I am an eighth-grader at The Community School. Being a student through the chicken project was an important experience for me. I am not here to tell anyone that what we did was right or wrong. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but I feel it is necessary to explain my beliefs.
I am a meat eater. It is unrealistic for me to become a vegetarian. I enjoy eating meat too much to even want to pursue that lifestyle. However, through the food unit, I learned that the conventional chickens I'd always eaten were raised in conditions in which they were standing in their own waste, packed so tightly in cages that they couldn't move. That was reality, and I didn't like it.
When we had the opportunity to raise and kill our own chickens, I was for it. I knew that since I was going to eat meat, I should eat the right meat. Our chickens were the perfect example of the right meat. They saw light every day, ate organic food, had their box cleaned daily and were treated with love—factory farms are incomparable in their cruelty.
I realized that if I couldn't handle killing our class chickens then I shouldn't eat meat. That is why I decided to take part in the killing. Eating the chicken we raised, I knew exactly what had gone into his body and where he had come from. That's what felt good.
Our Food Unit would have been very different if we had not had our chickens. This experience taught me, in a very real way, where meat usually comes from and how I can make it better. The point was not to show how to kill, but to illustrate the reality of eating meat. I now know that reality, and I have definitely changed. This project didn't make me want to take the lives of living creatures; it taught me how to treat a meat animal the best way possible. I can tell you that we loved these chickens and cared for them without protest. Our class isn't heartless nor were we abused.
Chloe C.
The Community School
