the lesser of two goods

[quarrel]

PepsiCo is developing a drinkable fruit puree snack. They say they want to develop healthy snacks as well as cola and potato chips. They say they "played with the mix of juice and puree to achieve the desired thickness without adding gums or starches. Ingredients include apple puree, filtered water, banana puree concentrate and three other kinds of fruit concentrate."

But "Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, said that the fruit concentrates are simply sugar. 'They start out with real food, so let's give them credit for applesauce and mashed-up bananas,' but 'the rest of it is sugar,' she said. 'Kids would be better off eating an apple or a banana.'"

High school English teacher Risha Mullins single-handedly reinvigorated interest in reading by introducing Young Adult literature to the optional curriculum. The reading club Ms. Mullins started hit critical mass and topped 130 members, including many not in her classes. Unacceptably, chronically low test scores rose significantly. Prior to this change, students were "being forced to read [classics] they couldn’t and learning to hate reading because of it."

Martin Cothran, who teaches and writes textbooks on logic, rhetoric, and Latin, calls foul in a few posts of his own. Trying new things to get kids to read more is great and should be done, but this was a college preparatory class. To Cothran, the only material acceptable in a college preparatory class is the very material the kids will encounter in college. YA literature is unproven; classics are proven timeless. Classics are, almost by definition, more accessible than other works, not less, because the issues they address are more fundamental and more universal. If a student cannot be encouraged to read classic literature, the fault lies with the teacher attempting the encouragement. Cothran knows good teachers can and do succeed at this because he himself did it for years. If a student finds the work too challenging, that student does not belong in a college prep class. It may be too challenging because he received substandard education in prior years, or it may be because he simply is not capable of that level of work in that academic field, but either way, altering coursework to accommodate him is inappropriate.

I get a lot of friction from friends for too often dropping into a "the best way is the only good way" mindset. Understandably, I find it interesting to see how other people handle these "Hey, it's better than nothing" situations. Sure, it is, but is it enough better to matter?

Comments

[electrickeet]

My wife and I duscuss this topic an awful lot, actually – and I'm frequently on the "something is better than nothing" side of it, and and her take is usually, "No, it's not."

The real issue with most of these measures is a matter of what's being done to establish a transition from them. If college prep classes need to use YA literature to get students to want to read, then start doing that... but then also get asses in gear filling in the rest of the gaps, like using appropriate literature before it gets to college prep so the students are ready. The issue here is educational system paralysis because the educational institutions have more to do with cattle farms than schools. (Granted, one could ask why we're trying to funnel them into colleges that are simply more of the same....) One teacher's willingness to do what the folks before her should have done is great, but will anyone address the actual issue?

As far as the fruit puree? PepsiCo is looking for the next generation of sell-the-hell-out-of-whatever-they'll-buy. Their interest in health only goes so far as what the market is driving them to do. There are no favours being done here. Filtering out everything but sweet materials of the fruit is basically just looking for fructose and natural flavours with enough protein to make it a slurry. It's not a gateway drug to healthy eating – it's a gateway drug to getting one's most tempting food out of an aluminium can. So, you know, this one is definitely worse than nothing.

[quarrel]

[PepsiCo's] interest in health only goes so far as what the market is driving them to do.

I'm not sure that matters. Pepsi is not unique in this. That bunch of bananas isn't sitting in an Albertson's bin because the Dole Food Company wants you to get enough potassium. Even most farmers' market vendors are there primarily to make a buck.

[shaterri]

You mean they're not there to take flour, milk and eggs from other vendors and make bread from it?