"Is this for us too?"

Rather than start last Thursday’s class with my typical overview of the writing lesson, I asked students to follow me out of the classroom. We walked down the hall, around the corner, where a turkey lunch was set up for them outside the canteen: shredded turkey on white rolls, dressing with brown gravy, chopped vegetable salad, and a choice of deserts: cupcakes or squares of a thanksgiving carrot cake, in addition to the student drink staple, Sierra Mist. 

While I am often narrowly focused on student lesson plans and activities for the day, I know school is only a small part of a student’s life. College students often struggle financially, emotionally as well as academically. Instructors know students thrive in a classroom that encourages socialization, enhances self-confidence, and promotes self-respect. Respect is, I think, key to the advance of learning. A student needs to respect himself or herself, as well as the school, instructor, and course work.  

If a student does not respect himself or herself, however, how do they learn it? Thursday’s meal was an model of how the Shawano Regional Learning Center shows that it respects all its students, even those in basic education.

My students work hard during the College Writing Prep and the open lab and often skip or skrimp on lunch in order to attend my noon-2 p.m. class and then continue the open lab afterwards. A hot turkey meal, the week before Thanksgiving, a traditional time for us to gather, did three things: it provided fuel for an afternoon of work, it allowed them to breakdown classmate to classmate barriers and eat sociably together, and it demonstrated, in a simple but concrete way, that they are respected members of the Shawano Center.

Basic education students sometimes have a crisis of confidence; they can’t believe that they are actually college students. As my students joined more than 70 other students from nursing, medical records, non-credit, and general studies courses in Thursday’s free hot meal, they asked, “Is this food for us too?” Of course it was. This gesture showed them that we respect their work. This gives them permission to respect themselves in turn. The meal showed they are as important as any other student within the college.

Kudos to the center for showing respect by action, not just words.