Faculty, admin join forces to provide perfect recipe for senior foods engagement
In a time where students and teachers are trapped at home, it can be hard to find much enjoyment watching online lectures, or be the one delivering them. One such teacher who had a hard time teaching to an empty classroom was senior foods instructor Julie Hietpas. With being virtual, she had difficulty preparing lessons since most involve cooking in the kitchen at school. So, Hietpas came up with a new, inventive way for her students to watch cooking from home.
“I was walking into school one day, and I was thinking that it was getting kinda boring just doing the same things for class, and it’s hard to talk on video by yourself,” she said. “And as I was walking down the hallway, I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be fun to just have guests join me?’ So I started asking staff around school if they wanted to do it.”
Mr. Gerhartz cooked a breakfast meal for students including delicious bacon. He also decided that he wanted to look the part since he was invited as a guest chef. So, he decided to ‘grow’ out his hair.
Hietpas featured Maya Vang, Nick Bandl, Jason Ryf, Mary Kieckhafer, Kim Willman, Tony Gerhartz, and many other teachers who came into her classroom to cook for her students. Besides teachers, administrators like Principal Erin Kohl also joined in the activity.
“Mrs. Hietpas approached me with her idea and asked if our admin team would be interested in making a cooking video,” Kohl said. “I talked with the rest of the team, and we all thought it would be a lot of fun.”
While creating something fun for students to watch, Brandl saw this as an opportunity to lend a hand to a fellow teacher.
“For classes like culinary arts, art classes, and manufacturing classes, the whole virtual thing must be impossible because those are all hands-on classes,” he said. “So it was another way to help a teacher out and help the kids to try and keep their interest level going.”
Hietpas points out that students are not the only ones missing seeing their friends at school.
“I think for us teachers, we are missing the interactions with others too,” she said. “Teachers are used to being social, and we enjoy when the school is full of people, and things are happening. I think this just gives them a chance to interact in a different way.”
One such person who has missed the students very much is Kohl, and she was excited for the chance to stray from her regular schedule and also provide some entertainment.
“I thought this would be an opportunity to do something fun for them,” she said. “Right now, I spend most of my day on the computer in my office, so having something different to do was a great break from the norm!”
Not only was inviting teachers able to help Hietpas find a way to make her class more interesting, but it was also a way students could see their teachers in a new light.
“I think that seeing different teachers- hopefully, some that the students have had- seeing them in a different light doing something different is good for them,” Hietpas said. “It’s just hard to run a class without interactions, and I think it’s very boring for students to listen to somebody just lecture the whole class period.”
Senior Kathryn Hermans enjoyed seeing her teachers in a new way and environment.
Senior foods teacher Mrs. Hietpas is in between the two invited ‘Swedish Chefs.’ Willam and Kieckhafer plan on coming in again and doing a cooking video done like Lucille Ball.
“I really like the staff cooking,” she said. “I think it is interesting to see what each individual teacher likes to cook at home. It is also an opportunity to get to know the teachers more.”
Not only did students get to know more about their teachers, Kohl got to know Shayna Reynard and Aaron Herm better when they all cooked together. Since many people are not going out to restaurants to eat right now, the admin team decided to make an at-home date night meal.
“We cooked a cheap and easy Italian meal to impress your significant other,” Herm said. “We thought back to when we were 17 or 18 years old and wanted to impress our date, but we also didn't have a lot of money to spend! So we cooked up some spaghetti with homemade sauce, garlic bread, and a dessert. We even lit a candle and pulled up an “Italian Restaurant Background Music” video on YouTube for ambiance during the meal.”
Brandl’s entree was also prepared as an inexpensive meal for students thinking about living on a college campus.
“I did a dish that doesn’t even have a name,” he said. “It was something that I came up with in college that was quick and inexpensive. It involves a pound of ground beef, some pasta, tomato soup, some grated cheese, and whatever spices you want to add. It’s just a very simple, quick, and inexpensive meal, and for anyone that is in senior foods, they can take it with them to college.”
Along with these pasta meals, teachers have also made egg rolls, vegan pizzas, cinnamon rolls, breakfast foods, and much more. Among these videos, senior Abby Cheesebro’s favorite was Willman and Kieckhafer’s cinnamon roll video. What made this one so enjoyable was how they tried to imitate one of the Muppets.
“My favorite video so far was the one with the Swedish chef,” Cheesebro said. “It was very entertaining.”
Cheesebro appreciates teachers creating a silver lining in this current virtual learning situation.
“I like that the teachers find a way to make learning interesting, even though the students are not physically there,” she said. “I still wish that I could be physically there to participate in the cooking. However, I appreciate that the staff found a way to bring cooking to us at home during virtual learning.”
Hermans also has enjoyed watching these cooking videos as a part of her online learning experience.
“I think the staff did it as a way to connect with students during virtual learning,” she said. “It’s not just about watching the demos, but kids watching this may also get inspired by the recipe that they may want to recreate it at home!”
One thing Hietpas misses is being able to be with the students while they cook.
“It’s really fun for me when the kids can come in and try to cook something new,” she said. “They come in and cook and make mistakes, and then they learn something new.”
Teachers, however, also experienced some mistakes in the kitchen.
“There was one pretty funny thing that happened that didn't make it into the video because we had stopped recording,” Herm said. “We were so excited to sample our meal, I forgot that I had a second tray of garlic bread still in the oven. We smelled something burning, and that's when we pulled out the garlic bread, which was completely black.”
With mistakes being a part of learning, Kohl thought this experience was enlightening.
“Well, I'm not a very good cook,” she said. “I actually don't like to cook, and in my house, my amazing husband does most of the cooking. So, my favorite part of the experience was having a team to cook with. It actually made cooking seem fun!
In cooking up new recipes with his colleagues, Herm found the interaction to be deeper than the typical casserole dish.
While students cannot come into the kitchen to cook together, the meals the teachers have been preparing are being shared with the Oshkosh West staff.
“I had a lot of fun cooking with Mrs. Kohl, Mrs. Reynard, and Mrs. Hietpas,” he said. “It's always a good time to get to spend some time with your colleagues doing something enjoyable.”
Brandl hopes his time in the kitchen stirred up some positive reactions.
“I just hope that this was something different for them that they can engage in and just to be involved,” he said. “As we have seen, it has been kind of a trouble for some and a challenge, and it’s just not the same as being in school. So it might be tough to have a nine AM session to log in, and I just hope that maybe they looked at the lesson and said, ‘well wait a minute, what is this?’ and were able to click and watch it and enjoy it.”
Hieptas believes the videos were a success in making Senior Foods more enjoyable during virtual learning.
“Overall, when the kids wrote comments, most of my classes and probably 95% of the students had a positive reaction,” Hietpas said. “I think the biggest critic that students had was that it was hard to hear the teachers with the masks on. Other than that, they said it was entertaining, and a couple of the students want me to do another one.”
With the word spreading around about these videos, more teachers want to come in and join the cooking experience for the first time. While this has been a fantastic experience for teachers, and Hietpas has appreciated all of their interest and help, she hopes that she won’t have to do it for much longer.
“It was fun, I hope that kids enjoyed it and that we get a couple new videos from new people that are entertaining so that more people will watch them,” she said. “But hopefully, we can come back to school, and then students can do it. Let’s end it with hope.”
By Emma Olson
Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue III
December 11th, 2020