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. 

Knife Safety - You're Doing it Wrong

As the new classes are invited to explore the home ec classroom with a scavenger hunt worksheet, I can usually anticipate and head off any problems. They have free rein to explore, under supervision, and there are relatively few monkeyshines.

The chef’s knives are sometimes removed to a more secure location, depending on the class. Sometimes it’s so secure, even the teacher doesn’t know where the knives are! I like to have a couple reliable helpers who know my best hiding spots, so if I forget, or have a teacher on call in class, cooking labs can proceed.

During kitchen orientation with one of the new classes, I asked two students to find the knives, one of the few items whose location is not labeled. I didn’t expect one child to grab up all the chef’s knives like a bouquet of flowers and then bestow them upon the students nearest him.

Within seconds, I had six children (eleven years old) brandishing knives like Samurai swords, blades up to their noses, gearing up to dart through their classmates. 

They were swiftly disarmed, which was something I had always wondered/worried about. Would I be able to disarm a knife-wielding child? Yes, apparently I can, but it helps when you take them by surprise. If I had to actually confront a larger or hostile child with a knife, it might not be so easy.

It might be time for some chain mail.