R U a teaching Twinkie?
Are you a teaching Twinkie? 
Twinkies are comfort food. There is something about the greasy slip from the cellophane wrapper, the burst of “creamy” filling (likely absolutely nothing related to cream), and the rush of sugar from that first bite. Twinkie aficionados have many approaches: squirting the cream out with your tongue — then eating the spongy cake, freezing the Twinkie and eating it as it thaws, or deep frying it for more grease than a 1960 Dodge pickup after a lube job. Even the post-Twinkie sheen on your fingers says “yum.”
The media are bemoaning the possible impending loss of this junk food jewel. Twinkies are a rare, secret weakness held in common by nostalgic adults of almost any age, politics, or philosophical persuasion. But does the common experience of Twinkies make them worthy of preservation?
School is familiar. All adults remember the pattern: lesson/lecture, practice, homework. We may have found our personally preferred ways of squirting out the homework first and eating the lesson last, but school is a Twinkie experience, especially if we –as teachers –are Twinkies. We may be so familiar with our wrappers and slippery sugar that we never stop to question the nutritional value of Twinkies. Nostalgic adults assure us that our Twinkie lessons yield solid basics that everyone should know — and solid test scores. Taxpayers like familiar Twinkie teaching. Everyone knows and understands Twinkies. Twinkies are easy to count, stack, and understand. Besides, our grandparents ate them.
What would happen if Twinkie teaching disappeared from our schools? Greater nutritional value? Healthier minds? New recipes for learning? There are certainly plenty of Twinkie replacements ready for our menu. Invite the demise of the teaching Twinkie.
