Eating in Place

On November 21 I went to the "Local Foods: the Story of Eating in Place" lecture. Although I did learn some on how to go about eating local, it was really a bad and uninspired lecture. Going into the lecture I thought it would be pretty interactive and that it would convey a lot of practical knowledge. It did neither of these. The lecture, which was based on the book of the same name, consisted of a good 10 minute introduction and then each contributing author of the book just read what they had contributed. The introduction was really the only educational part of the lecture. The man who did this part really gave a good amount of information for someone who is looking to begin to eat local. However, the rest of the lecture was terrible. The contributing authors stood at the podium and read straight from the book what they had written. To make matters worse, they all thought what they had written was funnier than it actually was. Although it was a pretty bad way to spend a couple hours of my Thursday night, I did learn something about education: you can't expect to hold attention or inspire if you just get up and talk. I am pretty sure I will never forget how slow and painful that lecture was. I hope that it will always give me a perspective that helps me realize the importance of having interactive and dynamic classes.