How do students deal with having to eat lunch at home, and what do they eat for lunch during distance learning? With only thirty minutes between synchronous and asynchronous classes, students have a short time to eat lunch. I looked into how students manage their time and how they get food during their thirty minutes. While some cook at home, others rely on leftovers or food deliveries. Personally, I usually cook for myself, and sometimes I will have leftovers. I talked to three sophomores here at Oakland Tech to see how they get their lunches during distance learning. We agree that 30 minutes is not enough time to make your own meal and eat it, but if someone else cooks food for you, or if you order your lunch, you will have a little more time to eat.
One of the three sophomore students I talked to was Daylon Perkins. When I asked him how he gets his food, he said, “When my mom comes home from work, she asks what I want to eat and she makes lunch for me. Fried rice, chicken sandwiches.” He added, “My aunt made a stew that was really good; it was hot and you put cornbread in it.”
I also talked to Mia Pollard, who told me that she eats lunch differently now than she did last year. “When we went to school, I did not eat lunch on campus, I ate off campus,” she said, referring to the restaurants and snack shops near Tech. But now, she usually eats leftovers for lunch. “Leftovers are already made,” she notes. “They’re easy to heat up and quick.”
Max Andelman, another tenth-grader, hasn’t changed his lunch routine since transitioning to distance learning. Whether he is on campus or not, he finds that a basic sandwich fulfills his lunch needs. “A good sandwich contains some protein in between two pieces of bread,” Max said. “I usually use a thin layer of brown mustard to add flavor.”
These students’ comments demonstrate three different ways to eat lunch. Each option takes a different amount of time to prepare. For some people, preparing lunch can be very time consuming, taking most of the thirty minute lunch break and leaving them with little or no time to eat. Some students do eat during asynchronous learning, but eating can be a distraction from classwork and homework. While some students cook for themselves and others rely on family members or leftovers, each has managed to establish a lunch routine that works for them during distance learning.