One in eight Americans goes hungry each and every day. But judging by the actions of students during lunch, one would assume this grim statistic to be a sick joke.
The belligerence and ignorance displayed by students today could so easily be risen above. Or, more to the point, what happened today is the prime example of the “Lovejoy Way.”
Not the “Lovejoy Way” that the district tries every day to live up to, as evidenced by the Graduate Profile and Classroom Expectations that hang on the walls of every classroom. This is more like the Lovejoy stereotype that we have allowed ourselves to be limited by. While certainly not an accurate depiction of our entire student body or faculty, the Lovejoy stereotype is usually summed up in three simple words: rich white kids.
While this may be accurate for some students, it’s not the case for all and the actions at lunch do nothing to help break down this stereotype. What could possibly be more evident of a class-induced hapless disregard for food than a food fight, when nearly 13 percent of Americans go hungry each day?
Some students on campus have no regard whatsoever for the harsh reality that food is not as plentiful everywhere else as it is here. It is not students’ faults that they attend an affluent district and are unaware of the scarcity and importance of food that we take for granted, but the least they can do is respect it.
And let’s not forget that actions have consequences. Who did the food fight masterminds think would clean up the mess that they so belligerently created?
Our custodial staff, of course. The men and women who stay each day until well past sundown unclogging our toilets, sweeping our hallways, picking up our litter, and painting over our graffiti. Because their jobs are not hard enough. Because they do not have families of their own that they would like to see. Because they do not wish they had the opportunities that we have. Because they do not have to clean up the completely avoidable and unnecessary mess of all those involved in the food fight.
There are plenty of rumors circulating about the origins of this food fight, chief among them that technology had a heavy role in its organization. Students communicated through group text messages that spread virally through the student body. Then they went table-to-table, assuring that they had near-full participation in the chaos to come.
If this is the case, then obviously the masterminds behind this are not stupid. They know how to organize an event, whether destructive or not, and see it through without alerting the attention of faculty. In a way, it is rather admirable; if only these food fight organizers weren’t confined by the Lovejoy stereotype instead of redefining it, they could actually use their skills for something productive.
We have the chance to lift ourselves past being the butt of other schools’ jokes. And until we move beyond committing these insensitive and irresponsible acts, we will never appear to be anything more than the Lovejoy stereotype.
Loading ...
Anonymous • Apr 19, 2013 at 3:22 pm
I say YOLO
Laura Pitkin • Feb 12, 2013 at 1:43 pm
I agree with you, Adam. The pervasive stereotype that we are all a bunch of ignorant rich white kids actually looks true when we do stupid stuff like this.
Oh, and TWENTIETH COMMENT WOOOOOOOO
<3
Anonymous • Feb 11, 2013 at 1:50 pm
The most irrelevant thing you could have compared to a food fight
Anonymous • Feb 6, 2013 at 1:50 am
The reputation of any school should not be formed because of the rebellious behavior on behalf of part of the student body. A school is a place in which learning should take place. In the six years that I attended Lovejoy ISD (beginning August 2006 in 7th grade), Lovejoy students set a precedence of excellence in academics and athletics – both in and out of competitions – as well as in service to their community.
It may seem like I am spouting the Graduate Profile – and I am. But until many students in Lovejoy, myself included, gain wider experience in the world (college), we do not realize how good we have it. Lovejoy is a source of some of the most well-rounded and well-qualified students I have met. Many of my fellow members of the Class of 2016 in colleges around the country are not prepared as well as Lovejoy graduates.
I urge you to focus on what you are in school to do – learn. Pay attention both in academic lectures and when your teachers run off on tangents. Some of the best advice and preparation I received from Lovejoy came from outside of the curriculum.
Anonymous • Feb 5, 2013 at 11:30 pm
Seeing this on youtube broke my heart. Seeing some of the comments broke it further. Adam, this article is a testament to your strong principles, and I am glad you wrote this. You should not be admonished for this because you do not volunteer in a soup kitchen; bringing awareness has its merits, and in this case, when it involves hard working custodians, it has gone beyond “high school fun”. Community service working with the hungry would be a great consequence and opportunity for awareness at LHS.
Adam Schasel • Feb 4, 2013 at 4:25 pm
First of all, I would like to thank everyone that read my editorial and decided to express their opinion by engaging in this dialogue. Whether your agree or disagree with the stance both I and this newspaper have taken is rather arbitrary, as the discussion itself is the most important aspect.
That being said, I would like to clarify the point of the editorial and the specific arguments used to drive home that point so as to further the discussion.
What I wanted to emphasize the most was the amount of disrespect our student body expresses toward those not as privileged as us. We are lucky to attend a district with such affluence and the food fight is a prime example of how we often take that affluence for granted.
Although I am glad that we are talking about the hunger problem in our society, that was not what I had originally intended to be the sticking point of the editorial. My purpose to include food waste in the editorial was to incorporate it into the idea that the student body showed an inordinate amount of disrespect by starting and prolonging the food fight. While it would be fantastic if we all tried to waste as little food as possible and donate to food shelters, I understand that that is not possible for all students and was not trying to advocate for that. What I was trying to communicate when I wrote this editorial was that by wasting food in such an insolent and disrespectful way, students conveyed a level of disrespect to those that go hungry each day. I was not attempting to discuss ways to limit food waste, I was merely suggesting that the food fight was an example of the ignorance we have because of the affluence we enjoy.
This theme of disrespect continues in my editorial when I discuss the custodial staff. While I doubt those that organized the food fight intended to be this disrespectful, this does not change the fact that the custodial staff, who work hard every day to help maintain that affluence I mentioned earlier, did the bulk of the cleanup for what has been described as “random high school fun.” There is nothing wrong with high school fun, but when it starts to unnecessarily burden those that clean up after us anyway it stops being fun and starts being insulting and degrading.
Once again, I thank you all for commenting and hope we can continue this discussion with my original intent in mind.
Jeremy Burno • Feb 3, 2013 at 8:02 pm
Other schools waste food equally or more than we do same with restaurants so Lovejoy is not the problem for hunger across America. Even if I was the one to start it, I did stay back and clean it up. I’ve seen hunger in kids eyes first hand when I went on a mission trip to Africa. It was a huge change for me but if we are going to try and help hunger around America let alone the world then we are going to have to come together as a nation and not blame one food fight for the problem and blogging about the problem isn’t going to change anything either. What about all the organizations that have crud wars? How is this any different?
Anonymous • Feb 2, 2013 at 8:54 pm
Not sure why your talking about fish mate, but I agree otherwise. The food fight makes Lovejoy look even lamer. Who decided that tossing fruit around was the way to “rebel” and be “hardcore”? And then we have all these white kids tweeting “omg im so proud of LOJO!!!!!” Come one. You couldn’t have made the school look worse if you tried.
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 2:57 pm
The wasting-food thing is a red herring. The food fight was ridiculously immature and a pointless act of rebellion. Seriously, how old are we? We’re going to be throwing food at each other? It reflects the entitled, insulated, and pretentious attitude that is all too prevalent at the school.
They should pay the janitors more, for all the crap they have to deal with from these over-entitled Lovejoy kids.
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 1:46 pm
so it took a food fight to get to this topic…. really, we have been wasting food for years….
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Lovejoy kids : “OH YEAH WE GOT INTO A FOOD FIGHT GUYS!! WE ARE SO COOL!!!”
Plano East : *holds up dead coyote*
Frisco : *shows bathroom pictures*
Plano West : *video of flash mob*
Allen: *video of the fight*
No, not really.
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 1:17 pm
I wonder what prompted some of the students to start a food fight. If its to one-up what PESH, Frisco, Allen, and other Dallas schools did, then I’m sorry but they failed hard. Whoever thinks that this will somehow change Lovejoy’s poor reputation needs to look at what the other schools did, then look at what Lovejoy did. Hardly a comparison. Go to a Plano or Dallas middle school; food fights happen, but nobody hypes it up over twitter. The fact that this is said to be “the most interesting thing that’s happened in Lovejoy” is sad in itself.
Jonathan Otiker • Feb 1, 2013 at 11:55 am
Stop overreacting. Its just simple high school fun. Don’t get me wrong I feel bad for the janitors and starving kids. But seriously food fights happen all the time in schools across the country and the impact they have is very very small. We’re just teens in high school. Instead of wining about how we wasted a little bit of food why don’t you go do something about all the kids going hungry. Until you go and help those kids you have no room to talk or complain about the “rich white kids” of lovejoy.
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Who says he doesn’t help hungry kids? You can’t just assume that.
And even if he doesnt, how does his lack of charitable initiative justify 50 kids to waste a ton of food, purposely disrespect the faculty of a school that works harder than nearly any other school to give us a good education, and create a huge mess in the cafeteria that actually just inconvenienced their fellow students who had to eat in ten minutes because their lunches were shortened? Also, food was stolen from the lunch lines and food like apples were thrown, which can actually hurt if hurled by a high school boy.
I get that people think food fights are fun, but seriously, how old are we? And did everybody seriously think that the kids responsible wouldn’t be punished? Obviously there are going to be serious consequences, and whatever the administration decides, they should accept it.
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 3:38 pm
*Middle schools across the nation
MacKenzie Miller • Feb 1, 2013 at 1:03 am
I understand where you’re coming from, but really? I get that there are starving kids out there, it’s an argument that people make all the time but few do anything to solve. In all honesty we’re just as wasteful with the food we throw away daily, and we likely have a regular overabundance cooked in the cafeteria that goes to waste as well. Regardless, the food would have been wasted…is always wasted. It’s an American problem, not a Lovejoy problem. Call me insensitive and privileged, that’s fine, but I thought today was awesome. Though it’s not something that should be done all the time, it was just random high school fun. It’s truly regrettable that our custodians spent the time cleaning up the aftermath…that I am sorry for. However, before making the argument that other people are suffering while we’re flinging food, you should do something about it, use it as a platform to start aiding those kids rather than an opportunity to criticize and stereotype the school.
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 1:01 pm
AMEN
Anonymous • Feb 1, 2013 at 4:09 pm
Ok the starving kids was a pretty bad example and created room for arguments like this, but the point still remains: the food fight was incredibly rude and disrespectful. A bunch of egocentric “rich white kids” decided to steal and throw food at each other, completely oblivious to the consequences. I mean, they’re rich white kids, there’s always someone around to pamper them and clean up their messes. Omg guys we are so cool we threw food everywhere like middle schoolers I’m so proud #FREEJEREMY lolz!!!
Anonymous • Jan 31, 2013 at 6:11 pm
you’re thinking too much bud.
Anonymous • Jan 31, 2013 at 5:54 pm
The whole thing was just stupid. Some people who weren’t actually in the lunch room got really freaked out, because they just didn’t know what was happening. All you heard was screaming and we weren’t sure for a while if something serious had happened.
Anonymous • Jan 31, 2013 at 5:00 pm
This is a great story! I agree. The food fight was Stupid with a capital S! And the kids at this school need to appreciate more. They have no idea. I hope the people are punished severely, not only did they vandalize the school, but the janitors work hard and now they have to work even harder! I stay after school a lot and I see the custodians al the time. They are nice people who do have lives. Really?! You guys are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Maybe you should clean up the mess that you made. Think next time before you do something stupid!