Jay Mathews with more innovative thinking – I’ve never considered this:

 

Do we need lunch periods, or even cafeterias?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/12/do_we_need_lunch_periods_or_ca.html#more

A flood of emails Monday resisting my suggestion of longer school days to raise achievement leads me to wonder if parts of the regular school day could be put to better use. Is the typical raucous high school lunch period, in an overcrowded and sometimes dangerous cafeteria, really necessary? My colleague Jenna Johnson wrote last week of imaginative principals letting students avoid the cafeteria in favor of staying in classrooms to catch up with work or having club meetings. Can lunch become a time for stress-free learning, rather than Lord of the Flies with tile floors?