when eating with a spoon and fork is “un-intelligent” (or when your principal is an ignorant dick)
April 28th, 2006 by mizumaliFilipino table etiquette punished at local school
Luc Cagadoc’s table behaviour is traditionally Filipino; he fills But after being punished by “Mommy, I don’t want to eat When he eats with both a spoon Upset “I find it very prejudiced Luc’s father, Aldrin Cagadoc, Gallardo, who operates a day care out of her Roxboro home and is close She disagrees with the But Bergeron says it was Luc’s eating
after her son was disciplined by a lunch program monitor at Ecole
Lalande for eating in what she says is a customary Filipino manner.
his spoon by pushing the food on his plate with a fork, his mother,
Maria Theresa Gallardo, says.
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.
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.”
and fork, instead of only one utensil, the Grade 2 student said the
lunch monitor moves him to a table to sit by himself.
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.’
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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
i guess the goddamn principal doesnt eat rice either.
