Everything Old is New Again - Year A rewind

My third year. I remember, through mercifully fuzzy memories, the fear of my first cooking labs... my first anything in Home Ec. All of the things I imagined could/might go wrong. Some of those things happened... nothing that couldn't be dealt with, though. There was the exploding oven door, the blender blowouts, the bloodshed... um. Yeah.

We're nearing the end of the 6/7 term. The grade 8s term goes for a few more weeks. I wish they synched up. It's so hard to keep a mental calendar going.

The grade 8s made POPCORN BALLS! Partly because one student has never really gotten over missing out on it two years ago. So, of course, one student in her group complained bitterly about NOT wanting to do it. We made them. Phooey on complainers!

Last time, popcorn balls was a 2 day lab. This time we did it in a single 41-minute block. Making popcorn on the stove-top would have been enough, really. They had a blast! Only one group burned their popcorn, and that was when they spilled it all over the burner and then watched it go up in smoke.

Melting the marshmallows was the hard part - they had the option to use the saucepan, or the microwave. Not one, but TWO groups used METAL bowls in the microwave!!! I wonder if it would help if I put signs on the microwaves indicating no metal? Or maybe the grade 8s should only do food preparation that doesn't involve any kind of "cooking" or preparation involving things with electricity.

The 6/7s are going to make quesadillas this week. Hopefully no nasty surprises there. The tricky parts are grating cheese and flipping the quesadillas, and they did quite well with the pancakes.

In textiles, the 6/7s are knitting, and doing very well! I have a few continental knitters, so I've had to learn that... although none of us can do a continental purl yet. Many of the students have learned not only to knit, but to purl, increase and decrease! There's a "math class polarization" going on - some are excelling, some aren't getting it at all, and there's very little middle ground. Just like math class. The determination is impressive though - I have some students stuck on the first row, and day after day they've been willing to go back and try again. I'm really impressed! Photos to follow!

The 8s are doing New and Improved button blanket banners! We kicked the bar up several notches with more detailed totems and different stitching and button criteria. The finished blankets will look great... the problem is... I don't think very many students will actually finish. It's just a bit too much for many and they're getting tired. We're at a very dangerous place where they're starting to resent the project, sewing in general and possibly me in particular. I don't want them to hate sewing. I want them to know a few basic stitches, be proud of their projects and be willing to consider Home Ec in high school. Or at least take away some basic skills. So, I'm re-thinking the project for next term. Or at least, the pacing of the project. Time to mix it up a bit and see if that helps change the energy in class.

Public Speaking Isn't Just an Assignment Kids!

Anyone who reads this once in a while will notice that the "voice" in this is different, although the stories are familiar. I wrote this narrative as a presentation, and didn't quite find a balance between my writing voice and my presentation voice. It was fun, sharing my Home Ec misadventures with a new audience, however, and we all had a good laugh or two. The next day, my grade 8s made advanced quesadillas (which is regular quesadillas but with onion chopping, and other veggies). It was better than their attempt at Fruit Crumble.

Two years ago, I was teaching grades 6 and 7, when our Home Ec teacher approached me to talk about what Home Ec would look like when we moved into our new school. It would be “healthy living”, and there would be a garden and a dedicated space for recycling, and wouldn’t I like to teach that? We met with our principal and arranged to trade places.

Our New LEED Gold School - to be completed...

Early the next morning, I realized that I had just agreed to teach cooking and sewing to middle schoolers. I would now be in charge of a room full of pre-teens with knives. 

We haven’t moved into our new school yet, so there’s no garden, no recycling, and “healthy living” is disguised as Chocolate Quinoa Cake. I started blogging my Home Ec experience early in the year and realized that amidst the chaos, there was a great deal of learning, and that teaching Home Ec was really fun. 

Halfway through the first year, a grade 8 girl groaned loudly during class and said “Why do we have to learn all this farming stuff? What has this got to do with food?” And I knew had to make the connections more explicit.

I brought in a chicken incubator so that each term could hatch chicks. Only one or two students per class had ever seen chicks hatch. One child told me with complete confidence that “chicken” comes from cows. 

Once those eggs started to wiggle and chirp, the students were engaged. Looking after the chicks was a great springboard for learning about chickens and eggs, discussing factory farms, and talking about sex. How do chicken eggs get fertilized anyway? They thought it was similar to fish egg fertilization. A week after hatching, the chicks go back to the farm. These chickens are pets, not food, and we love them dearly.

My goal is to help my students start to understand the complex systems that bring them foods and textiles. Home Ec is an amazing blend of practical, applied skills and critical thinking. For the most part, though, I debunk urban legends.

 

Vegan Pancakes of Doom

They complained when I introduced a vegan recipe. One girl said she wasn’t allowed to drink soymilk because her dad said it was bad for girls and would stunt her growth. A boy mentioned that boys shouldn’t drink soymilk because it makes them less manly. They know all the bizarre stories about fast food outlets but didn’t know their strawberry fraps are coloured with ground up bugs (cochineal).

Children, meet your drinking water

We learned about Where Does it Come From and Where Does it Go, with a focus on water and waste in the first year, and agriculture in the second.

Using big satellite maps, the students struggled to find their place in the world, or rather, the Metro Vancouver area, placing themselves firmly in Stanley Park, high on a mountaintop, or in south Surrey instead of Port Coquitlam, conveniently located in the centre of the map. When challenged to find the source of their drinking water, many students indicated the ocean. Of 400 students, perhaps only a dozen have visited the Coquitlam watershed, and most of those think that the building is the watershed reservoir, not the lake.

I teach each cohort for 7 – 9 weeks, for 41 minutes a day, and in that term we squeeze in 4 cooking labs, a textiles project and as much food related news as I can. 

Who knew you could MAKE dishcloths? Cool!

Last year in textiles, they all learned to knit. I thought they’d be more tempted to learn if I offered them a “cool” project. Who knew that dishcloths were cool? They made mini dishcloths.

This year, they’re all hand sewing. The grade 6s and 7s are making phone cozies or stuffies and the grade 8s are making aboriginal-inspired buttons banners. The students are willing to try any challenge I throw at them and the results amaze me. Not their kitchen skills, so much, but their creativity, their persistence and their talent for asking me the hard questions and demanding serious answers.

Gingerbread Bunnies - Why Not?

As a middle school home ec teacher, I now teach 400 students a year, all between the ages of 11 and 14. My goal is to encourage them to become informed consumers who ask questions and demand answers about their food, their clothes, and the world in which they live. 

It's not summer vacation yet

Dear Grade 8s,

the weather today was warm and sunny, but not so hot and bright as to trick you into thinking that you're already on summer vacation. Please tell your brains to come back - you need them for another 6 weeks.

Yesterday, do you remember that I stood in front of you, brandishing a knife? You needed some important knife safety skills for today's cooking lab. I let some of you demonstrate how to safely walk with a knife - most of you enjoyed it, so I know you were paying some kind of attention.

Do you remember that I showed you how to peel an apple? And how to core a strawberry? I do, because I was so pleased that my berry cored so nicely... made me feel a little competent.

Do you remember the time we devoted to sorting out your cooking groups? That 7 arguing people cannot make a cooking group? You must sit in groups of 4 or 5. No? I didn't think so.

Today, you came in and watched, with small interest, and I rushed around, pulling out the ingredients for the Fruit Crumble cooking lab. As I deposited the last ingredient on the prep table, I asked you if you didn't think some aprons and maybe some clean hands might speed things up? All I got was a single keener at my elbow begging to be assistant chef. At least he was away yesterday and didn't know that today was a day of action.

If you're not going to listen to me, the least you could do is read the recipe that I gave you. This IS your third year of Home Ec., so these things must seem vaguely familiar. You know, that paper I keep throwing at you at the beginning of a lab? No? Didn't think so.

When the Unit Managers were finally roused to action, things looked better, for a brief, shining moment. And then, suddenly, there were 15 minutes left in the class, fruits were still being peeled at the point where they should have been simmered. Sinks remained empty and tables were full of dirty dishes. You wandered aimlessly from group to group for no apparent reason.

At the last few minutes of class, half of you had pulled it off. Kind of. Only 2 groups of 6 had followed the recipe. Another 2 had put the fruit and topping in a baking pan, but omitted the simmering step. The final 2 (and I mean final - they finished 15 minutes into the next class!) the final 2, hadn't prepared their topping and their fruit crumbles look like apples floating in pink vomit.

I think it will still work out. It's fruit mixed with flour and sugar. How bad can it be, really? I hope when I give you your self-assessments, you're honest enough to 'fess up to your mistakes.

And guess what? Next class, you're going to be assigned a seating plan. And you won't like it one bit. But perhaps your cooking will improve.

Retrospective

Looking at my recent post about where chicken comes from, I was reminded of a great class discussion from a couple of years ago.

BTW, our focus was on generating discussion. Spelling and punctuation were overlooked in the interest of communicating. I love the two comments that wrap up the thread - you see? There is hope!

We have an online forum where I provoke the kids with a current events new item and they respond. Here's a recent one from my sixth graders...I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry... mostly, I'm laughing.

The article was about Cultured Meat - growing meat in a lab.

JP to Class Discussion (Primeau)

I dont think that growing meat from the ground is gross because its probaly clean enough under ground to grow it

KL - it doesn't matter, they would clean the meat anyways.....

MR - but j... its from the ground were worms are and other bugs like really.

JP - i know but like k..... said they could just clean it like they clean potatos and carrots

JF- j... right i gottta agree

AA- how in the world do you grow meat from the ground?? do you plant some meat seeds 

MR - but j... potatos and carrots are sopposed to grow from the ground NNNOOOTTT MEAT 

KL - after school im going to try t o grow meat under the ground, ahha 

JP - but still they could make a made underground ground just for the meat

KL- do they make ground beef 

AA - im gonna put some GROUND BEEF in my garden

What I've learned about demos

At first, I followed the example of my mentors - do a full demonstration of the food lab the day before the lesson. The following days do the prep and the cooking, usually over 2 days. Then I started to streamline the process. Now I only highlight the challenging parts of the lab with a quick intro. What have I learned? They don't do any worse with mini demos!

The success rate is the same (quite high), the injury rate is (mercifully) very low, and the kitchen catastrophes seems to happen regardless of how meticulously I preview the labs.

I don't have the students copy out the recipe. I don't have them fill in the blanks as we go. I give each group a recipe sheathed in a plastic sleeve, I read out the important parts and away we go!

The biggest challenge is that by the end of 3 repetitions of the that lab, my delivery changes. As a positive, I can highlight the challenges (and the absolutely bizarre mistakes), but I sometimes miss out important details, like reminding them to put their peeled, cored, sliced apples into a baking pan (even though the recipe clearly states it).

Hooray for students who are attentive enough to ask questions about the part I missed!

Why my head hurts

Quick lesson on local foods...

Student Suggestion: Chicken.

Other Student's Response: You can't grow chicken!

Teacher: Okay, where does chicken come from? (Trying hard not to look straight at the chicken egg incubator sitting next to the student)

Sixth grade student (with complete confidence): From cows.

Part Two

Lesson - English Muffin/Egg sandwiches

Student approaches me in the middle of the cooking lab. Puts down her plastic cafeteria tray in front of me, and demands to know - is this a "frying pan"?

Looking with disbelief at one of my brightest students, I have to ask - what makes you think that putting that plastic tray on the stove and cooking on it would be a good idea?

We regard each other. Me, still stunned at the unexpected question. Her, a little annoyed that this is not a frying pan. I look meaningfully at the closest group, wrestling with their frying pan. She follows my glance, exclaims, and hurries back to her group to find something that can withstand a hot burner better than a plastic tray.

More about chickens:

From the grade 8s:

Is there a such thing as chicken-milk? (Answered with a review of animal classification and the characteristics of mammals vs. birds)

Why don't you feed chicken to the chickens? (Answered with a scary summary of mad-cow disease and other cannibalism stories)

In general:

I have been asked at least 1000 times (no fooling!) one of these three variants on the same question: are we going to kill them/cook them/eat them? Are you going to kill them/cook them/eat them? Is someone going to kill them/cook them/eat them? NO, NO and NO!

They are PETS. We don't eat PETS. I hope your cat is giving you the stink-eye right now, and plotting a strategic location for that next hairball.

C'mon people... you really think I'm going to hand a fuzzy little bundle of fluff over to a bunch of children and say - now kill it???

WTF, people, WTF.

Really, you hold this in your hand and all you can think of is blood-shed?

Back in the saddle...

I know I've been remiss; I haven't written since October. Fall was rough - there were complications in our school community and by the time the teaching, other work and home responsibilities, not to mention fall/winter illnesses cleared up, here we are in January. If time flies, I'm guess I'm having fun, right?

Chicken Update:

The incubation process was much smoother the second time around. My precocious chicks started hatching 2 days earlier than anticipated! When I left school, one shell had a tiny crack in it, and I expected I'd return in the morning to watch the chick finish the job.

I entered my dark classroom in the morning, and turned on the lights. I was greeted by a flurry of chirps. Imagine my surprise when I opened the incubator to find THREE newly hatched chicks waiting! Now, that's more like it!

We ended up with 6 chicks, from 12 eggs. I finally figured out how to candle the eggs, so I knew that one was infertile. The other 5 eggs were watched carefully for the next few days, one chick died trying to hatch, another was alive enough to jiggle around in the shell but not enough to attempt a hatch. This time, I didn't open the other eggs. I had marked any eggs that showed movement, and these weren't marked. Having learned hard lessons last time, I had no problem disposing the duds, unopened. Ignorance doesn't haunt your dreams, now, does it?

Letting the students visit with the chicks was much easier with six. I kept the littlest one for myself. Honestly, it was half the size of the others, and I wanted to protect it's immune system as much as possible. The other five were content being loved by different groups of students all afternoon. The little one had to be content being cuddled by the teacher.

Next batch of eggs arrives on Valentine's Day!

I never could get all of them looking at the camera at the same time.

Look at those itty bitty tail feathers!