It's hard out there for a . . .

SEND HELP SOON!

Boy oh boy. I have to admit, I forgot what a social/emotional minefield school is. Tradeschool is so unlike university. I'm finding it to be more like an academic limbo: somewhere between highschool and college. The geography of the culinary trades class is far more diverse than anything I experienced at Capilano College, UBC, or SFU. Some of my peers are in the last throws of puberty and sitting on a precipice between teenage angst and adult responsibility. It feels as though others have always scorned academia and even though they are in a college, they seem to rage against the authority of the institution. And then there are the students who approach their learning with spirit of healthy competitiveness and camaraderie. Sometimes, I feel like I am in a liferaft with a few other sane people. And our chefs -- they're on the big ship (the one that can save us) BUT, because they only see us for one month before they pass us along, they aren't able to effectively evaluate and eliminate the classroom dysfunction. Soooo, no life-buoy for us.

This situation is exacerbated by the fact that the goals of each individual, are hardly homogeneous. Of the sixteen people in our class (we started with 20), I know that at least a third of us have no interest in ever working in a production kitchen. The other two thirds may be focused on the food industry as a goal, but whether they will actually make it to the top is doubtful. I think a lot of students have their eye set on that brass ring of one day becoming an executive chef, a restaurant owner, or even a celebrity TV chef. And, I think that a number of my classmates feel that this will somehow be handed to them without the necessary slogging through dishpits and sweating it out in a windowless kitchen while working the line for minimum wage.

So much of what I've seen in the kitchen classroom reminds me of what I used to see in the highschool classroom. There is petulance, bullying, violent behaviour, dishonesty and cattiness. All of this has led me to reflect on my own teaching practice. So often, I've sat around with my colleagues over pitchers of ale asking the same tired teacher question: "I'm putting good material out there. I'm giving them a show. It's like a circus. So, why does it feel like nobody is learning?" Well now I know why. It's hard to learn while the sharks are circling. It's hard to learn when people are stealing your equipment or putting all of their effort into looking busy instead of being busy. It's hard to learn when you look at your neighbour who is burning something for the tenth time and then you realize that by not burning something you're automatically doing better. I think I know why my students couldn't always learn. Sometimes I wasn't teaching effectively, but it wasn't always me. I think it's easy to blame the teacher but the social environment seems to have so much more influence. I am finding it increasingly difficult to hear my instructor through the fog of bad behaviour that is enveloping our block.

I know that I have to lift myself up. Other classmates are also bothered by the behaviour they've seen. A handful of us have discussed this over a pint (or two), but it has all left me wondering where the tipping point is. I guess it all comes back to an internal locus of control. Now that I realize I've let my sense of work ethic and commitment slip, it's up to me to push myself. I am my own competitor. Even though it is hard, I need to focus on being the best human I can be in that class. As a teacher, that's all I've ever asked of my students: that they be the best human they can be; that they not get caught up in the little things that don't matter; that they open their minds to the beauty and possibilities of academia. Even the very best student can be better. So now it is my turn to practice what I preach. It's hard. It makes me remember my teen years.

I loved highschool. I liked every part of it (even the bad stuff), but I don't want to do it again. I guess, what I'm saying is I know how to help myself, now I just have to do it.

The Line! The Line! The Line is on Fire . . .

" Zach, stop distracting me from my work!"

Block 5 has begun. . . and so have the goodtimes! In this block, the class is responsible for putting out the daily cafeteria line dinner. We have to produce four meat entrees, four fish entrees, five side dishes, a pasta and vegetarian entree, and three soups. There is no time for wandering around the class, gratuitous trips to the dishroom, or general mischievousness. All things considered, the first night went off without a hitch (translation: No juicy blog material was created; therefore, the blog title is more exciting than the blog itself). Our new Chef, Dave Ryan, has a manic energy that seems to keep the class under control. It feels like he is using his ADD as a weapon for good instead of evil. Also, we are being led by Instructional Assistant, Ysabel. She is a real tough cookie.

I was responsible for the roast on Monday night. There wasn't a lot to it, but somehow, I got myself in a state. Anyhoo, the yorkshire puddings were only slightly burnt and the boneless lamb legs were cooked perfectly medium. Thank goodness for thermometers. As the cooker of the roast, it was my responsibility to carve it on the line. The carving station is about three inches higher than the counter and the roast on top of that adds about another five inches of height. So for those who didn't already know that I am only five feet tall, I was faced with a bit of an accessibility challenge. I was able to carve the roast, but the tendinitis in my left shoulder flared up something fierce. Thank-goodness I was distracted by the crazy people on the customers' side getting into a crazy fight. I'm not completely sure what the altercation was over, but it was definitely something small like person A touched person B's tray. Anyway there were no fisticuffs but words were exchanged. The best line I heard clearly was "Leave me alone you crazy old bag!" This was followed by a lot of intensely crazy, hateful stares. The best part was that the "crazy old bag" sort of had a beehive hairdo. If not for the hair, no one would have been the wiser to her altered state of craziness.

"Does this hairdo make me look crazeeee?"

Meanwhile back in the Kitchen . . .

Since I haven't blogged consistently for the last 20 odd days. I am going to give you a speed update of the top twenty things that have happened in the class. First we must travel back in time to Block 3 (you may remember this as my Month of Bacon)

20. We made beautiful desserts. Brie covertly took these photos on her phone.19. Chef Ritchie announced that our class, collectively, had the worst attendance he had ever seen in 10 years at VCC. Those of us who were present, and on time, looked at each other, shrugged, and said "Yes Chef!" in a somewhat feeble manner. The students who were absent, took no notice and carried on with their abysmal attendance.

18. Our block switched from drinking at the dirty Cambie Pub to drinking at the far more charming and comfortable Railway Club. The Railway has Guinness. Hooray for Guinness. We only ever have "just one" each.

17. Zach has still failed to learn how to tie his chef's tie and Diana has been tying it for him on a daily basis for four months now. He feels no shame over this. However, I believe Diana is starting to feel some shame. At least a little bit. If Diana decides not to show up for school, Zach may have to stay home too, due to the tie issue. Thereby aggravating the attendance issue.


(Note how happy Zach looks in this photo and how proud Diana is of her handiwork.)


16. The breakfast kitchen nearly exploded when Chef Ritchie tried to deep fry mashed potato cakes in our fryer that had sat dormant for nearly three weeks. Somehow some water must have been spilled in the fryer. So when it was finally turned on, it made a terrific noise, and began to shake as though it was a mighty greasy beast awakening from the depths of some kitchen hell, waiting to explode and coat the whole class in a layer of hot, filthy, unsaturated fat. Chef Ritchie said he even scared himself. And he is a mighty Scotsman, who does not scare easily. So, you can imagine the terror the rest of us felt.

15. Tyson poured another classmate's bavarian cream down the sink due to the fact that it resembled dishwater and it was being "chilled" in a "bain marie" of dishwater and dirty dishes. Said classmate wept. Tyson felt little to no remorse.

14. I learned that bad gelatin can smell and taste very piggy. . . but not in a good bacon-y way.

13. Finally we moved on to Block 4: Stocks, Soups, Sauces, and Cold Kitchen 2 taught by the lovely and fast-talking Chef Irwin. It sounds great, but this is when the real madness began.

12. I was put in a new, almost super-fantastic group with Shameless Seamus, James, Baby Kam, and another classmate who I will simply refer to as Anger Soup. (When I googled "anger soup" this picture came up.)

11. Our group started in the soup rotation of the class. I got to make a number of delicious concoctions: Coney Island Clam Chowder, Herbed Tomato Rice Soup, Chicken Vegetable, Mulligatawny, and Hungarian Goulash. My favourite, by far was the goulash soup and the seafood chowder that Seamus made.

10. James won an entrance scholarship. Most of us were really proud of him. One or two classmates were filled with jealous, impotent rage that was violently taken out on the upstairs boys' bathroom at VCC. (If you've seen Punch Drunk Love, it was the same as the scene where Adam Sandler goes postal on the bathroom)

9. David had his pants stolen again. How David?!!! HOW?!

8. Seamus and Tyson got to volunteer at the Gold Plates Competition. This was a competition between a number of the haute, local restaurants to create uber fabulous and confoundingly delicious food that also looked beautiful. Ty and Shame-O got to work with Tojo who placed second overall. This event helped revive Tyson's belief/love in/for the wonder of food. And I think it probably made both of them better cooks. (For more about Golden Plates, click here)

7. Absenteeism increased, especially on Fridays. There must be something about Friday because one very young, female classmate seems to always fall ill between 9:30 and 10 am. Usually this illness comes on very quickly after she receives a text message in class. I think it might be her phone making her sick. I heard cellular phones can do that.

6. As part of our Block 4 curriculum, we were given a take home assignment on food costing. The questions were crazy and went something like this.

If you are working at 35% food cost, how much does 100 litres of bernaise cost. Consider that the parsley has travelled from New Zealand on the Concord for $5 per mile. The egg yolks were from hand fed bantam hens and the person making the sauce is angry and working very slowly for 25 union dollars an hour. Given this information, what is the menu price for 100 grams of said sauce. Please work to no more than 10 decimal points. You will be given a 1/10000 of a cent margin of error . . . good luck.

I managed to get 100% on the assignment, but about six of us had to work as a collective to make sure we understood the questions.

5. Anger Soup missed a whole week of school thus leaving the rest of us in the lurch when we hit salads.

4. Zach slipped on Tyson's spaghetti noodles and hurt his back. Now he has an excuse for not being able to tie his tie. He is in poor health and suffering from a back ow-ee.

3. I scored my first 100% on the Soup and Stocks Test. Yay me!

2. I started to get tendinitis in both of my shoulders. I feel like a baby tyrannosaurus rex.

1. On November 24th, we move to Block 5: Nighttime Cafeteria Service. This should be a very exciting month. We will also be entering term 2 of our year. Kris and Chris have both decided to leave the program for very valid personal reasons. This will create a big shift in our group as they are two of the older members of the class. Some classmates may not be invited to continue on due to poor marks and attendance. Big changes are in the air. We will be put in new groups and the expectation for our speed and quality of work is about to increase dramatically.

And that is a fairly complete, somewhat biased update of my last month in the kitchen!

In My Secret Life

Such a long time . . . so little blogging. I know I've been away, but with good reason. Since mid-September, I've been hanging around my old stomping grounds at Britannia. Two to three times a week, I've been meeting with my old students to put together the School Remembrance Day Service. On November 10th, the services were done and now, I am free to blog again.

So here is a little bit about what my secret teacher life is like. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I would meet with between 5 and 25 students to practice songs and run through scripts. Altogether, 50 students made the service happen. Had I been teaching, like in the past, I don't know If I could have done the service this year. My year off was a bit of a godsend. Normally, I would have taught my classes all day, spent most of my lunch and recess in meetings, had a short 15 minute break and then started running the rehearsals. Often there would be a lot of frustration on my part due to mental exhaustion. This year however, things were different. After school, I usually went home for a little nap, stopped by my local coffee shop, and then ran a fairly pain free one hour rehearsal. I think that not being in the teaching classroom made me a lot more patient. By the time I started practices, I still felt like I had some energy to give my students. And I have to admit the kids were generous with me. Either I was looking at the situation through new eyes, or they were saving their teenage angst for other teachers.

This year's service was extra special due to the presence of Captain Trevor Greene. In March 2006, Captain Greene was attacked by a man wielding an axe while he was in a shura (meeting) in Afghanistan. The attack left him in a coma for a year and he is now confined to a wheelchair. Captain Greene is a good friend of longtime, Britannia phys. ed. teacher, Jamie Overgaard. But his connection to our school and neighbourhood go deeper, in that he wrote one of the earliest books about the missing women of the D.T.E.S. For the past two and a half years, we have been hoping for his recovery. This year Trevor was well enough to travel from his home in Nanaimo, with his wife and daughter, to come speak at our assembly.

So here is how we run our service at Britannia. At our school we are very clear that November 11th is about Veterans. The day is never run as a theatrical event nor do we use it as a forum to focus solely on other global issues. We break the service into three parts. At the beginning we run the photos of every Canadian Soldier who has perished in Afghanistan (97 to date). In the middle part, we pay tribute to the relatives of our staff and students who served in WWI, WWII, and the Korean Conflict. Then, our Veteran guest (this year Captain Greene) speaks and invites the student body to join in the two minutes of silence. Finally, for the last segment we honour the 18 Britannia students who died in WWI and WWII. We use music, key visuals and spoken word to bring the whole service together and then we run the service three times because we cannot fit the whole school in our auditorium. It is a long but very moving day.

This year we were featured on the CBC's Early Edition.

Click here to hear the audiofile.

Here are some images from the day and an excerpt from the closing of the service.

Eli, Stef, and Carey
(Carey and Eli have been making music for our shows and services since they were in Grade 10)

Captain Trevor Greene

Captain Greene's Mom, Dad, and Daughter

Edward Hulme: The father of my teaching colleague Grant Hulme. He is 90 years old and a survivor of the Battle at Ortona.

Seaforth Cadet Jasper

Singing A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

The Band: back - Mr. McKechnie (band teacher) and Carey
front - Trevor, Jacob, Stef, and Eli

Celina talks about every child's right to an education.

Alison and Miranda speak about the dangers facing women in war-torn countries

Jamie Overgaard, Coporal Joe Allinas, Trevor Greene, and Master Corporal Patrick Farrell

Trevor W. playing the Last Post and Rouse
(He is only 12 years old!)

Our closing message as delivered by Grade 12 student Hannah:

We want to give you one last reason to wear the poppy. Right now, there are 30 wars being fought throughout the globe. Over 300,000 children have been forced into conflict as child soldiers. More than twenty million people have lost their homes because of wars and natural disasters. But here, at home, we have the security and safety that is only a dream for other young people.
In this final presentation, you will see a series of names being held up. These are the names of young soldiers from our school. These are the names of Britannia Students who died overseas and never came back to Canada. You will also be seeing images from around the world. Take this time to remember that we must not take our advantages for granted. Our access to medical care, education; our right to vote; our freedom of speech. These human rights were hard one and they are rights that everyone deserves.
Until this truth becomes a reality you wear your poppy not only as a symbol of remembrance, but also let your poppy be a symbol of protest against the gross inequality and tyranny that breeds war. Remember that until all of our brothers and sisters around the world are freed from the chains of ignorance, poverty, and hatred that cause strife and inequality. . . until that beautiful day is realized, not one of us can truly be free.

And here is a video of our closing number. Yvette, the soloist, is only 14 years old.

The Return of David.

A little update. My poor classmate, David, after being definitively removed from the program, has returned. His parent's came into the school and insisted that he be allowed to continue. He is one unhappy camper. Other than that, he is a pretty all round good guy. I hope he gets to do something productive that he enjoys very soon. Meanwhile, he looks like he is actually in Hell's Kitchen.

Is it wrong to love bacon this much???

I know I haven't blogged in a long time, but there is a good reason. Over the past four weeks I have become seriously addicted to bacon. You may be wondering how bad can it be. . . is she hyperbolizing? Well the answer is no, I am not. As part of our Block 3 duties, the class is responsible for cooking breakfast for the cafeteria. This involves baking off three very large trays of bacon in the oven every morning. By the time breakfast has been served there is often half a hotel pan of bacon leftover. Why we don't cook less bacon, I do not know. This daily ritual has had the unfortunate side effect of making bacon part of my daily routine. I have tried to forgo the luscious pork product, but if this block has taught me anything it is that I have absolutely no willpower. I have eaten so much bacon over the last twenty days that I feel I am in a constant state of dehydration and I may have given myself gout. I only pray that when I get to the stock, soups, sauces, and salads kitchen in Block 4, I don't find out I have a veloute addiction as well.

Anyway, I gave up fighting the urge to eat the beautiful crispy, fatty, wonderful bacon. Now I simply bow to the urge. I only have one day left and then it's cold turkey (or bacon) for me.

For your viewing pleasure here are a few fabulous bacon products.

Bacon straight up . . . No apologies.



Bacon Bandages: Makes ow-ees okay.



Forget Footloose, put your hand up if you've seen Tremors more than twice.


Someone is a marketing genius.


Oooh yeah!

Farewell dear David. . . alas, we never knew you.

Well, it is official, one person has been dropped from the program because of shoddy attendance. Usually at the end of Block 4 (Term 1) , some students are invited to leave due poor attitude or shoddy attendance. So, one must be working extraordinarily hard to be given the boot early.

Here are my thoughts on David's departure. David was a nice enough classmate. He never caused a ruckus or was unkind, but you could tell he did not want to be in the kitchen. There was no fire in his belly and he seemed pretty lost. David is only 18 and I imagine that there was some sort of insistence that he attend a post secondary establishment. I suppose cook was a real come down for his parents as it did not fall into the three generally, approved professions for good Asian children: doctor, pharmacist, and accountant.

I feel sad for David. He clearly was not doing what he loves. I don't think he knows what he loves yet. This is a situation I have seen many of my highschool students in. Over my eight years at Britannia, I would have conversations with young men and women (who were almost always Chinese) who wanted that one year off because they didn't know what they wanted. Or, they wanted to go into Fine Arts or Humanities and they were in despair because their parents felt that only in Science or Business would they find a job that would make them a lot of money. Inevitably, they would follow a path that was not their own and fail miserably. And then they would follow the same path again or drop out completely.

It is a sad state of affairs. There are so many young boys and girls who I've seen grow up and stop singing, painting, acting, and laughing because they need to find the perfect job and make enough money to make their families proud. Or on the converse side, they pursue no education, training, or self improvement because they feel they are destined to be famous. In the end, such young people end up squandering their lives working in menial jobs and focusing on vacuous pursuits such as beauty and being fashionable. I am not advocating the reckless abandonment of one's responsibility to be a contributing member of society, but I feel that many people discard their creative potential in favour of becoming cookie cutter consumers. And this is done with no consciousness.

In the end, I hope David finds something he really loves. I hope it isn't fast cars, Ed Hardy T's, and clubbing. I hope he ends up being something great.