U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen spoke with students at two local schools Oct. 13-14, answering questions from three fifth-grade classes at Grove Elementary in Marysville that Monday, before helping serve hot lunches to students at Arlington High School that Tuesday.

Larsen’s chat with students at Grove not only allowed them to review what they’d learned in class about how Congress and the president pass laws, he also shared with them some of the loopholes in that process.

“Just like the way you talk at recess isn’t necessarily the way you learned English in class, the ways that government works academically are different from the ways that we actually do things,” he said.

Larsen freely conceded Congress’ approval rating of 13 percent, which came as a shock to students who’d guessed as high as 80 percent, before he pointed out one of the inherent challenges of the legislature.

“Many of you have brothers and sisters, but you don’t always get along, do you?” Larsen asked. “We have hundreds of people in the House of Representatives, and it can be hard for us to get along. We come from all across the country, so we might not understand the attitudes, beliefs or households that we all came from.”

Some students were likewise surprised that the requirements to become a member of Congress were more lenient than they’d guessed, since they only need to be 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for seven of the past 14 years, and a resident of the state that their district occupies.

“We have farmers, lawyers and two car dealers in Congress,” Larsen said. “We even had a Congresswoman who’d been a homeless mom.”

Larsen admitted that he found the frequent air travel wearying, but he loves being able to check books out from the Library of Congress, and even vacations that frequently include town hall meetings. He told students he considers it a privilege to serve.

“If you hear a Congressman complain about his job, he needs to get a different one, because we all made the choice to run,” Larsen said.

At AHS, Larsen learned how to make Philly cheesesteak sandwiches for a few of the nearly 500 students who buy school lunches daily.

Wilma Potter, one of the cooks, explained that all the bread is whole-grain, and that the school strives to serve a variety of salad items, plus seasonal fruits and vegetables.

“It’s changed a lot since I went to school here,” said Larsen, an AHS alum. “I actually asked where the lunch trays were,” he laughed. “I think we had three meal choices for lunch in my day, whereas they have a whole myriad of choices now. It’s a lot higher quality.”