i just got an email from my sister about this kid in Montreal Canada... after reading it, it just pissed me off. anyway here's the link and tell me what going on in montreal, is this how they teach kids on how to deal with the cultures of different race?

http://www.westislandchronicle.com/p...noArticle=7475

The Chronicle

A Roxboro woman has filed a formal complaint with a local school board after her son was disciplined by a lunch program monitor at Ecole Lalande for eating in what she says is a customary Filipino manner. Luc Cagadoc's table behaviour is traditionally Filipino; he fills his spoon by pushing the food on his plate with a fork, his mother, Maria Theresa
Gallardo, says.

But after being punished by his school's lunch program monitor more than 10 times this year for his mealtime conduct - including his technique - the seven-year-old told Gallardo said last week that he was too embarrassed to eat his dinner.

"Mommy, I don't want to eat anymore," Gallardo says Luc told her at the kitchen table April 11. "My teacher is telling me that eating with a spoon and fork is yucky and disgusting."

When he eats with both a spoon and fork, instead of only one utensil, the Grade 2 student said the lunch monitor moves him to a table to sit by himself.

Upset over Luc's story, Gallardo confronted the lunchtime caregiver the next day and on April 13, she telephoned the school's principal, Normand Bergeron. His reaction brought her to tears, she says. "His response was shocking to me," Gallardo, who moved to Montreal from the Philippines in 1999, told The Chronicle. "He said, 'Madame, you are in Canada. Here in Canada you should eat the way Canadians eat.'

"I find it very prejudiced and it's racist. He's supposed to be acting like a professional. This is supposed to be a free country with free expressions of culture and religion. This is how we eat; we eat with a fork and spoon."

Luc's father, Aldrin Cagadoc, was also surprised by the comment. "I can't believe even the principal would say that," he said. "A person of that calibre, I wouldn't expect him to say that."

Gallardo, who operates a day care out of her Roxboro home and is close to completing her studies in early childhood education, wrote a letter last week and lodged a formal complaint to the Commission scolaire Marguerite Bourgeoys (CSMB) yesterday.

She disagrees with the lunch monitor's approach to teaching children how to eat and says it is emotionally abusive to Luc. When she questioned Bergeron about punishing students for their table habits, she says he replied that, "If your son eats like a pig he has to go to another table because this is the way we do it and how we're going to do it every time."

But Bergeron says it was Luc's eating technique combined with his behaviour at the table that was inappropriate that day, which is why he was moved. "Luc can be turbulent," he said yesterday. "Like other children, he is frequently in situations where we have to intervene. It's normal, he's a child. He is in a period of learning."

The principal of the 387-student Roxboro school said he explained his position on using two utensils to Gallardo during their telephone conversation. "I said, 'Here, this is not the manner in which we eat.'

"I don't necessarily want students to eat with one hand or with only one instrument, I want them to eat intelligently at the table," he said. "I want them to eat correctly with respect for others who are eating with them. That's all I ask. Personally, I don't have any problems with it, but it is not the way you see people eat every day. I have never seen somebody eat with a spoon and a fork at the same time."

CSMB spokesman Brigitte Gauvreau says the board will not comment - due to confidentiality procedures - until Gallardo's complaint is filed and she makes a public statement.

 

yea, i read that too.. at first i thought it was cause the kid may have been eating with his hands... then i realized, either way, it was just too much... "BLAME CANADA" - south park

 

damn canucks....its just eating!

 

The school principal is wrong - the proper way to pick up food is with a pair of chopsticks.

--
0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

Wowzers! That's pretty insensitive, eh?

My folks are fr: the Philippines & I was born & raised in the good ol' U.S. of A. So I know that the "double fisting" w/ spoon & fork is one of the customary practices when eating. To my best recollection, my folks have always used both utensils. But I only used a fork as a kid. I dunno why, but I did.

I didn't start using both til I went thru boot camp where we had a very limited amount of time for chow. One of the "instructors" recommended this method as a matter of efficiency. I tmade a lotta sense to us, too, so we did it. Of course, we didn't eat like savages just shoveling mounds of grubb down our throats w/ reckless abandon. We still had to maintain proper discipline & whatnot.

So, as a result, I've grown accustommed to eating w/ both... but not b/c it's a Filipino thing. Kinda weird that I "learned" this in the military. When I visited on leave, my folks tripped out when I'd asked for a spoon as well.

Just my li'l "Hmmm... ok... whatever..." for the day!

btw, did I already mention that them yahooz up North need to figure out what cultural awareness is all about... er... I mean "a-boat"

 

You drink moosehead eh? Whats it all aboot...........

 

lol..since when is eating with 2 utencils disrepsectful of others? And since when is it a schools job to teach how to eat "correctly". I never took eating style 101 in elementary school

<--half thai. We eat with a fork and spoon too, easiest and fastest way to eat rice y0

 

We should send the principal to China and give him nothing but a pair of chopsticks and say to him "Sir, you are in China. Here in China, you should eat the way the Chinese eat."

 

+1 AMEN!!! got rice beetch? haha

 

agreed...or any other place in the world that eats differently than Northern Americans do (how ever that may be). comments like that are made from people who lack culture and understanding and who always think there way is the only way.

 

nah the easiest way to eat rice is in a bowl shoving it in with chopsticks.

BUT, wtf?!?! that guy needs to be disciplined, whipped or something...

I enjoy eating with a spoon scooping stuff into my soon(be it fork or chopstick), who the hell wants to use a fork puncture your food and let all good juices flow out...that why they have spoons and chopsticks...

 

LMAO ... yea we shud do that