The sound of the bell echoes through the hallway as students file out of classrooms and race straight towards the parking lot like they’re in a rush to get to some sort of emergency.
But what we are racing to is not even close to an emergency. It’s just lunchtime.
When I find that I am not frantically trying to make it out of the parking lot first, then I am pretty much out of luck. By the time I reach the flagpole, there might already be 10 or 15 cars lined up to turn onto Doherty Drive trying to get as far away from Redwood and back as humanly possible in the next 35 minutes.
Why is this frantic rush such a routine part of students’ days? There is a social pressure associated with lunch at Redwood that has gotten out of hand. Lunch should be about escaping from our daily grind, not a time for anxiety levels to spike.
If I were to tell my past self that I would one day be planning for a 35 minute lunch break several weeks in advance, the response would be disbelief. A time for a communal lunch period has become an exercise in exclusive social arrangements which is progressively leading to the detriment of our school community.
In an effort to cure the social division that surfaces during lunch, I think that Redwood should keep its campus closed.
Because leaving campus is usually by invite-only, there is implicit social exclusion for those who don’t make the extra effort with their lunch planning. When there is only room for four passengers in a car someone is almost always left by the wayside. Multiply that by five days a week, and the segregation starts to have a real effect.
But this is only one of the downfalls of having an open campus lunch, as the problem starts even before the lunch bell rings.
Because lunch plans are now being made on such a constant basis, it’s nearly impossible to keep up without resorting to in-class texting, and losing the last five minutes of fourth period should not be common place.
Not to mention the all too obvious environmental harm that comes with having lines and lines of cars leave the parking lot every day causes. In a community that strives to be environmentally friendly, there are many students who put their social status and desire for fine dining over the pollution prevention that many in Marin County are passionate about.
The lunch race has gotten out of hand. What was once a time for relaxation with good friends and good food has become a circus of reckless driving and social exclusion. Instead of fighting to keep up with the pace of play our eating games, why not give lunch on campus a chance?
