It's such a cliche, but the lunches at my school are truly awful.
Truly.
It's gotten so that one of my students Rickie (who is very intuitive, surprisingly) recognizes that certain meals should not be served, and avoids them merely because we cringe each time they pop up on the menu. He even repeats some of our phrases, which is very amusing to me. He'll say things like, "looks like a cereal day" or my personal favorite, "nutrition no-no."
Some examples:
mozzarella sticks as a meal - not only that, but it's served for both breakfast and lunch - who does that?
"beef nuggets" - aka, leftover hamburgers punched into a new shape and re-served with dipping sauce
bacon, egg, and cheese pizza (what?!?!)
an "omelet" - microwaved egg with a slab of cheese thrown on top
bagel pizza - just cause it's on a bagel doesn't mean it's breakfast!
chicken rings - okay, chicken should not be in a ring - that is just plain unnatural
and many others that are really just too disturbing to think about prior to bed.
So the meal choices are a point of mocking with myself and my two paraprofessionals (teacher aides) and we go through the lunch menu at morning meeting to see what is being served. It is often accompanied by sarcastic remarks. Occasionally we have even decided to forgo lunch entirely and will order pizza instead of forcing our students to eat the truly horrendous things they serve at my school. And there's the very common, "I think today will be a cereal day" when presented with the breakfast menu, which is far worse then the lunch menu (see above).
But our sarcastic remarks often go above the head of my very literal autistic students, and are mostly for our own amusement. Of course, my very intuitive one, Rickie, picks up on this.
So last week, he was asking me what we were going to do in gym class. Since I don't teach gym (thankfully), I didn't know.
"I don't know, Rickie. It's a mystery."
He thought about this for a minute, and came back with, "just like lunch!"
Yes, just like it.
Truly.
It's gotten so that one of my students Rickie (who is very intuitive, surprisingly) recognizes that certain meals should not be served, and avoids them merely because we cringe each time they pop up on the menu. He even repeats some of our phrases, which is very amusing to me. He'll say things like, "looks like a cereal day" or my personal favorite, "nutrition no-no."
Some examples:
mozzarella sticks as a meal - not only that, but it's served for both breakfast and lunch - who does that?
"beef nuggets" - aka, leftover hamburgers punched into a new shape and re-served with dipping sauce
bacon, egg, and cheese pizza (what?!?!)
an "omelet" - microwaved egg with a slab of cheese thrown on top
bagel pizza - just cause it's on a bagel doesn't mean it's breakfast!
chicken rings - okay, chicken should not be in a ring - that is just plain unnatural
and many others that are really just too disturbing to think about prior to bed.
So the meal choices are a point of mocking with myself and my two paraprofessionals (teacher aides) and we go through the lunch menu at morning meeting to see what is being served. It is often accompanied by sarcastic remarks. Occasionally we have even decided to forgo lunch entirely and will order pizza instead of forcing our students to eat the truly horrendous things they serve at my school. And there's the very common, "I think today will be a cereal day" when presented with the breakfast menu, which is far worse then the lunch menu (see above).
But our sarcastic remarks often go above the head of my very literal autistic students, and are mostly for our own amusement. Of course, my very intuitive one, Rickie, picks up on this.
So last week, he was asking me what we were going to do in gym class. Since I don't teach gym (thankfully), I didn't know.
"I don't know, Rickie. It's a mystery."
He thought about this for a minute, and came back with, "just like lunch!"
Yes, just like it.
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