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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16830277/

The St. Rose of Lima School instituted new lunch rules this week that require students to remain silent during lunch. The move comes after three recent choking incidents in the school cafeteria.

All three students are fine, but school Principal Jeannine Fuller said in a letter to parents: "If the lunch room is loud we cannot hear if a child is choking."

full article on link. I understand their concern, but jeeze. No hugging, no tag, no talking during lunch? *sigh*

The uproar, maybe.

But I'm pretty sure that if the child is making noise, he/she is not choking.

That's a bit much. Even if it becomes the rule, it is VERY difficult to keep that many students...YOUNG students...silent for such an extended period of time.

You're right, I just read that in health class a few days ago.

I can understand their concern, but thats kind of mean. Thats like telling people not to talk period because they might choke...'sides, if a kid sees another kid choking wouldn't they realise.. hey I better go help them or tell an adult? Also, whats witht he one trip to the trashcan thing? What harm does throwing your trash away do..?

On the one hand, I feel like they should definitely be looking into things if that many students have choked lately. Sure, a quiet lunch is probably better than some of the alternatives, but this just bothers me for some reason.

Still, I think they might be better off if they did more than just having the students whisper. They could educate students in the Heimlich maneuver and hire more lunchroom monitors. Or maybe just serve food that poses less of a choking hazard, if it's been happening that much.



Exactly. This is one of my more major pet peeves, so I doubt I'm being terribly rational about it. There is no place in life, other than grade school, where an average human being will be expected to stay quiet for 6 hours a day. I think it's cruel to take away one of the only places where kids are allowed to socialize normally during the day.

So was I the only one who was forced to be silent at lunch because the teacher decided we should be?
It sounds kind of like they don't have to STAY in the lunchroom the whole lunch period, either, because the kid said "The sooner we eat, the sooner we can get out to play." They can leave the cafeteria and go out and talk and play for the rest of lunch, and they can whisper to their friends anyway. That's more freedom than I was allowed.

Well, no. We went to the same schools, if you'll recall. This explains my irrational and long-running hatred of silent lunch.

I went to an elementary school that had a pretty routine silent lunch. They had little cards on our tables; a red and a green one. If we were on green, we could talk as normal. However, our teacher or a lunch monitor could turn the card to red for a certain amount of time depending on our behavior, and we would have to be silent until it was green again, lest we be in silent lunch longer.

You just know I'd be the one who bursts out giggling.

Shhh! You're endangering the lives of others!

When I was in primary school, we had a big period of time where we weren't allowed to talk in the dining room. I remember being really annoyed 'cause it seemed quite pointless.

Then we had a seating plan for the dining room, with a boy and a girl from each year on each table. We were allowed to talk, but only to the peope on that table. And us year 5s and 6s were supposed to help the little kids cut up their food and stuff...that the dinner ladies were paid to do?

...yeah, I was glad to leave that school

If that's true - if the sooner they finish eating, the sooner they get to go out to play, maybe that's the problem! Maybe they're eating too fast! Probably not chewing their food well and choking because they're hurrying.

^ That sounds beyond probable.. kids do stuff like that. *crowns you smartest*

And woah man, I'd hate taking care of little kids at the table.. grah! *pulls hair*

I have an idea! Why not puree all of the children's food so that their chances of choking are slim to none? Or how about we just hook them up to machines and have them fed intravenously?


Man, I should be on the school board. I have sane, reasonable solutions for everything.

Better yet, eliminate eating all together from the school. We'll save millions on employing cooking staff assuming we employed them for 100,000 years

Why not just get a rule that states anyone within two metres of the choking student has to scream at the top of their lungs? A lot more effective!