My boys are competitive Down Hill Mountain bike racers and they recently raced in several events at Whistler Crankworx. This meant that they had several practices, qualifiers, and final races that ran very close together and had to incorporate protein and energy bars into their nutritional plans to get them through their hectic schedule over the week of racing. High quality protein and complex carbohydrates packed into a portable bar are not just a convenience for my sons, they are a necessity if they wish to stay fully fuelled and competitive. Slipping a couple of these small energy packed bars into a jersey or shorts pocket means my boys can quickly and easily maintain their nutritional needs for the hectic training and/or racing session.
A quality protein and energy bar has little or no sugar, uses natural ingredients, and has a balance of protein and complex carbohydrate to help an athlete maintain their energy when they are unable to access whole foods. Bars that are nutritionally high quality often don’t taste the greatest because the manufacturers stay true to the purpose of helping to fuel a competitive athlete. Unfortunately, as protein and energy bars get more and more popular quality bars are getting harder and harder to find because too many manufacturers are willing to move away from the fundamental purpose of the bars and focus primarily on the taste of the bars at the expense of the nutritional quality.
When you focus on the taste and not the nutritional needs of an athlete you end up with something that sounds like it would be a good thing, but when you look at the details you find it’s not the case. The list of ingredients on the following popular protein and energy bar reveals that taste and not nutrition is their priority:
Evaporated cane juice syrup and corn maltodextrin are the first and third listed ingredients which also indicates their quantities. While neither of these ingredients are listed as sugar they are essentially the same as sugar hiding behind a more natural name. The more diligent athlete who is aware of the sugar synonyms won’t be tricked by the manufacturer and will look for a better bar, but for the average person who isn’t as informed this fake protein and energy bar is really not much better then a typical candy bar. At least in the candy bar the manufacturers don’t try to hide the actual ingredients behind more natural sounding names:
What makes this really serious is that the majority of protein and energy bars are really not much better or different then candy bars when you look at the first three ingredients:
Protein bar – Evaporated cane juice syrup oat bran, corn maltodextrin and soy protein isolate
Candy bar – Sugar, peanuts, and corn syrup
Yes the protein bar does have a few better ingredients, it does have soy isolate protein powder, but for the most part it is just a candy bar with added protein. This is very alarming and in the display pictured below there are a couple of dozen different types of bars and there were only two that were actually healthy enough to be used by a competitive athlete:
How does such a good idea, a portable highly nutritious bar that a competitive athlete can use to stay energized, go from good to bad. Simply shift the primary purpose from a portable highly nutritious bar used by competitive athletes for fuel to a good tasting convenience snack used by anyone. Most competitive athletes are willing to deal with the lack of flavour and even a chalky texture in their bars because they know that it isn’t about the taste it is about the fuel that they need to stay competitive.
This shift in purpose from fuel to taste has as a dramatic effect on an individuals results as a shift from a focus on learning to technology has on the learner.
We can run into a similar problem in education when we shift our focus from the learning to the technology. In his post How to Fake a 21st Century Classroom Terry Heick satirically posits how to:
“fake 21st century thinking and learning environment to make the right kind of impression with the right people, and give the appearance of forward-thinking.”
Useful ideas like Project-Based learning, 1 to 1, and blended learning can all too easily loose their benefit when we shift the focus from learning and just do projects, just focus on the devices, and just focus on the content delivery part of the blended learning. Heick points to ten good learning ideas that can easily go bad for the learner if we shift our focus from the learning to the technology or to what appears to be a trendy 21st Century activity. His post How to Fake a 21st Century Classroom Terry Heick is worth the read but I must caution you that you may be bothered or convicted by a few convenient or fake activities that you may have fallen into. I know I am taking a hard look at several of my activities as a result of reading his post.
As educators, our responsibility is to know better, to know that you can’t fake Project-Based learning by doing make work or fake projects. You have to give the learner the control, ownership and voice over an authentic project that will make some sort of difference in the learner’s personal life or community. You can’t just fake 1 to 1 by making students do digital worksheets on their iPads. You have to give the learner the opportunity to use their devices for creation, collaboration and communication and enable them to learn all the time and everywhere with everyone. You can’t just fake blended learning by focusing on the content. The emphasis on creation, collaboration and communication in your blended learning environment will also enable your learners to go much deeper then they would if you were to focus on the delivery of content.
As educators we should know better but just like the average person who is swayed by the appearance, convenience and taste of the fake protein bars we too often can be swayed by wanting to give the right kind of impression and the appearance of forward-thinking.
We can also be swayed by the fact that we may be faking it until we make it; meaning that we may move toward our learning goals by implementing changes incrementally and may use that worksheet on the iPad as a transition activity until we can focus on more genuine activities. This is understandable and as long as the transition happens this will be fine. But just like the fake protein bars that will work when you don’t have anything else available, temporary or transition use of technology can also work, but also like the fake protein bars long term use would not be heathy for the athlete or the learner.
