For perspective: I come from a country where “cafeteria” food at school is good and affordable (most is less than the equivalent of 5-10 USD max and it’s not slop, it’s actual food), but it’s not an obligation for everyone since it’s up to the student if they want to buy something or bring their own lunch.

The “cafeteria” in my school isn’t a typical American one, rather it’s closer to a canteen where they sell food you can purchase from cup noodles, fried stuff, sandwiches, baked goods, etc. also appliances like a kettle or microwave are available in the dining hall for students to heat up left overs if they wanted.

The thing I tend to notice from American schools (according to US movies, there’s bias whether it’s true or false) is that they tend to depict kids always heading for the cafeteria for recess or lunch picking up whats available instead of bringing their own food from home (left overs from dinner), why is that the case?

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      11·
      2 days ago

      For us it was always being ‘too loud’, like a cafeteria full of children 10 and under is ever going to be that quiet. It’s not like kids were shrieking all the time or anything, they just talked excitedly. There weren’t even classrooms near the cafeteria to be bothered by the noise! The more I think about it the more I want to go kick them in the shins about it

      • frank@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        2 days ago

        So like if it changed mid lunch would you shuffle seats?

        This is such an insane thing to do to kids lol I’m so sorry you had a traffic light in the cafeteria

        • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          3·
          2 days ago

          Oh, it was somehow even more convoluted. If the light went to red we had to remain silent the rest of the lunch where we were, and THEN the next lunch was sitting in alphabetical order in complete silence. It might be extended to multiple lunches if people kept trying to talk.

          There was one period of time when we had heavy rain, it lasted for what felt like weeks straight, and we weren’t allowed outside. We kind of collectively started going insane from lack of exercise (we had no indoor gym), and then we got multiple days of red light silent lunches.