Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Am surprised a bit by the responses. It seems very unprofessional for a teacher to snack during class. If she misses lunch and has to eat it discreetly at her desk as the teacher PP mentioned, that's okay. It's better if the teacher could ask the class to excuse her because she was unable to eat lunch on time. If the snacking is needed for a medical condition, she should tell the class that, again asking for their indulgence.
I attend plenty of bag lunch meetings at work. But they are all internal and the assumption is that those not eating lunch have already eaten. Snacking with external parties present would never happen unless coffee and cookies, say, were made available for all. I almost always have a mid-afternoon snack; I have people coming into my office all day long and if I really need my snack I ask permission of whomever is there. I usually have extras on hand that I offer them should they wish to join.
I once went to a meeting with one of the top people in our organization in his office. At one point in the meeting, he got up, grabbed a bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies from a closet and proceeded to eat about five of them without offering any to the four or so staff people present. Everyone thought it was inexcusably rude. We all decided he was odd and had no social graces. He did not last long.
That said, all I would have said to my child is that is very odd, I wonder if she has a medical condition that requires her to snack all day. Inwardly, I would wince at the poor example of manners the teacher was modeling. If I had a good relationship with the principal, I might something to her in a vague, nonjudgmental way.
The fact is it is rude to snack in front of people without offering them something.
What? No! No adult should be forced to explain themselves to a child, nor have to ask permission or "indulgence" from a child for anything that doesn't involve that child's safety and personal space. My child does not get to decide whether she will allow her teacher to eat something, or to do anything that doesn't involve teacher touching my child or having my child break a safety rule.
That part of your post seems so entitled on the children's part, I cannot believe you would find it reasonable. That would be an appropriate interaction between peers, or colleagues at the same professional level, not between an adult and a child or between a superior and a subordinate, as are both the case in a teacher-student relationship.
Wow! Guess I am pretty old-fashioned on this one. In the mileu I was raised in, including in school, children would treated with the same respect and manners one would treat an adult. If the children were not allowed to snack in class, neither was the teacher. If it was unavoidable, children would be offered the courtesy of an explanation just as an adult would be. Maybe views on this are a generational thing.
That's not old fashioned at all. The notion of children and adults being equals in that way seems very modern. Old fashioned would be that adults didn't need to justify themselves to children and that of course adults would be extended more/different privileges than were customarily granted to children.
I was raised with an understanding that the manners with which an adult would interact with a child were very different from manners between the child and the adult or between two rough age peers. An adult would not be rude to a child, but there was no need to defer to them or to treat them as the adult would treat a peer.[/quote]
I think what the person posting about how "children would be treated with the same respect" meant here was
not that kids should be deferred to or treated as equals.
I think the point is that adults should have enough respect for kids that the adults model appropriate and respectful behaviors in front of them and towards them. That includes not getting up in front of a group of elementary children, who in our school system here are limited to one snack at one specific time (not throughout the day) in school, and chowing in front of them.
If the teacher sees a kid whip out a snack at any time other than the official snack time, and the teacher follows school rules and says, "You can't have that now; you can only have snacks at snack time," the child is going to be confused by the fact the teacher is clearly saying: "Do as I say--but not as I do."
Yes, the teacher has the
right to eat all day long, I guess, but it is a very poor model for the kids to see. I'm not saying the teacher must follow the same rules as the kids all day every day. And some adults may need to eat throughout the day for medical reasons (seems not to be the case here if it's candy by the bag). But, barring a medical issue, it would probably help any teacher have more authority with kids if the teacher models the same behavior he or she wants to see from the children in class, including not eating in front of people who can't eat at that time.
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