Schoolchildren attending Michelle Obama “Let’s Move” event forced to go almost ten hours without food

[gsprofval]

Schoolchildren attending Michelle Obama “Let’s Move” event forced to go almost ten hours without food

 MARCH 6, 2013

One of Progressivism’s hallmarks is its absolute certainty that the government knows more about parenting than parents do.  That’s why Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, rather than seeming like a nice hobby for a First Lady, irks so many Americans:  her motives are suspect.  Rather than offering suggestions to parents, one can’t help but think that her goal is to have the government take control. The problem, as anyone who’s stood in line at the Passport and or a DMV office knows, is that, whenever the government takes charge, people have to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait.  Small surprise, then, that the 6,000 children who attended one of Michelle’s “Let’s Move” functions had to go for hours without food.

This story about the government’s inability to give kid any food, let alone healthy food, broke when Lisa Putnam, a First Lady fan and 5th grade teacher in Chicago’s public school system, wrote about her classroom’s adventures attending a February 28 event marking the kick off of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move! Active Schools” campaign.  Putnam described the event in detail at CPS Chatter, a Chicago Public schools online forum.  According to Putnam, the White House-coordinated event was a disaster from start to finish:

If you are a parent, imagine that you take your child on a trip and they are very excited. Now imagine they have to wait on a bus and stand in straight lines for three hours straight. Then imagine after one hour of “fun” that they have to sit around and wait for three more hours that bus to pick them up. Oh, did I mention that are not allowed to have a morsel of food the entire time? Now, multiply that by 25 to 35. Sounds fun right?! That’s a little bit what the day was like for CPS students, parents and teachers at the Let’s Move! Campaign.

***

The day began with the buses picking us up from our school. As we arrived at McCormick Place, we passed bus after bus after bus, full of students. Our bus took its place at the end of that line, and we waited for over 45 minutes to reach our destination. I thought the 90 total minutes in a school bus full of children would be the extent of my stress, but I was a bit naive at this point.

***

We were moved to a location in a large concrete room with thousands of children. We were told to keep our students in three straight quiet lines. The students stood there for almost an hour. Then, the students were ushered into a giant room with a stage and told they had to be very quiet, that there was a “surprise in there for them.” 6,000 kids quiet? Good luck guy. As the students went into the room, they were all assigned to stand in different areas. The students framed the stage on three sides and the media was seated on the four side of the rectangular square. As the commercial, I mean event, began each athlete was introduced. They all had a 1-2 minute motivational speech that was so cheesy that none of the athletes really seemed to connect with the students and the messages did not resonate. It seemed like one giant Nike advertisement. Finally, the first lady came out. Although she was stunning and her message was powerful, her back was to the children. She was facing the media. I couldn’t help wondering, who is this event really for? Then I realized my students were just a backdrop to this campaign/commercial.

[gsprofval]

***

Around 1:30 pm the concert was over, everyone was corralled back into the very large room we started in and went back to where we were originally waiting. They began calling buses, starting with 1-10. Imagine my thinking when I looked down at my wrist band and saw “bus 291.” The next two and a half hours broke my heart as my students continually came up to me to tell me that they were hungry and ask why this was happening. We teachers feel responsible for our students and there was nothing we could do but wait. We were at the mercy of this poorly run event. Some students entertained themselves by making their t-shirts into a ball and throwing them around, some laid down on the ground miserably. My pregnant coworker was dehydrated and hadn’t eaten in 10 hours. It was mentally and physically exhausting for every teacher, parent and student stuck at McCormick Place.

The view from the White House was a bit different.  Michelle Obama described the day as “a groundbreaking, earth-shattering, awesomely-inspiring day.”  Presumably she felt that way because she got to eat.   It was much less “earth-shattering” and “awesomely-inspiring” for the starving students (and pregnant ladies) who merely got to witness the wonders of being at the top of the Progressive government pyramid.

Here’s the question every person has to ask:  If the government is so inefficient that it cannot provide healthy food for children during a single high-profile event, why do Progressives, especially those with a bully pulpit, keep asking us to believe that the government knows best when it comes to the care and feeding of our precious children?

• Suspended students for disarming someone who actually had a gun and was going to use it.
• Suspended a 10-year-old for waving around a half-chewed pizza that was sort of shaped like a gun.
• Punished a second-grader for trying to turn a gooey strawberry tart into a sculpture of a mountain, only to have it end up looking like a gun.
• Suspended an imaginative kid who deal with his childish fears by throwing an imaginary grenade at pretend bad guys in a box.

“Enough with the hysteria!  Enough is enough!”

[ms-superwoman]

Mr. Conservative website? That isn't a credible source.

[gsprofval]

This is just part of mo's obesity campaign--starve children and don't let them go to the bathroom for 10 hours either.

[JakeandEmmasMom]

 It didn't occur to the teachers to have the kids bring a sack lunch?  Every field trip my kids go on, there is a form that has to be sent back where we check a box stating whether they will bring their own sack lunch or buy one from the cafeteria.

[Debrowsky]

And speaking of the 'all improved lunch menu' forced upon our schools, I have heard nothing but complaints and dissatisfaction from kids everytime you bring the subject up.  Lots of wasted food in the kitchen at the end of lunch period.

[krysstizzle]

More vegetables and fruits? How awful. 

Quoting Debrowsky:

And speaking of the 'all improved lunch menu' forced upon our schools, I have heard nothing but complaints and dissatisfaction from kids everytime you bring the subject up.  Lots of wasted food in the kitchen at the end of lunch period.

[buttersworth]

wow i'm surprised she didn't feed them to fatten them up before she ate them! lol

all kidding aside, she does look like someone who would willingly devour children, imho

[JakeandEmmasMom]

 

Quoting Debrowsky:

And speaking of the 'all improved lunch menu' forced upon our schools, I have heard nothing but complaints and dissatisfaction from kids everytime you bring the subject up.  Lots of wasted food in the kitchen at the end of lunch period.

 Isn't it just terrible.  When will the government learn that kids know what's best?  If they want pizza and french fries every day, what's wrong with that?  Forcing them to eat broccoli is just shameful.

[GrandmaGRN]

 Why is this woman allowed the power to dictate to our children?  She has no elected authority to do ANYTHING!

[autodidact]

one can’t help but think that her goal is to have the government take control. 

malarkey. one CAN, if one isn't paranoid and hateful.