

9-Year-Old Who Changed School Lunches Silenced By Politicians - bcl
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/neverseconds-shut-down/

======
jakejake
The wired article makes it sound like the girl was a political activist trying
to force a change in the school lunch program. But if you read her blog, the
photos of lunches look pretty good and her "reviews" are mostly positive. It
almost struck me that people with agendas are projecting onto this girl's
blog, which doesn't seem to be intended to be controversial at all, rather
just a chronicle of her lunches - including how many mouthfuls of food each
meal contains as well as the color of the wristband needed to get your lunch
that particular day! I don't know why the school shut her down, it certainly
was not a negative reflection on their lunch program at all.

This did make me remember my school lunch days - basically tv dinners served
in aluminum foil tins. I would have loved to have these lunches instead of the
crap we had to eat!

Here's one of her typical reviews "Today's Shepherd's Pie was really nice. The
mash on top was really creamy and the mince was in lovely gravy. I wonder
where their meat comes from. The salad was lovely and crunchy. The cake looked
really difficult to serve because the icing was so sticky. I saved my melon
until last and it was a great way to end my lunch. Food-o-meter - 9/10,
Mouthfuls - 32"

~~~
masklinn
> But if you read her blog, the photos of lunches look pretty good and her
> "reviews" are mostly positive.

Because of her blog, look at the earliest items and things were...
[http://neverseconds.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/tuesday-8th-
may....](http://neverseconds.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/tuesday-8th-may.html)

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
The council deny that and while you could say "they would" the pressure on
improving school lunches over the past few years her in the UK is such that
changes for the better could well have been in the works.

------
DanBC
Argyll and Bute council have a website. It appears to be down at the moment.
(<http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/>)

I wanted to know how many CCTV cameras they have. We in the UK are a heavily
monitored population (here's a frustratingly thin article with a few details,
hinting at a rich data set that is not made available.
(<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8159141.stm>) ) It's bizarre that her tax
money (as a child she doesn't pay much, but she will pay VAT on a few items
and her parents certainly pay taxes) is used to provide state surveillance and
to prevent her photographic record of her dinners.

There are many reasons to prevent children taking phones and cameras to
school. This reason is a really really stupid reason.

How wrong-headed it is to take active measures against a child who is showing
an interest in writing; civics; nutrition; and so on.

EDIT: The father has appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Today" news programme. (about
7:20 for anyone 'listening again'.) He has said that the school has been very
supportive, and that the decision was taken by the council. He sounds pretty
balanced about it. We crush the joy of learning out of children.

~~~
JamesLeonis
>> We crush the joy of learning out of children.

Ken Robinson, who makes my favorite TED talk IMHO, talks about this and how
odd our education system is when looked at objectively from the outside in.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_crea...](http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html)

His followup, as well as the RSAnimate (you can find them by clicking "Full
Bio>>" on the right), are good followups to his ideas.

One of the most powerful quotes, to me, is from the RSAnimate:

    
    
        We still educate children in batches. We put them
        through the system by age group. Why do we do that?
        Why is there this assumption that the most important
        thing kids have in common is how old they are? It's
        like the most important thing about them is the date
        of manufacture.
    

Not only do we crush learning out of children, but creativity suffers as well.

~~~
caw
I went to an elementary school in the U.S. where you were not grouped by age.
It was a pilot program, and I can't find a reference to the program being in
place almost 20 years later.

The program at the school had 1 large building, which was divided into 4
classroom with some common space in between. For each class period, you went
to the class taught at your level. So you could go to the 1st grade math, or
you could go to the kindergarten math.

I lived there for 2 years, and basically took 1st grade as kindergarten aged,
and 2nd grade as 1st grade aged.

The worst part was moving, and having to "re-integrate" with the system. I had
to take the age appropriate 2nd grade. My parents wanted me to skip directly
to 3rd grade, but the school rejected that.

~~~
ef4
What's funny is that you hardly have to "pilot" this model, because it used to
be the norm all across America (the one-room school house). The evidence is
compelling that it works great, and it costs less too.

Which of course is why it's a political non-starter. The bureaucratic
imperative is bigger budgets and centralization.

------
SagelyGuru
Everyone seems to assume that the local council actually have the right to
forbid a child taking photographs of her own property (in this case her lunch
that she has just bought). Is that really so?

Even if the school should have some capability to issue its own strange rules
and by-laws, contrary to the common law applying outside, should this not be
up to the Governors Board?

We all far too readily acquiesce, at our own cost, to arbitrary orders by
'authorities', assuming that they have powers over our lives which often they
don't have or should not have.

~~~
radiowave
If the building she's in is _their_ property, then they very likely do have
that right. (I'm not condoning their decision, of course.)

~~~
SagelyGuru
> If the building she's in is their property ....

You may well be right. Still, I find the concept questionable. I mean
forbidding the lawful use of her property (camera, lunch), just because she is
inside someone else's property? She is not photographing the school.

Besides, council property does not belong to the council officials but to the
residents in the area and I suspect that, if their rights and opinions were
respected, this order would not have been issued.

~~~
edd
From wikipedia [<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law>]:

"In general under the law of the United Kingdom one cannot prevent photography
of private property from a public place, and in general the right to take
photographs on private land upon which permission has been obtained is
similarly unrestricted. However landowners are permitted to impose any
conditions they wish upon entry to a property, such as forbidding or
restricting photography."

I think the council would argue that they are enforcing the ban of photography
to protect the children from people who might want photographs of the
children. I know when I used to work with children we had to get written
consents from parents before any child could apear in a photo and in some
cases we were instructed to make sure some children were never photographed
and step in the way if we saw anyone with a camera.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's not really to protect the children, it's to protect the Council from
being sued by over-protective parents.

That said letting the kids loose with cameras is going to be quite disruptive.

------
Evgeny
Maybe she could _draw_ lunches ... then take photos of drawings and post them.
There would be a short caption under each photo, saying that the actual photos
are not available due to the council policy.

Win-win: keep on doing what you love _and_ learn to draw!

~~~
SagelyGuru
Following the same legal reasoning, i.e. any rules go on a private property,
this council can, and probably will, forbid her to draw at school.

~~~
slowpoke
That would be even more ridiculous than forbidding her to photograph things
and would probably increase the public outrage by at least two orders of
magnitude.

------
frederico
Unbanned?

Latest statement from the school.

[http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-
school...](http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school-meals-
argyll-and-bute-
council?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ArgyllAndButeCouncilNewsFeed+%28Argyll+and+Bute+Council+News+Feed%29)

 _Statement on school meals from Argyll and Bute Council Published Date: 15
Jun 2012 - 10:53 Updated: 14:19 - 15 June 2012

Statement from Cllr Roddy McCuish, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council

"There is no place for censorship in this Council and never will be whilst I
am leader. I have advised senior officers that this Administration intends to
clarify the Council's policy position in regard to taking photos in schools. I
have therefore requested senior officials to consider immediately withdrawing
the ban on pictures from the school dining hall until a report can be
considered by Elected Members. This will allow the continuation of the
"Neverseconds" blog written by an enterprising and imaginative pupil, Martha
Payne which has also raised lots of money for charity.

But we all must also accept that there is absolutely no place for the type of
inaccurate and abusive attack on our catering and dining hall staff, such as
we saw in one newspaper yesterday which considerably inflamed the situation.
That, of course, was not the fault of the blog, but of the paper.

We need to find a united way forward so I am going to bring together our
catering staff, the pupils, councillors and council officials - to ensure that
the council continues to provide healthy, nutrious and attractive school
meals. That "School Meals Summit" will take place later this summer.

I will also meet Martha and her father as soon as I can, along with our lead
councillor on Education, Michael Breslin to seek her continued engagement,
along with lots of other pupils, in helping the council to get this issue
right. By so doing Martha Payne and her friends will have had a strong and
lasting influence not just on school meals, but on the whole of Argyll &
Bute."_

~~~
smithbits
Seems like the obvious PR thing for Roddy McCuish to do is go and have his
meeting with Martha and her father at the school, for lunch.

------
Tyrannosaurs
Argyll and Bute Council have reversed their decision.

[http://audioboo.fm/boos/847428-argyll-and-bute-council-
rever...](http://audioboo.fm/boos/847428-argyll-and-bute-council-reverse-
neverseconds-camera-ban#TWEET160064)

(Around 1:30)

Also in good news, her charity appeal has gone from just under £3,000 this
morning to over £20,000 (against a target of £7,000).

------
jack-r-abbit
I understand that having pictures of the food is probably going to get the
point across even more, but I don't understand why she didn't just continue to
blog about the horrible lunches and put a sketch or something. Imagine if she
has just kept on blogging without the pictures like nothing ever happened.
That would have sent a pretty powerful message to those people that _tried_ to
shut her up.

~~~
polemic
Thing is, they weren't horrible. By and large, they were pretty good. That's
the strange thing - the council really didn't have much to hide here.

~~~
DanBC
Yes. She even says they're good.

 _I googled the Hindi for fantastic so I can say my chicken curry was शानदार
(śānadāra)!_

~~~
jack-r-abbit
true. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. And that was also a couple
weeks after she started getting media attention. She generally was less
pleased with other aspects of the lunches besides just taste. Even if the
chicken curry was de-lish... it is freakin tiny. And that single broccoli
stock... wow.

------
uptown
Update:

"A council has overturned a ban which prevented British schoolgirl Martha
Payne from posting pictures of her school dinners on her blog Neverseconds."

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9333975/V...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9333975/Victory-
for-Martha-Payne-as-Argyll-and-Bute-council-backs-down-on-school-dinner-blog-
ban.html)

------
spoiledtechie
Legally, isn't school property, public property? That means, that she is
therefore allowed to take pictures in public places, right?

~~~
MBlume
Jails are also public property. That doesn't mean the inmates have rights.

~~~
Produce
Did you just equate school children with inmates? On second thought, maybe
you're not far off.

------
smoyer
"Veritas Ex Gustu" ... but who knows Latin?

I love her light-heartedness and wish I still had mine. And does anyone else
think of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" when reading the title of her blog
("Never Seconds")? I keep hearing "Please sir, I want some more" in my head.

I'm certainly glad to have kids like this in the world ... she's made more of
a difference already than most of us will in our life-times. She's just passed
the 35,000 pound mark for donations to Mary's Meals, feeding 3500 children for
a year. Wow!

~~~
reginaldo
I'm certainly glad to have kids like this, but I'm also glad to have parents
like hers. I know many parents who would, as long as it started getting some
attention, told their kids to "stop looking for trouble".

There's a lot of bad parenting going on in the world, and her dad looks like a
pretty balanced person.

------
charlieok
Why doesn't the school just start its own meal photo blog. That would actually
be a great way to publish the daily menu. Photos instead of just text.

If they think the girl is deliberately presenting unappealing selections, they
should present some more appealing ones as a counterpoint.

~~~
charlieok
oh wait, apparently it was more about the local government the school answers
to than the school itself. Maybe that (mostly) answers my question.

------
AndrewDucker
There's an interesting analysis here of the local council and the problems
they've had with social networks before:

[http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/school-
dinners-...](http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/school-dinners-
spygate/)

------
ChuckMcM
This will not end well for the council.

------
josscrowcroft
What would happen if she just carried on doing it?

------
Groxx
Honestly, that food looks quite a bit better than my school offered. There are
some nutritionally-very-questionable combinations occasionally, but by and
large they seem among the more reasonable options I tend to see.

Which, yes, is terrifying. More focus on the crap we feed our kids is
fantastic.

------
smoyer
Martha wins!

Follow the same link above and you'll see there are updates to Wired's
original article. Thank you Argyll and Bute Council ... and you've shown the
kids that it's okay to admit you were wrong and to take action to rectify what
you've done.

------
politician
Honestly, this was the sort of response I was expecting the first time that
this story was posted -- not the Cinderella story of a positive change within
two weeks. I guess the bureaucracy over there took a while to boot..

------
scotty79
There should be some law that should state that if you can be at some place
you can have a camera and take photos from that place of whatever you like and
no one should be able to forbid you that or require a fee.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So you want to let people photograph in changing rooms and restrooms? I
suspect you've not thought this through.

~~~
scotty79
If they can see me they can take my picture. It should be legal. Impolite
perhaps but legal.

If there's situation where I don't want to have my picture taken that's
exactly the same situation where I don't want to be seen by anyone.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So to you theres no difference between being fleetingly seen naked whilst
changing (eg at a swimming pool) and having your nude self featured in mass
media?

Would you at least concede that this wouldnt be true for everyone? Or are you
trying to make some sort of impractical distinction between capture and use of
an image.

FWIW I'm personally happy to embrace nudism but feel forcing the possibility
of widespread exposure on others is going way to far.

~~~
scotty79
> So to you theres no difference between being fleetingly seen naked whilst
> changing (eg at a swimming pool) and having your nude self featured in mass
> media?

No difference, meaning that I don't want to be in both of this situations to
pretty much same degree. That's why I choose swimming pools with private
changing rooms. Also currently anyone can smuggle camera to a changing room
and publish photos of the people he/she can snap on mass media called
internet. And we can't pretty much do anything about this. Pretending we can
and from time to time trying doesn't provide us with any additional privacy.

> Would you at least concede that this wouldnt be true for everyone?

Yes. I'm aware that some people don't mind being seen naked when not too many
people watch.

> Or are you trying to make some sort of impractical distinction between
> capture and use of an image.

Not really. If it's captured it can be published. At least anonymously.

I'm neither in favor or against nudism. I think that society could use more
acceptance about how ordinary people look and what ordinary people do.

I think there is a great value in right to take and publish pictures. Of
police officers on duty, of school cafeteria menu of what all interesting
especially powerful people do and how the policies turn out in the field.

I think that no one with camera should ever feel frightened to take photo or
record something.

I also don't really like fighting technology with law. Technology will always
win eventually but it can do massive damage to progress of mankind delaying
whole nations by centuries.

In 50 years projects like Google Glass will probably blend the boundary
between seeing and recording so why struggle.

------
anons2011
_NeverSeconds blogger Martha Payne school dinner photo ban overturned_

Looks like the ban has been overturned.

A victory for free speech and common sense!

------
noonespecial
Perhaps they think it will be difficult to "raise" the chocolate ration to 20
grams per week if the kids are taking pictures of it every day?

------
urbanjunkie
And the response from Argyll and Bute

[http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-
school...](http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school-meals-
argyll-and-bute-council)

 _Argyll and Bute Council wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its
schools catering service which culminated in national press headlines which
have led catering staff to fear for their jobs. The Council has directly
avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for
obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in
it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils however this
escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it
was causing. In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only
represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has
been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.

There have been discussions between senior council staff and Martha’s father
however, despite an acknowledgement that the media coverage has produced these
unwarranted attacks, he intimated that he would continue with the blog.

The council has had no complaints for the last two years about the quality of
school meals other than one from the Payne family received on 6 June and there
have been no changes to the service on offer since the introduction of the
blog.

Pupils have a daily choice of two meals from a menu which is designed with
pupils, parents and teachers. Our summer menu is about to be launched and
includes main course choices like meat or vegetarian lasagne served with
carrots and garlic bread or chicken pie with puff pastry, mashed potato and
mixed vegetables.

Pupils can choose from at least two meals every day. They pay £2 for two
courses and this could be a starter and a main or a main and a desert. Each
meal comes with milk or water. Pupils can have as much salad and bread as they
want. Salad, vegetables, fruit, yoghurt and cheese options are available every
day. These are standing options and are not a result of any changes in
response to the blog site.

As part of the curriculum for excellence, pupils in all our schools are
regularly taught about healthy eating and at lunch breaks staff encourage
pupils to make good choices from what is on offer. We use a system called
‘Nutmeg’ to make sure everything is nutritionally balanced. Our staff also get
nutrition awareness training so they know how to provide a good healthy meal.
There is portion sized guidance which we adhere to and it is matched to the
age of the child so they get the right amount of food. Second portions would
mean too many calories for pupils.

In Lochgilphead Primary School we are piloting a new pre-ordering scheme which
is designed to encourage class discussion around meal choices and also
improves the accuracy of meal choices. The pupils use a touch screen to select
their lunch option and the data is downloaded in the kitchen so they know how
many portions of each meal are required. As they place their order, the pupils
are given a coloured band which relates to their meal choice that day. They
wear it during the morning, and at lunchtime they hand it to the catering
assistant, who will give them the corresponding meal.

The council’s focus is now on supporting the school in the education of young
people in Argyll and Bute_

~~~
urbanjunkie
For me, the money shots are

"we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing

"In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a
fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by
the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen."

An embarrassing own goal that could have been resolved with a simple "OK, we
overreacted, Veg can carry on as before" has been turned into a quite
spectacular PR catastrophe.

An Exec Director for Argyll and Bute is appearing on Radio 4 at 1pm - should
be fun!

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jrqr7>

~~~
dhughes
Even better is

> _"The council has had no complaints for the last two years about the quality
> of school meals other than one from the Payne family..."_

I can see why nobody complained before if this circus of excuses happens.

~~~
philwelch
I think Basil Fawlty used that exact excuse once....

------
urbanjunkie
It almost certainly wasn't 'politicians' - just overzealous local council
officers.

And instead of using a poor secondary source, why not link to Veg's blog post
- <http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/goodbye.html>?

~~~
CrazedGeek
The Wired article adds quite a bit of context that the post itself is missing.

------
rsanchez1
Seems that the politicians didn't want people telling them how to do their
job, especially if it's a 9-year old doing it.

------
horsehead
So much for that whole "you can do anything you set your mind to" bullshit
they spout in most public schools (I'm assuming Scotland is the same way as in
the US).

Funny how the powerholders are all talk until somebody puts their money where
their mouth is (no pun intended). Here's to you, assholes in charge.

------
hastur
Martha Payne for Prime Minister!

------
unimpressive
If I were in her shoes, they wouldn't have heard the last of me by a longshot.
I'd start pulling out hidden cameras, and when they caught on to that I'd show
my lunch around to everyone in the school during lunch...one of whom has a
hidden camera and will photograph the lunch.

Once they start taking disciplinary action is when I get others to start blogs
and post pictures. If for no other reason than because I'd have a damn good
time doing it.

~~~
Alterlife
I think she's doing the right thing. So is her dad. In the long term, for
them, a relationship with the school is important.

All they need to do is play good citizens while the Strisand effect takes care
of the rest.

~~~
unimpressive
> So is her dad. In the long term, for them, a relationship with the school is
> important.

Definitely an aspect I didn't think about.

> All they need to do is play good citizens while the Strisand effect takes
> care of the rest.

Oh yes, regardless of any action on their part the council has really dug into
the dung pile now.

I really like the suggestion in the comments on her blog for her to start
posting pictures other kids send in. But for now it's probably best to leave
the "Shut down by censorship" bulletin up, boosts the Strisand effect.

~~~
slowpoke
I hate to be that guy but it's Streisand, not Strisand.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>

~~~
unimpressive
I thought that spelling looked weird. I honestly just copied the one from the
post above.

