Return to "Normal"?

 September 2021 - June 2022

Explorations are allowed to teach from their own classrooms again and don't need to rent alpacas to trek through the school! Of course, the Pandemic isn't over, so things are still different.

Hand sanitizer is the new High Five. I've taken to greeting my inbound students at the door with a squirt of sanitizer along with Hi! Hey! Good morning! Nice mask! Before long, I'm cheerfully squirting any student who walks past me, most of whom paused, or doubled back to get their sanitizer. If they were holding hands with someone they get two squirts.

Of course, someone beat me to the punch line

Since last year was all textiles, I decided that this year would be all foods and then the year after could (hopefully) bring us back into the balance that was familiar (to me... the kids won't know the difference). If the students had their way, they'd be cooking daily. I'd argue that I don't have enough recipes for that, but honestly, they'd make pancakes or quesadillas every day and be content.

They did suggest waffles. But the joke is for our former tech ed teacher.

We made veggie plates with hummus, fruit skewers with melted chocolate, quesadillas, breakfast sandwiches, snickerdoodle cookies, chocolate chip cookies and pancakes. Pancakes are an excellent final exam. They should know: how to use a flat cooking surface, how to follow a recipe and measure and how to clean up. SHOULD. Many of them don't. That's how you earn your A, kiddo. Follow the recipe and clean up. You can do this!

Some clean. Some don't. I doubt their parents would be surprised.

I heard whispers of students missing the Textiles Unit. This always surprises me, that they like textiles as much as Foods. Sometimes they like it better.  I hated Junior High sewing. Guess that's why I don't teach "Junior High Sewing". So the final classes of the term had a surprise mini textiles unit. They were quite content rummaging through the felt and sewing small projects of their own design. It was a nice chance to see another part of their personality. Several begged for yarn, so that they could crochet. 

Come to think of it, I think I had this student's baby sister this year...

The chaotic highlights this year?

Eggs. You cannot leave an egg unguarded. They will jump into a hoodie pocket and run away. Some eggs refused to break neatly leaving the young cooks no choice but to take more, regardless that the other groups needed eggs too. It was hard to learn that eggs will roll off the counter if not supervised. Some groups needed to repeat the experience before finding a solution. Eggs are also hard to clean up. That's a good incentive to not letting them splatter all over the floor.

Not mine, but I do often draw faces on my eggs. I need some googly eyes though.

Knives. Although it's probably not what you think. So many students used the paring knives UPSIDE DOWN. We did the knife safety lessons. They all had a chance to examine the knives and figure out which side is the cutting side. But every knife lab had several students get mixed up, pushing down on the blade, trying to force the spine through a cucumber.

At this rate, I'm going to have to drop them down to toddler knives.

Recipe Adaptations. Changing a recipe for a student with allergies isn't a problem. Sometimes you get a cluster of incompatible dietary issues and things get difficult. A soy allergy - read the labels on EVERYTHING. More vegans that usual, but that led to some great alternatives that worked well. Just Egg, is poorly named for a plant based egg but it cooks up like scrambled eggs. I didn't like it as much for cookies but the flax egg was even better than egg. Almond milk was the vegan's preferred dairy substitute and we didn't conflict with any almond allergies, but it did require diligent cross-referencing. 

Bad name, good product. Smells pretty funky when past its date though.

Trusting the students to self report their allergies was less successful this year. One student looked at the kiwi fruit in the second lab and reported that they were allergic to it. Was that on the allergy form? No. I need to find a better way. Maybe next year, I'll email all the parents for allergy information. 

Going gluten free is hard to do when baking, as I'm certain any reader with Celiac Disease will inform me. Yes, there are substitutes and they're getting better all the time, but sometimes, they just don't work and I need better recipes for those labs. It would help though, if we didn't add two extra eggs to the dough because "it looked dry".

Well, if it happens to other people,
there must be a solution, right?

In a lot of ways, this year was tougher than previous years. My grade 8s may or may not have taken Foods with me. Some of the 8s missed out on Home Ec when we moved to online learning back when they were in sixth grade. None of the 7s had worked in my classroom, or taken a Foods class. And of course, the sixes, coming from elementary school, were new to the whole Middle School Experience.

Accurate.

Next year? Well, the seventh and eighth graders will return with some experience in my class. The sixes will start from zero, but generally are good listeners and eager to please. I'm returning to my mixed Foods and Textiles model and hope to do a series of mini labs to keep the students in the kitchens and active learning more often. They love to cut things to a fine mince. This doesn't work well for veggie plates, but it could work well for making salsa. I intend to do a short unit with textiles... a project I've overseen before and feel comfortable with. I can make it more challenging. I can make it super easy. On paper, the plan looks great! But I only have temporary amnesia from the past school year. I know that anything that can go wrong, will. And it will bring friends.

I really want this to work, though.

Home Ec – Pandemic Style

 A year ago, I sent my students off for spring break. I assured them (and myself) that we’d be back in the classroom in two weeks, but tidied up the room a bit better than usual, Just in Case. And after spring break we moved to online learning.

Home Ec. Online. Let’s not forget about Music/Drama. Online. Or Tech Ed. Online. Even Digital Literacy wasn’t meant to be taught online. We collaborated on an extensive list of Passion Projects that our students could choose from for the online term. We scheduled weekly online meetings with the students on our current class lists. And Explorations continued, in the real world for the students, in the digital domain for their teachers.

Been trying to bend spoons since I was a kid...

One thing I liked about online learning was that it gave me a new and improved way to interact and get to know my students. Students who would have been quiet and self-contained during class became the superstars of our online sessions. I had a strong turnout – about 80 percent of my class list signed on for projects and checked in online. The numbers dwindled over time, but a regular, reliable group showed up for weekly meetings and the reports of projects were incredibly interesting!

Stop motion animation. A volcano made out of cake. Lots of baking. Lots of cooking. Some entrepreneurs. A budding computer programmer. Without having to manage student behaviours in the classroom, I really got to know my students in a different way. Their efforts were amazing!

On the down side, though, I found myself, more and more, talking to a screen of avatars or initials, not student faces. As the term wore on, I had no idea if I was just talking to myself or not. Some days, I was! It was exhausting in ways I could never have imagined.

Thought so...

One year later

As we head into another spring break, Explorations has gone through a second transformation. We pack up our courses and travel around the school. To five classrooms a day, conveniently located upstairs, then downstairs, then upstairs, then downstairs, and upstairs again. Somehow the stairs grow in height each block so that by the end of the day, they must be at least four flights.

We pack materials and supplies with us. I start the term carrying only my computer that needs to be persuaded to connect properly to five different projectors without needing to be restarted every block. Then I transport sewing supplies for primary project (felt, patterns, buttons, lots of needles and lots of thread. It shouldn’t be as heavy as it is). As students complete the first project, I add materials for their personal choice projects, yarn, hooks, needles, looms… you name it, I’ve probably packed it. By the last week of term I have three massive bags with me, and I’m usually complaining that my alpaca has not arrived yet.

Yes, it's a Llama, not an Alpaca. I know.

My classroom nagging is now mostly reminders to social distance. “You can’t hit/kick him/braid his hair because we are Social Distancing” “Why are you eating? It’s not snack time and you need to have a mask on” “Three people watching videos on a phone is NOT Social Distancing!” 

I am white noise in the background. They do not hear my words. They might not even hear my voice. They are numb to the social distancing. They are teenagers and it goes against their very nature.

There are positives. I get to see an entire class in their home classroom, and often get to see how their teacher sets up the classroom culture and what classroom management techniques they use. I get to see their classrooms and if I’m lucky, chat with the teacher for a few minutes on the way in or out. I can see what they are working on in different subjects and I am privy to the last minutes of class discussions. 

Yes, even the French ones.

Once spring break is over, I’ll be back to packing my bags and running up and down stairs again. I'm not even willing to guess what September will bring.

Sure. Why not?

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Mudpie” Cookies – Is there a doctor in the house?

In Jean Pare’s cookbook, these Boiled Chocolate Cookies are called “…the most used recipe of young first-time cooks.”

Their first lab was quesadillas, since the breakfast burritos were clearly going to be too difficult for this group. I couldn’t use the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, then, as it’s substantially more difficult. I needed something super easy. Something healthy? No. Nothing was working. Allergies, Celiac disease, not allowed marshmallows. Running out of time, here!

Mudpies. We’d made them before, and it was simple enough. Okay! Mudpies it is.

Oats + Cocoa = Healthy. It's good enough for Nutella's ads.

We did the recipe preview – how to make the cookies, safety concerns and questions and the next day, we took to the kitchens. Five pots of boiling sugar and fat over three stovetops. Constant pacing and supervision:

Turn your burner down.

Stir gently.

Watch that pot handle…

No fooling around during labs!

Walking!

Are you sure that was bubbling for a full five minutes?

Two back-to-back classes of boiling-chocolate controlled chaos. The cookies were more or less a success. Some were too dry, some were too gooey. One… well, if you’re going to use whatever measuring cup you grab first instead of the right one, at least do the math. No harm done. Whew.

Feeling a little breathless and dizzy, we launch into the final lab of the day – baking our pizzas. No big deal. Add the toppings, bake them and enjoy.

After clearing out the third afternoon class, and starting to deal with the left over mess, there was the sound of broken glass outside my room. With a deep breath, I head out to see what’s wrong.

While the caretaker swept up the glass, the storm raging inside my body broke free and down I went, head swimming, heart raging away at 250 bpm.

Now, I’m a little annoyed… I’d had surgery to correct this situation and this was exactly WHY. I didn’t want something like this to happen at work. Around the kids. While cooking. Hearts don’t respond to logic though, do they?

Within an hour, I was under the care of some of the nicest paramedics in town, going for my first ambulance ride. My heart smartened up as soon as we hit the “cardioversion bed”, so it may not respond to logic, but it does respond to a tangible threat.

What? How do you get home from work?

I was hoping it was merely a rebound effect from the surgery, but the surgeon’s going back in for another look. I can’t say I’m excited about the news.

Several weeks later, we started textiles and one student asked wistfully – Can we make those chocolate cookies again? I laugh a little and lean in to respond – you do know that I had to be hospitalized after that lab, right? She accepts her disappointment with good grace, and I chuckle. It was a fun recipe… but maybe it’s a little too stressful.

Stay tuned for “Ballroom Dancing with Cookie Sheets”.

Knife Safety, or How to Freak Out the Other Teachers

While the recipes and textiles projects change somewhat, from year to year, the foundation lessons stay pretty much the same. We start with a course overview and room orientation. We review emergency procedures (first aid, fire, earthquake, lockdowns, dealing with rats and the inevitable zombie apocalypse).

Knife Safety Day takes a certain amount of teacher energy (moderate) and patience (overload). The lesson involves identifying the knives we use in class (chef and paring). Knives are placed on student tables for observation. Misused knives are removed immediately. 

KNIFE SAFETY DAY!

We learn how to hand a knife to another person (You don’t. You put it DOWN and the other person picks it up). We learn how to walk with a knife (You hold the point down).

What if you trip? What if someone runs into you and you fall? What if someone with a knife runs into you and you fall and your knives hit each other? What if it’s a lockdown and the bear is in the hallway and he opens the door and you stab him?

Occasionally, another teacher will drop by the room for one reason or another on Knife Safety Day. Typically, they freeze upon entering the room and seeing the knife wielding preteens. Or they enter the room and I stop them – “the children are armed and dangerous!”

One of my favourite well-armed children

Today we scored a trifecta – three different staff members during one class.

The “knife walk” looks rather alarming. Each group has a chef’s knife and they take turns walking in a designated area of the room, before “passing” the knife to the next person. We do this so that every student has a chance to handle the knife before a knife skills cooking class.

I’d noticed that the nervous kids were more likely to fumble and get hurt than the kids who were confident and respectful. So everyone tries. And I use fewer bandages.

I’ll admit, it looks like a high-risk activity. It’s really a calculated-risk activity, and it’s easy to hand offenders a plastic fast food knife if they can’t handle the real thing. No one wants that. So far, they’re willing to follow the rules, but not without some testing.

Tear-free Cookies

Almost two years ago (December 2015) I wrote about a difficult muffin-baking session which led to the goal of "baking cookies without tears!"

Proof that cookies make you happy.

This refrain kept running through my head like a musical ear-worm today as I worked my way through five classes preparing/baking cookies. Now I have a song running through my head and I'll be sharing it with the students tomorrow.

During the last round of Oatmeal-Whatever Cookies, I had a student approach me with a bowl of cookie dough, genuinely perplexed. "How do I get cookies out of this?" she asked. This was new - having students who didn't realize that we took portions of dough and baked them into cookies.

I don't see the cookies.

Now, it seems it's the norm. Many students struggled with the dough to cookie relationship. And they struggled with a lot of other things too:

Measuring. 125 ml of margarine is easy when they come in prepackaged blocks (don't judge me!). However, when you hand the dairy-free group a block of Crisco (I said don't judge me!) and they speed ahead without reading the recipe we so painstakingly reviewed the day before... guess. C'mon, you've been here before. Ten points if you guessed that they randomly whacked off a chunk of fat and just hoped for the best.

Measuring. "How much X did you use?" asks the teacher.
                   "Oh, about..."
                   "No! There is no "about". There is no "winging  it". Baking is chemistry!"

Measuring: Gold stars to anyone who figured out that 175 ml of flour requires one of your 125 ml cup and one of your 50 ml cup. That was TWO students (of 100 or so).

Measuring: No home ec teacher will be surprised to learn that some fast-moving groups poured themselves a generous 250 ml of chocolate chips, even though the recipe calls for 125 ml.

I know... a little extra, just in case...

One group must have discovered the blog, because they ADDED WATER. (See Teaching Home Ec Through Interpretive Dance, also December 2015). I'm so careful not to mention mistakes other groups have made. I would say - "be extra careful with your measuring, several groups have struggled with measuring." "Watch the dry ingredients. Be sure you have the correct amount. This has been difficult for the other groups." I have learned not to drop hints about HOW to mess up the recipe. For some reason, one group added water and they were pretty darned sure that this was the only sensible course of action and could not understand why I might be agitated about it.

Are you surprised to learn that a child wipes her hands once on a clean towel and then throws it in the laundry?

Did you know that a child uses half a bottle of dish soap to wash a few measuring cups and two bowls?

Corrections, inspections and trouble shooting is on-going and constant in our labs. Two classes baked their cookies today. They were varying degrees of "pretty good". It's too early to call, but we may get through without tears.

Year Six...Guinea pigging, can you dig it?

I’ve changed recipes and textiles projects frequently since I took this assignment and EVERY TIME I ask myself why I insist on this torture. Why can’t I just stick to something that works? But no, I always want new recipes, back up recipes, things that work better in my space, with my students. It’s great once we’re settled, but it’s really a painful way to start up the new year.

Today my first group of guinea pigs tested the breakfast burritos. We learned: Easy Breakfast Roll ups are not “easy”. That will be the “challenge” project. They may feel vindicated if I introduce them to the concept of “Pinterest Fails”.

I assured them that the Guinea Pigs class is promised a good mark, since I’m not marking the end result but the design and trouble-shooting process. Happily, that’s embedded in the new curriculum now, so I’m not just making stuff up (I may or may not make stuff up).

Pro Tip - search for "guinea pig chef" not "guinea pig cooking". 

The textiles project is still in flux, though. Every year, my senior classes have made a very specific sewing project, which I love. It’s a great skill builder project that the students really like. I’ve always had tremendous support from another department, and I made my booking back in May. I confirmed with my usual contact person that I wanted to expand my senior project to a school-wide project, but just once every three years.

With three weeks before textiles starts, I’m told – my contact  person is unavailable and I should probably look for a new project. Happily, we’re still working on a solution and I’m hoping the project can continue more or less as usual.

If I have to change projects, then crocheting has just been bumped up on the schedule.

Now I want to make crochet guinea pigs.