Seventh Grade Top Chef Challenge--Chimichanga
With all the acting, singing, drawing and general racket that comes from my classroom, I have trouble enough convincing other teachers that mine is actually a serious class. So, when my seventh graders proposed a three-week long cooking unit culminating in a Top Chef challenge, I was particularly wary. Furthermore what’s more cliché or old school than cooking in a Spanish class? Shouldn’t we be Skyping with another country and learning about their cultural traditions or creating interactive blogs? Probably.
Sometimes though, I think you just need to do insular activities. It’s a bit backwards pedagogically speaking, but I had the sense that this class needed some alone time. They need something that was purely selfish and just for them. What could possibly be more selfish than making delicious food and eating it all yourself? So I went along with the idea.
For three weeks, we followed their recipe requests and they learned (using only Spanish) how to chop, sauté, deep fry, whisk, use and oven, do their fair share, work as a team and generally how not to burn down a kitchen.
Did we learn as much Spanish as we would have if we followed a more traditional route? Probably not. Did other people benefit directly from our learning? Not really. Am I’m still stressed about them passing entrance exams into high school? Yes.
But, for the moment I couldn’t be prouder of the experience we had. It’s always nice to end a unit wondering how you are ever going to be able to top it.
