Friday, April 9, 2010

Why not white milk?

After the extended discussion on chocolate milk last week in class, I have been thinking more and more about it. I guess the part of the situation that bothers me the most is the fact that the contest did not involve regular white milk as part of it. I think that if the contest was passed of as a tool to increase kids' drinking of milk, white milk should have been counted, too. Students should be aware of the nutritional benefits of drinking milk in general, and they shouldn't be, as was mentioned in class, "conditioned" to drink chocolate milk only. If the contest had been about BOTH types of milk, or even just white milk, I think the students would have still been motivated to drink more milk than they used to. Using chocolate milk, which is hardly any healthier than soda when consumed in such large quantities, is doing nothing good for the students themselves. It is only beneficial to the dairy industry. We as educators need to be aware of the decisions these contests are teaching our children to make. And, as was mentioned during today's book presentation, the reward the school received was just another way of enforcing positive rewards as motivation to do "good things." Overall, I don't think I agree with the contest, but maybe if there had been some small changes made to it, I would have found it a little less upsetting.