Slow food usa’s National school garden program presents:

Good, Clean and Fair School garden curriculum webinar

Content Notes

Background

  • Slow Food needed its own curriculum because of our unique mission
  • Activities and instructions are centered around cooking and eating
  • The curriculum will be broken up into three parts: Good, Clean and Fair
  • Good = enjoying the pleasures of healthy and delicious food; Clean = gardening for sustainability; Fair = producing food that respects economic and social justice
  • A variety of lessons - need to promote children’s excitement for new foods; teaching is available to anyone not just a chef; and needs to be activities that can fit into regular academic curriculum
  • A mixture of activities that focus on
  • Observation and focusing on their senses
  • Research
  • Experimentation and action (recipes and cooking)
  • Reflection

Gigia has found that the two main skills needed are:

1. How to mix flavors – Sensory Education

-What you can do with kids to make food less of a power struggle:

  • Taste tests: Know if kids don’t like texture, you can change it. They might still like the taste.
  • Put kids in charge, especially those that like to say “no”
  • Progressive tasting: adding flavors; kids learn how flavors can affect the taste of food and whether they like it better

2. Kitchen skills and tools

-Make big things small

-Cooking techniques (all can be done within classrooms with conduction burner)

-Making flour; fun so they forget the flour might be whole grain/brown

How lessons are set up:

-Symbols show you time it will take, indoor/outdoor, grade level, activity type, and season.

Q & A

Question (Christine): I’ve mostly been cooking with different demographics that don't have access to all these ingredients. Also, they might only have simple tools at home. What is your experience with this?

Answer (Gigia): That's another reason why I don’t use a lot of power tools (mixers, etc.). Most things we need are simple, like knives, rolling pins, etc. My method is to open a kids’ world about food. Can’t eat at home, but most are so simple, they can use them with whatever ingredients they have. The idea is to expose them to food across the world. Most are usually Latino, from Mexico,they love Chinese food and Italian food. They are happy to try new things and get tired of eating only Mexican food. Can talk about it in class: exposing flavors to show the world of food and what’s possible. Not many of the ingredients areexpensive, but they are definitely unknown. And it’s hard to know what demographic we’re talking about.

Christine: I don’t disagree, I think exposure is a big part of cooking. My experience though is that a lot of these children want to go home and replicate what we’re doing and the biggest part is to get them to have a positive feeling that they actually can go home and replicate these things. I started out teaching how to do flavorful, but really backed it down so they can use ingredients from their cupboard so they don’t have to spend a lot.

Answer (Gigia):Yes, they should go home and use what they have. Mostly, they find replacements. It loosens them up so they feel they can grab something and make it taste okay. I agree a goal is to make them want to go home and cook.

Question: How long have you been doing sensory education?

Answer (Gigia):5 years

Comment (Lauren): We are looking to hire a culinary intern to take the recipes and lesson plans and reformat them to be appropriate for family size so students can take it home to their parents. Listing alternative flavors and ingredients as well.

Comment (Gigia): Depends on how much time you have to do these classes. More likely it will be after school, usually don’t have time to do cooking all the time.

Question:What has been your favorite or most chosen way to teach kids in a group setting? I’ve experienced showing them and then walk through it, also doing it with them, etc. What’s your favorite?

Answer (Gigia): I usually do it in the cafeteria because there’s less clutter. Long tables are an advantage, so I can see all the kids. Give them enough room. Have ingredients on the table. Don’t pass out knives until they have directions. Give one direction at a time. One vegetable at a time, cut it, then move on to the rest. Cooking cart, as they cut it up, throw it into the pot (for soup, for example). Usually the kids 1st and 2nd graders are not at the stove. If they would like to see it (pizza or tortilla or something);Two people: one person cooking and one helping. Have them take turns putting food into frying pan and then I cook it. 5th graders do more cooking. Make sure, rotate kids being in charge of the pan so there’s only two there at once. Minimize number of people around the heat source.

Question: Rule of thumb adults to children?

Answer (Gigia):One adult for 8 kids is ideal. Round tables. Adult doesn’t have to lead anything. You can explain directions, but the adult can keep an eye on the kids and help them follow your instructions. If I was doing the long tables, I can handle about 15 kids and that’s maximum if they are cutting something. Anymore than that, I have another adult.

Question:Have you run into any groups wanting liability?

Answer (Gigia):Haven’t come across it.

Question:I have, which has been frustrating.

Answer (Gigia):The thing is, some of those are super expensive. I would say I have been doing it 26 years, no kid has severely cut themselves. The knives are small, teach kids not to use a lot of pressure. But if people are worried about it, then maybe this isn’t the activity for you. They rarely cut themselves, usually if something happens, it’s not when they are cutting because they are attentive and quiet, it’s when it’s more chaotic that something happens. Ask what they would like, what’s the purpose, what they think about it. Large to small: lists more options besides knives, with suggestions by age group. For example, potatoes, for young kids, just boil it whole ahead of time and have them cut it with butter knives.

Comment (Gigia): Kids love mortars and pestles.

Comment (Lauren): Introduction Chapters 1 and 2 have been posted to SF USA website. Under the “Resources” page.

Comment (Molly):I’ve been teaching for over 30 years, I think it’s fabulous. Lots of new ideas I can think of. This has been really worthwhile, thank you very much. I love the organization, I learned a lot, thank you very much.

Question (Scott): How do you find classroom teachers that empathize? How do different subject areas connect to this part of it?

Answer (Gigia):Easiest thing is social studies (studying countries), all things related to food processing and tools; also works well with inventions (can take things apart and figure out how they work, principles of physics). Lots of chemistry with flour and flatbread: fats, alkaline, etc. Things related to tasting, consider them extensions of plants, the more kids understand and use plants, the more appreciative they will be. Writing, at the end there are suggestions for journal pages, instead of reading recipes, have them write down what they've done after the lesson is over. Writing instructions, etc.

Comment (Gigia):We hired a cooking teacher. A lot of teachers won’t do things in class, so that’s how we chose to use our money, teachers sign up and they will go teach a lesson. So if you have some money, that’s a good place to put it for your cooking program.

Question:Introduction on website, is whole elementary program going to be on too?

Answer:Good = now, Clean = March/April, Fair = June