I have held labs for 125 students all week - shopping for $500 worth of groceries -- I'm worn out with labs -- and have one more week to go. We go to the grocery store before this final lab to explore unit pricing and making decisions on a budget. The students love lab experiences and they seem to apply themselves more to the other assignments I give, knowing they'll get their time in the lab to prove their culinary genius.
So many times I have to ask my students when the prepared product fell short of the picture in the cookbook - What did we learn from this?
Essentially, labs in food prep prepare them to be pretty good cooks at the end of six weeks -- well not chef status -- but at least sous chef.
Though we do various activities to illustrate concepts - like creating mock families, building their own "house" out of craft objects, holding a mock wedding and managing a mock budget --I have often thought how valuable it would be to be able to create labs for some of the other life situations they might have to face -- relationship break-ups, financial bail-outs when they have ruined their credit, facing serious illness or picking themselves up when they have given into something more powerful than they realized.
Though we do various activities to illustrate concepts - like creating mock families, building their own "house" out of craft objects, holding a mock wedding and managing a mock budget --I have often thought how valuable it would be to be able to create labs for some of the other life situations they might have to face -- relationship break-ups, financial bail-outs when they have ruined their credit, facing serious illness or picking themselves up when they have given into something more powerful than they realized.
I started my life skills course by saying -- I want you to not just SURVIVE - but THRIVE! I tell them they are on the front porch of the rest of their lives and I don't want them to live SCARED -- but SMART. When they make a mistake in lab -- I often ask, "and what did you learn from THAT?" My seniors will be graduating soon.-- I hope I have them well prepared --I guess the question I should ask myself now about my course instruction is and "And what did they learn from THIS?"
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