<p>When I was in elementary school, I wouldn’t have known much about making a peanut butter sandwich because my mom made them for me :)</p>
<p>Seriously, I don’t think the example of a teacher who gives that assignment is evidence of some massive problem keeping minority students down. First of all, I suspect that kind of thing doesn’t happen all that often - it seems to me you’d have to look pretty hard to cherry-pick examples of potentially (and unnecessarily) culturally specific assignments. I also doubt that doing poorly on a third grade homework about making a sandwich is going to make or break a kid’s educational future in any case, and that’s assuming that a kid who had spent more than a very brief time in the US wouldn’t be familiar with the basic concept of a sandwich at all. I’m Jewish, but by the time I was five I knew who Santa Clause was and could identify a Christmas tree.</p>
<p>That does seem like the answer. If the goal is to write about a step-by-step process, ask them to describe getting dressed or brushing their teeth or something.</p>
<p>Plus, this is a writing assignment not cooking class. Presumably you get graded on the clarity of your description, even if it involves mashing up the peanuts and deep friying them in ghee. After all, who is to say that a PBJ is always two slices of bread, a smear of Jif and a dollup of Smuckers. How culturally arrogant is that.</p>
<p>I just don’t know what’s arrogant about peanut butter. This is an American school, right? They eat lunch like tacos, pizza, chicken nuggets, and sandwiches. So they have seen sandwiches but are clueless about the construction. Hmmm. Interesting.</p>
<p>While the peanut butter sandwich “cultural insensitivity” issue is overexaggerated in this case, it would be simple to have the writing assignment be about preparing any food of the student’s choice instead of a specific food that some students are not familiar with due to peanut allergies* or other reasons.</p>
<p>*Once a staple of elementary school students, aren’t peanut butter sandwiches banned from many schools out of fear of accidental exposure to students with peanut allergies?</p>
<p>This reminds me of the thread about the substitute teacher’s supposedly racially insensitive question, “where are you from?”</p>
<p>I used to eat peanut butter and jelly on tortillas, and I am not Hispanic. I also eat pita, and I am not Greek. Is it really too much to expect kids living in America to know what a peanut butter sandwich is?</p>
<p>When I read about Ms. Gutierrez’s school I wondered if there really are no white disadvantaged students in her school and I worry about them if they exist. It is unfortunate to assume that disadvantage only comes in darker shades. I wish that disadvantage and race were not so often paired as if they were one and the same thing.</p>
<p>It is predictable that in a diverse environment things will come up that are unfamiliar to some students. I guess even something as familiar and American as a PB&J sandwich (at least when I went to school). The important thing is for teacher’s to make adjustments when these differences come up because inadvertently these things will happen.</p>
<p>Yes, all around the country students of every nationality receive free and/or reduced lunches.</p>
<p>My point was, does it matter if the student describe making the same thing? Certainly all students from any heritage and socioeconomic background have at one point or another made a lunch, snack, food item, or watched their parent, family member, etc. I believe the writing assignment was an effort to write about a step by step process. So PB&J, or whatever is a cultural norm, or typical in their household. I don’t see where it has to be the same.</p>
<p>Please don’t shred me to pieces that there’s an overprivileged student who’s nanny has done all the cooking, and a child from a socioeconomic background that has never had food to prepare. In theory, I’m getting at they can write about what applies to them personally.</p>
<p>One of the assignments in my English Composition class when I first came to the US was: “Show the process how to cook a dish.”</p>
<p>This assignment was definitely insensitive to my culture! In many Asian countries, at least when I was growing up, boys don’t cook (except as a professional chef).</p>
<p>I think this country is waayyy over-sentitive when it comes to racism!</p>
<p>"That does seem like the answer. If the goal is to write about a step-by-step process, ask them to describe getting dressed or brushing their teeth or something. "</p>
<p>Then a reporter would write that it was insensitive to the kid with few clothes or the kid without teeth :^D</p>
<p>Actually, I didn’t know too many 20-somethings, including broke ones who ate PBJ when I was fresh out of college. If anything, they avoided it because of the perceived stigma as “kiddie food”. </p>
<p>Personally, I don’t have it too often because PBJ became way too sweet for my palate from junior high onward. If I was making a simple lunch, I’d just make it a PB sandwich and save the J for morning toast to accompany dark coffee/green tea on the few occasions I’d actually have breakfast.</p>
<p>For heaven’s sake, just ask the kids to describe a step-by-step process of ANY kind that they are familiar with, “Such as making a snack, brushing your teeth, getting dressed, feeding a pet, getting to school in the morning. Anything you know how to do.” This has the advantage of requiring the teacher to explain the concept of a “process,” and of thinking logically through step-by-step directions, and how it applies to many things. (And believe me, as a former technical writer, I can assure you that most people are lousy at it.)</p>