Bosco sticks.
Bosco sticks the building blocks of schools and I truly mean that.
You might be thinking, “Wait girl! I don’t even know what a Bosco stick is…”
And to be honest with you, I had no idea either. So at my school, during my first hour, I am in charge of taking lunch count. I think this is something that happens in a lot of smaller schools, definitely in elementary schools. I kinda like to get kids really pumped up about lunch count. I think we can ask kids “raise your hand if you want peanut butter jelly, raise your hand if you want Chili Crispitos. Raise your hand if you want the Turkey Panini.” Or I think we can get ridiculously excited about it.
I sometimes have my students do a drumroll then I say something like, “You guys!!!! Guess what they are serving today in the school cafeteria????”MINI CORNDOGS. Totally unnecessarily energetic about a mini stinken corn dog. But I think that’s a lot of fun.
One of my first weeks of doing lunch count, I noticed on the menu it said Bosco sticks. Well I didn’t even know what that was. So I said, “today’s menu, we are having Bosco sticks???”? And the kids lost their mind! I mean like they absolutely came off the hinge and I was so caught off guard, I thought, well heck yes. It’s about time.
Not realizing that they were not being passionate about raising their hand for just any item. Oh No. Bosco sticks are evidently legendary. And I did not know this one. I didn’t grow up eating hot lunch. I worked at a school for 10 years that never ever once served something called the Bosco stick. So I was just not aware of how epic these truly are. So as the kids were like literally high fiving each other and just going bananas, I thought, you know, this is an opportunity to build relationships with students! I made a pledge to my fifth hour class, which happens to be sophomores that the next time that Bosco sticks was on the menu, I was going to the cafeteria and I was going to figure out what all the fuss was about.
Last week it happened! Bosco sticks were on the menu again. I signed up for a teacher lunch tray and I went down to the cafeteria with my students. Can I be honest with you? I was a little bit nervous about this. It felt like being a new student at a new school. Who’s going to sit next to me? How do I go through the lunch line? How do I pay for this? I had these completely irrational thoughts as a 33 year old teacher. But luckily my sophomores are amazing and they showed me the ropes and I got my tray.
It looked super, super unimpressive.
It just kind of looked like a super dry, bland breadstick. It had some Marinara sauce that I could use for dipping, but overall not a great first impression. I sat down at my table and my students were just so eager find out what does Ms Genta think about this Bosco stick?
So let me tell you what a Bosco stick is…
I would describe a Bosco stick is a pizza breadstick that literally fell from the heavens. Like the sky opened up and angels were singing and this breadstick was presented on a gold platter. That’s what a Bosco stick is. And I took my first bite and like it was wicked hot, which students warned me about! “Don’t let that melty cheese burn your face off.” God love them.
I quickly realized this lunch had nothing to do with Bosco Sticks!
We moved from rows in a classroom into a circle in the lunchroom community.
We were just people being people in a cafeteria eating food.
And when I took that Bosco stick bite it was a 10 out of 10! legit good. The kids went wild, they loved it!
Shout out to my amazing two ladies who are down the cafeteria prepping food. This stuff was ridiculously fresh. They had freshly cut salad, fresh cut garden tomatoes, fresh cantaloupe that they sliced. I mean this was really impressive, the freshest food that I’ve ever seen in a cafeteria.
But the fresher thing was the refreshing conversations that happened. We talked about what the kids were going to do that weekend. We talked about what’s going on in life. They shared what they were eating or what they had in their lunch boxes if they weren’t having Bosco sticks. We were just people being people. And it proved when we change our environment, we change our attitudes.
I want to say that again. Sometimes if we are struggling with our students, all we need to do is change the environment and watch a change in attitude.
A school cafeteria truly is this place where walls come down and we can start building bridges where kids have built walls to a relationship with a teacher. I think gymnasiums do the same thing. I think going outside and getting some fresh air does the same thing.
When we eat Bosco sticks with kids or mini corn dogs with kids, it makes us human. And sometimes students need that reminder that we are human. So I don’t know what you’ve been struggling with this week, but I do know that Bosco sticks are the building blocks of schools. But even if your school does not serve them well, you should, right? If your school doesn’t serve them, it’s not about the Bosco sticks.
It’s about the brilliant conversations that are going to evolve at that table.
To Listen to the audio version of this blog post check out: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-teacher-life/id1477926278