to assume that the local council actually have the right to forbid a child taking photographs of her own property (in this case her lunch that she has just bought).
Is that really so?
Even if the school should have some capability to issue its own strange rules and by-laws, contrary to the common law applying outside, should this not be up to the Governors Board?
We all far too readily acquiesce, at our own cost, to arbitrary orders by 'authorities', assuming that they have powers over our lives which often they don't have or should not have.
Even if there is a law that would give the local council the necessary power, freedom of speech (given from the british constitution or human rights or the constitution of the EU) would override that.
Maybe she could draw lunches ... then take photos of drawings and post them. There would be a short caption under each photo, saying that the actual photos are not available due to the council policy.
Win-win: keep on doing what you love and learn to draw!
Statement on school meals from Argyll and Bute Council
Published Date: 15 Jun 2012 - 10:53
Updated: 14:19 - 15 June 2012
Statement from Cllr Roddy McCuish, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council
"There is no place for censorship in this Council and never will be whilst I am leader. I have advised senior officers that this Administration intends to clarify the Council's policy position in regard to taking photos in schools. I have therefore requested senior officials to consider immediately withdrawing the ban on pictures from the school dining hall until a report can be considered by Elected Members. This will allow the continuation of the "Neverseconds" blog written by an enterprising and imaginative pupil, Martha Payne which has also raised lots of money for charity.
But we all must also accept that there is absolutely no place for the type of inaccurate and abusive attack on our catering and dining hall staff, such as we saw in one newspaper yesterday which considerably inflamed the situation. That, of course, was not the fault of the blog, but of the paper.
We need to find a united way forward so I am going to bring together our catering staff, the pupils, councillors and council officials - to ensure that the council continues to provide healthy, nutrious and attractive school meals. That "School Meals Summit" will take place later this summer.
I will also meet Martha and her father as soon as I can, along with our lead councillor on Education, Michael Breslin to seek her continued engagement, along with lots of other pupils, in helping the council to get this issue right. By so doing Martha Payne and her friends will have had a strong and lasting influence not just on school meals, but on the whole of Argyll & Bute."
I understand that having pictures of the food is probably going to get the point across even more, but I don't understand why she didn't just continue to blog about the horrible lunches and put a sketch or something. Imagine if she has just kept on blogging without the pictures like nothing ever happened. That would have sent a pretty powerful message to those people that tried to shut her up.
I don't know about the UK, but schools in the US make up one of the three categories of places where you relinquish some fundamental rights, the other two being prisons and military bases.
For example, my high school in Maryland officially forbids ALL ELECTRONICS. In practice this generally only refers to cell phones and iPods, I can usually pull out a laptop and the faculty doesn't care, but they can also apply that rule whenever it makes their jobs easier. For example, I started recording classes to enhance my notes, and the school told me I must cease doing so, originally because they claimed it was an invasion of the teachers' privacy (!), then later that it was an invasion of students' privacy; but when I argued that the state law against recording people without their consent only applied to private conversations, and that no conversation could be considered private in a public place such as a school, they responded by simply saying that I can't record because it involve the use of an electronic device.
I don't know the exact laws but I know that certain property is "publicly owned," but not "public property" available to the general public. Government buildings, schools, airports, parks, etc have different rules.
I love her light-heartedness and wish I still had mine. And does anyone else think of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" when reading the title of her blog ("Never Seconds")? I keep hearing "Please sir, I want some more" in my head.
I'm certainly glad to have kids like this in the world ... she's made more of a difference already than most of us will in our life-times. She's just passed the 35,000 pound mark for donations to Mary's Meals, feeding 3500 children for a year. Wow!
I'm certainly glad to have kids like this, but I'm also glad to have parents like hers. I know many parents who would, as long as it started getting some attention, told their kids to "stop looking for trouble".
There's a lot of bad parenting going on in the world, and her dad looks like a pretty balanced person.
Honestly, that food looks quite a bit better than my school offered. There are some nutritionally-very-questionable combinations occasionally, but by and large they seem among the more reasonable options I tend to see.
Which, yes, is terrifying. More focus on the crap we feed our kids is fantastic.
Follow the same link above and you'll see there are updates to Wired's original article. Thank you Argyll and Bute Council ... and you've shown the kids that it's okay to admit you were wrong and to take action to rectify what you've done.
Honestly, this was the sort of response I was expecting the first time that this story was posted -- not the Cinderella story of a positive change within two weeks. I guess the bureaucracy over there took a while to boot..
There should be some law that should state that if you can be at some place you can have a camera and take photos from that place of whatever you like and no one should be able to forbid you that or require a fee.
[+] [-] jakejake|13 years ago|reply
This did make me remember my school lunch days - basically tv dinners served in aluminum foil tins. I would have loved to have these lunches instead of the crap we had to eat!
Here's one of her typical reviews "Today's Shepherd's Pie was really nice. The mash on top was really creamy and the mince was in lovely gravy. I wonder where their meat comes from. The salad was lovely and crunchy. The cake looked really difficult to serve because the icing was so sticky. I saved my melon until last and it was a great way to end my lunch. Food-o-meter - 9/10, Mouthfuls - 32"
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
The school were supportive of her. The decision was taken by the local council after a headline appeared in a newspaper.
Local councils are baffling to people living in the UK. Here's a wikipedia article about Scotland's local councils. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_Scotland)
[+] [-] masklinn|13 years ago|reply
Because of her blog, look at the earliest items and things were... http://neverseconds.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/tuesday-8th-may....
[+] [-] leeb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grasuth|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
I wanted to know how many CCTV cameras they have. We in the UK are a heavily monitored population (here's a frustratingly thin article with a few details, hinting at a rich data set that is not made available. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8159141.stm) ) It's bizarre that her tax money (as a child she doesn't pay much, but she will pay VAT on a few items and her parents certainly pay taxes) is used to provide state surveillance and to prevent her photographic record of her dinners.
There are many reasons to prevent children taking phones and cameras to school. This reason is a really really stupid reason.
How wrong-headed it is to take active measures against a child who is showing an interest in writing; civics; nutrition; and so on.
EDIT: The father has appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Today" news programme. (about 7:20 for anyone 'listening again'.) He has said that the school has been very supportive, and that the decision was taken by the council. He sounds pretty balanced about it. We crush the joy of learning out of children.
[+] [-] JamesLeonis|13 years ago|reply
Ken Robinson, who makes my favorite TED talk IMHO, talks about this and how odd our education system is when looked at objectively from the outside in.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_crea...
His followup, as well as the RSAnimate (you can find them by clicking "Full Bio>>" on the right), are good followups to his ideas.
One of the most powerful quotes, to me, is from the RSAnimate:
Not only do we crush learning out of children, but creativity suffers as well.[+] [-] adrusi|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cabalamat|13 years ago|reply
Have you tried a freedom of information request?
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mjwalshe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SagelyGuru|13 years ago|reply
Even if the school should have some capability to issue its own strange rules and by-laws, contrary to the common law applying outside, should this not be up to the Governors Board?
We all far too readily acquiesce, at our own cost, to arbitrary orders by 'authorities', assuming that they have powers over our lives which often they don't have or should not have.
[+] [-] radiowave|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onli|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Evgeny|13 years ago|reply
Win-win: keep on doing what you love and learn to draw!
[+] [-] SagelyGuru|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frederico|13 years ago|reply
Latest statement from the school.
http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school...
Statement on school meals from Argyll and Bute Council Published Date: 15 Jun 2012 - 10:53 Updated: 14:19 - 15 June 2012
Statement from Cllr Roddy McCuish, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council
"There is no place for censorship in this Council and never will be whilst I am leader. I have advised senior officers that this Administration intends to clarify the Council's policy position in regard to taking photos in schools. I have therefore requested senior officials to consider immediately withdrawing the ban on pictures from the school dining hall until a report can be considered by Elected Members. This will allow the continuation of the "Neverseconds" blog written by an enterprising and imaginative pupil, Martha Payne which has also raised lots of money for charity.
But we all must also accept that there is absolutely no place for the type of inaccurate and abusive attack on our catering and dining hall staff, such as we saw in one newspaper yesterday which considerably inflamed the situation. That, of course, was not the fault of the blog, but of the paper.
We need to find a united way forward so I am going to bring together our catering staff, the pupils, councillors and council officials - to ensure that the council continues to provide healthy, nutrious and attractive school meals. That "School Meals Summit" will take place later this summer.
I will also meet Martha and her father as soon as I can, along with our lead councillor on Education, Michael Breslin to seek her continued engagement, along with lots of other pupils, in helping the council to get this issue right. By so doing Martha Payne and her friends will have had a strong and lasting influence not just on school meals, but on the whole of Argyll & Bute."
[+] [-] smithbits|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tyrannosaurs|13 years ago|reply
http://audioboo.fm/boos/847428-argyll-and-bute-council-rever...
(Around 1:30)
Also in good news, her charity appeal has gone from just under £3,000 this morning to over £20,000 (against a target of £7,000).
[+] [-] jack-r-abbit|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] polemic|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uptown|13 years ago|reply
"A council has overturned a ban which prevented British schoolgirl Martha Payne from posting pictures of her school dinners on her blog Neverseconds."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9333975/V...
[+] [-] spoiledtechie|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrusi|13 years ago|reply
For example, my high school in Maryland officially forbids ALL ELECTRONICS. In practice this generally only refers to cell phones and iPods, I can usually pull out a laptop and the faculty doesn't care, but they can also apply that rule whenever it makes their jobs easier. For example, I started recording classes to enhance my notes, and the school told me I must cease doing so, originally because they claimed it was an invasion of the teachers' privacy (!), then later that it was an invasion of students' privacy; but when I argued that the state law against recording people without their consent only applied to private conversations, and that no conversation could be considered private in a public place such as a school, they responded by simply saying that I can't record because it involve the use of an electronic device.
[+] [-] MBlume|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakejake|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zem|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoyer|13 years ago|reply
I love her light-heartedness and wish I still had mine. And does anyone else think of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" when reading the title of her blog ("Never Seconds")? I keep hearing "Please sir, I want some more" in my head.
I'm certainly glad to have kids like this in the world ... she's made more of a difference already than most of us will in our life-times. She's just passed the 35,000 pound mark for donations to Mary's Meals, feeding 3500 children for a year. Wow!
[+] [-] reginaldo|13 years ago|reply
There's a lot of bad parenting going on in the world, and her dad looks like a pretty balanced person.
[+] [-] charlieok|13 years ago|reply
If they think the girl is deliberately presenting unappealing selections, they should present some more appealing ones as a counterpoint.
[+] [-] charlieok|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewDucker|13 years ago|reply
http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/school-dinners-...
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josscrowcroft|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Groxx|13 years ago|reply
Which, yes, is terrifying. More focus on the crap we feed our kids is fantastic.
[+] [-] smoyer|13 years ago|reply
Follow the same link above and you'll see there are updates to Wired's original article. Thank you Argyll and Bute Council ... and you've shown the kids that it's okay to admit you were wrong and to take action to rectify what you've done.
[+] [-] politician|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anons2011|13 years ago|reply
Looks like the ban has been overturned.
A victory for free speech and common sense!
[+] [-] noonespecial|13 years ago|reply