Impressive Ways To Teach About Hunger In Schools

It is considered that at least one in every five students experience hunger while arriving in their classrooms. For some students, their lunch at school might be the last healthy and full meal of their day. In 2017, a survey known as No Kid Hungry declared that almost three out of five parents having low-income claimed that it was difficult for them to afford food for their kids after school. 

While these numbers are shocking, it isn’t a surprise for teachers. Teachers themselves have claimed to see students arriving at school hungry on a regular basis. They have also claimed that they spend their own money feeding the students because they feel bad for them and they know students can’t learn when they are hungry.

While educators and teachers may be aware of this issue, many privileged students are not. For that reason, we have combined a few lessons you can teach in your classroom about hunger and how to raise awareness on this issue. 

Turn Your Students Into Future Leaders

Teaching itself is learning. While sharing your knowledge, you learn to understand and grasp different perspectives, ideas, and processes of the mind. This is an exceptional advantage of being a teacher. How this works is you will provide your students with some facts of how some students deal with hunger in their classrooms and schools, and then you can ask them for their response of what they think is the right way to deal with them compassionately. 

You can also ask them to create awareness sessions along with some posters to display around the school. Have them create small presentations to share in the classroom. Turn your students into teachers and future leaders by sharing useful and informative facts with them that might help them change the world for the better. This is how empowerment occurs and society gets better. 

Encourage Empathy Among Students

Those students who might be dealing with insecurities and poverty may find it difficult to accept the idea and reality. Make sure to take a class and let other students express themselves what they feel about food insecurity so those who might be dealing with it can feel accepted by their friends and classmates. 

You can also ask students a simple question like, ‘What will you do if you don’t have food for a day?’, then ask them to read out loud what they’ve written. This way students dealing with hunger will know the meaning of empathy others hold for them. 

Find Ways To Teach About Sharing Food

While you have students actively thinking about hunger and how to change it when they have the ability to, you can still motivate them to do whatever they easily can, like sharing food. Sharing literally means caring and if they really are inspired with everyday class lessons about hunger, they will start caring for their friends and classmates. 

Moreover, you can ask students to participate in the after school snack program if they have the ability and means to. This is another great way to bring change in the society and make less-privileged kids feel comfortable.