Master Iron Chef UnWrapped Kitchen Throwdown

The following is an actual, honest-to-goodness assignment that I am going to give my students tomorrow. By doing this I believe I am incorporating 20th Century Learning benchmarks, facilitated by technological interface practices, in a cross-curricular, hands-on learning environment that reaches out to marginalized students to better help them achieve their full potential. Or it's just a cheap ploy to entertain myself while creating a fun lesson plan with marginal learning outcomes but maximal blog-post-ability. Ish.

The Great

Convenience Mix

VS.

Homemade

SMACKDOWN

(AKA: Mrs. Salemink is Cleaning Out the Cupboard)

Why?

1. Foods & Nutrition 2 is wrapping up a unit on convenience foods, and Baking is learning about... well, baking. Duh. Really? Do I need a reason? Have I ever had a good reason for any assignment? There was that one lesson about that one thing... but other than that one.... We've done similar things before, but never on this scale. This... will... be... EPIC.
2. Mrs. Salemink has had 4 hours of sleep from 6:30 a.m. Saturday to 7:32 p.m. (oops, 8:14 p.m.) Sunday, and is not expecting to get to bed until at least 10 p.m. And she is really, really old. She is not able to go without sleep for this long any more, people. Give her a break.

3. The vast majority of you are probably going to be tired and cranky in class on Monday as well. The rest of you get to reap the benefits of our poor sleep-management skills.
4. We are having yet another “not normal” week of class scheduling, and I'm running low on creativity. Hard to believe, but true.
5. Because I'm the teacher and I said so. What are they going to do? Fire me?

The Assignment:

1. EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU (yes, YOU! BY YOUR OWNSELF. Without a partner.) will go online and find a HOMEMADE, COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH RECIPE for one of the following cake/brownie/quickbreads from the provided list. You WILL (BY YOUR OWNSELF. Without a partner.) email me a link to said HOMEMADE, COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH RECIPE by the end of the class period. *See Random Rules and Frequently Asked Questions section below.

The Smackdown:

After democratically selecting (you will vote, I will over-rule) 2 box mixes and their homemade recipe counterpart:

1. Each class will be divided into 4 kitchen groups. Two groups will prepare the box mixes. Two groups will prepare the homemade.
2. If you can't come to an agreement on who's doing what, I will randomly select you. Or we may do this again and switch roles. Depends on how much you annoy me.

Random Rules:

1. Box mix selection (and thus homemade recipe as well) will be first come, first served. In other words Foods 2 gets a better deal. Life is not fair. Get over it.
2. YOU WILL, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU (yes, YOU! BY YOUR OWNSELF. Without a partner.) will go online and find a HOMEMADE, COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH RECIPE BY THE END OF THE CLASS PERIOD. Or you will receive an “I.” Your grade point will crumble, you will never graduate high school, you will develop a severe case of acne, “bacne,” halitosis, pit-stank and athletes foot and you will wake up with the over-all funky body odor of the average, post-gym 7^th grader, for all of eternity. No amount of showers shall cleanse you. You shall become a pariah amongst your people. Look it up.
   You may also turn into a zombie. And not the fun kind. You will become the really icky, oozy kind that everyone can outrun. You will be locked in a cage where people will poke at you with sticks. They will make countless YouTube videos and SnapChat stories about you and you will never collect a cent of royalties or receive any “likes.”
   If you are lucky, you will spend the rest of your life living in a van, down by the river. By your self. Not even the other zombies – or stinky 7^th graders – will associate with you.
3. You will not whine.
4. YOU WILL DO ALL YOUR DISHES or you will receive an “I” and the consequences will be the same as #3 above.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Do we have to? Yes.
2. Why? Because I said so.
3. But, Mrs. Salaaaaameeeeeenk, I'm tired. So am I. And I'm older and crankier than you.
4. But... but... but... Nip it. Nip it! You can't see me, but I'm making the universal “nip it” sign with my hand as if I could grab your little pouty duck lips and hold them shut. With superglue. Or DuckTape. I'm not picky.
5. Quit rolling your eyes. That's not #TheBEARway.
6. How d... Because I'm psychic. Now get to work.

How I have never been named Teacher of the Year is completely beyond me.

Herding the Cats to Compassion

#1000Speak -- 1000 bloggers posting about compassion and kindness to flood the Blogosphere with good February 20, 2015. Search for the hashtag and support the cause, please!

I'm one of those teachers who sometimes (?) takes a roundabout way to get to the point. I don't mind letting the students get me off topic (sometimes). I love it when they inadvertently come up with a perfect (or not so perfect) example of what I want them to understand.

“The point is, and I do have a point...” I say, steering our totally random discussion towards a “teachable moment.” I like to think I toss the idea out there, and just keep ooching, nudging, imperceptibly herding the cats to the conclusion I'm hoping for (or somewhere near it, anyway).

But I have not yet found a way to lead them to a meaningful discussion of “compassion.” At least not as it concerns “virtual” conversations.

I’m amazed at how accepting they are of other students who are differently-abled. They don't bat an eye when one of their classmates who has Down Syndrome needs extra help – they just pitch in and help. For the most part they are (at least when teachers are around) pretty considerate kids.

I'm not saying they're angels. Oh, my goodness, no.

Sometimes they (we all) say stupid things without thinking. And sometimes they say those stupid things without realizing what they are really saying. Some of those nasty, hateful words have lost their power, which may or may not be a good thing. We say them out of habit, without thinking, not to purposely hurt.

But absence of malice is not the same thing as compassion.

And while students with learning disabilities are protected, those with no obvious disadvantage are fair game. Particularly when it comes to electronic conversations.

During just the past two months at my school we've had at least four incidents blown totally out of proportion because the majority of the discussion took place not face-to-face in the hallway, but thumb-to-thumb on cell-phones.

During the most recent “Twitter-fight” I channeled the cranky English teacher who hides just below the surface of my mellow Home Ec teacher facade. I told one class “You know, back in the day (cue the eye rolls and heavy sighing), if we had a beef with someone we actually had to (melodramatic gasp for emphasis) talk to them in the hallway... or maybe write them a nasty note on real paper and pass it to them during study hall, or stuff it through the vent on their locker door. We couldn't (ahem), sit one table away from them during lunch and 'twit' nasty things back and forth.”

I was hoping for a meaningful discussion about how we don't talk to each other anymore, we talk at each other. What I got was a report of the number of retweets, favorites and subtweets (whatever that means) that sprouted from the original offending tweet, as well as a defense of Wronged Party A (and a defense of Wronged Party B from the next class).

What I got was a synopsis of the actual, real-world fight that could have – but did not – break out once the twitter-tweeters actually did turn around and talk to each other.

“My point is,” I said, trying to herd the cats, “do you think it’s possible that neither one actually threw a punch because they were having (melodramatic gasp again) a face-to-face conversation?”

I saw a flicker of comprehension as my students considered that maybe, just maybe, there were some things you would tweet without thinking, but you wouldn’t say in person.

“Adding 'LOL' or 'JK' or a funny face emoji isn’t the same as the non-verbal communication – the facial expressions, the vocal inflections, the body language – of a face-to-face conversation,” I said, pushing the point.

But my students were already on their cell-phones, checking for updates on the latest drama.

Next time I’ll tweet them the lesson.

JK.