As an elementary principal, I do not mind the noise that much. some days it gets a little too loud for the little kids and they are covering their ears. I am thinking of doing a last 5 min. of your lunch session eating only so they eat more food. The kids get so distracted they don't eat and that worries me. So at the end of the K lunch time they have to focus on eating and calming down after a loud lunch. I agree that lunch time is one of their only social times but it can get too loud and out of control. Its a tough battle. I am not a fan of silent lunch. How do you enforce that when you have over 200 kids in the lunchroom. I would also let the parents know that we would like to have a last 5 min. eating only rule so when they come eat with their student they understand why we are doing that. You would be surprised how fast they try to eat after 20 min. of talking and then realize it is time to go and they haven't eaten all their food. I just want them to eat and not be hungry all day.
I had to laugh about the "20 minute scarf". My 7th grader gets 20 minutes as well. The district provides free lunch for all the children and it is so bad that 20 minutes is more than enough time to pick through it. I keep telling him if he doesn't like the lunch, he should make his own but he is not quite mature enough to do it. Actually I had silent lunch for a short period in elementary school 30 years ago. Ass't principal had just returned from military service or something. Real authoritarian type fellow. His head would turn purple when he was angry...
i am a student and they have been giving us a lot of silent lunches lately. at recess they ring the bell and we have to freeze and be quiet. then they ring it again and we go to our lines. once the principal gave us a silent lunch because we didn't line up correctly. this was only because at the beginning of the year, no one specifically told us how to line up. lunch is OUR time to to talk!
the bill of rights says that ALL have FREEDOM OF SPEECH! i'm just a little too scared to do anything yet. i'm working up to it though, and i am doing research to make my plan foolproof.
I had one experience with it in Washington State at Woodland Elementary in Lacey..I was NOT happy! I complained to the principal and to the pta. Now, you must understand that they ate in their CLASSROOMS! No cafeteria, which I found ridiculous and odd. Nothing was done about it. They instituted "silent lunch" whenever they wanted and I never knew about it until after my kids came home.
I ran into it again in my current in our current town of Mt. Vernon, Missouri. In the Elementary, Intermediate and Middle schools they will institute a "silent lunch" if they feel the kids are getting too loud. My oldest son has informed me that it happens "alot" and that the first thing they do is put everyone in A-B-C order then if they are still "too loud", they institute a "silent lunch" with the punishment of either a "deduction" of grade (which is still unclear to me as to WHAT class they deduct from since lunch is not a class) or Detention.
I think it is absolutely ridiculous! It is the only time they have to socialize. I say, that if they don't like the noise level, wear ear plugs!!!!
Maylisa--our students get 20 minutes for lunch as well, but that 20 minutes includes leaving the classroom, getting their food AND cleaning up. I think Silent Lunch is absurd, but I find getting K-6th graders to accomplish all of this in 20 minutes is even MORE absurd! It's no wonder our kids have bad eating habits....we teach them to scarf what they can as soon as they sit or go hungry!
Our kids get 20 minutes for lunch; the first 10 is silent and the second 10 they are allowed to talk but at a voice level 1. What helps is that the classroom teacher sits with them and helps with the monitoring. Since 20 minutes isn't much time for eating, it is important to make sure they eat instead of playing. I don't necessarily agree with it, but like the fact they are trying to encourage the kids to eat something "healthy"/
