Reading Journal Four

For the Reading Journal Four, I have chosen to respond to the profile of Marion Kalb, a co-director of National Farm to School Network.

While reading, one of the quotes I underlined is ‘school lunch is a perfect example of our dysfunctional food system…’. It is sad to know that school, a center of education and learning that should set a good example of food system, is having a bad image of food system. Another quote is ‘Nearly 30 million children eat school lunch five days a week in the United States’. Here I learnt that school has significant role in diet of children population, directly.

I admire Marion Kalb for appreciating food, the basic fuel of life. I admire her more for taking further step by spreading the sense of appreciation for food due to social awareness. She had helped villagers in central Africa through ‘market garden’ so that they can earn extra income. In another program called National Farm to School Network, she kills two birds in a stone by creating a direct link between farmers and school districts. This has helped the farmers to have a continuous, stable income and the school children to have nutritious diet. Marion has great contribution to the society for enhancing the quality of food system. I respect this woman

The obvious technique used by the writer to present her work is third person’s point of view. The whole profile of Marion Kalb is told by Costa by using the words like ‘Marion’, ‘she’ and ‘her’. Examples are ‘Marion Kalb has worked diligently for more than twenty-six years… ‘, ‘She kept her position as executive director for twelve years’ and ‘… Marion is trying to work herself out of a job.’

Besides that, Costa has presented the work in simple and direct language. One of the examples is ‘She pursued a degree in Political Economy at UC Berkeley, fascinated by how corrupt political arrangements tie people to lives of poverty‘. Here she points out the corrupted politics directly instead of shadowing the message in the sentence to present it indirectly. The usage of simple language throughout the profile is a great way of communicating the message with vast population of English literate people. An example of usage of simple language is ‘Farm to school has seen much success over the past thirteen years, synonymous with the growing interest and support of sustainable foods.’ This sentence is easy to understand.

The writer has also used criticizing tone in some parts of her work. I sense criticism in sentences such as ‘She pursued a degree in Political Economy at UC Berkeley, fascinated by how corrupt political arrangements tie people to lives of poverty‘ and ‘school lunch is a perfect example of our dysfunctional food system…’. In the first example, she has criticized the politics while in the second example she has criticized the food system in schools.

As a personal response to this profile, I would say that improving the food system of school when there are about 30 million children having lunch for five days in a week in the United States is among the best ideas to improve the food system of the future human population in the United States. Children tend to stick to the habit they have learnt at early age when they become adults. Therefore, eating nutritious food during school days helps the children to become adults with good eating habits. Apart from that, being exposed to the food production by visiting farms is a great way for the children to appreciate their food and to learn about food production. A good advocate of food system in school is the right knowledge for children to have a better life in future.