Healthy Schools Network Story Template
Date:
School Name: Langley Education Center
School District: SD35
Contact Name: Cynthia Brodowski or Nicky Harder
Contact Information (optional): 604 534-7155 ex 230
Story Title: Cooking Together Creates Connection and Builds Self-Efficacy
Did you receive an:
__ Activity Grant
_X_ Inquiry Grant
1.
Tell us about your focus. Due to our students unique and
various attendance schedules (some enrolled in distributive
learning, some taking Adult Ed courses) It can be more
challenging hard to make connections between staff and
students. We wanted to take a look at meal times and
cooking habits of students; cooking with student participants
and sharing a meal with them, we incorporated staff as well.
Students learned simple dishes that we hoped they would feel
confident making at home. By sharing what the prepared we
were able to connect with students and staff that we might not
normally meet. The great cooking smells brought people out to
see what we were making. We portioned everything out into
individual servings and shared our food with 25-40 students and
staff every Wednesday. Food brings people together. All of the
foods we cooked were cost efficient, easy to make, vegetarian
and recipes. A big part of staying in school and being
successful is linked to school engagement and connection. We
very simply used food to connect.
2.
Tell us about the context of your school, and why this topic was
chosen (e.g. what was the need and how did you know this
needed to be addressed?). Food is a basic need, students
need sustenance to learn and develop. By providing a small
meal we are building relationships, creating trust and providing
a basic need. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs; Food is at the
most basic level. We made budget minded recipes keeping in
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mind those going off to College or University or perhaps with
Lower incomes.
3.
If you received an Inquiry Grant, what was your inquiry
question? Do you enjoy cooking and how often do you cook
and what do you like to cook? How often do you sit down and
share a meal with anyone?
4.
What did you do? What activities did you do? What key areas
of health and learning did you focus on? What tools and
resources did you use? How were students involved? Who else
was involved? We focused on making easy and health
conscious recipes that most students could easily make at
home and enjoy. By reducing meat and adding vegetarian
protein we learnt how to make affordable and healthy meals.
Each student was given a print off or recipes; extra copies
shared with staff and other interested persons. We wanted to
encourage young people to cook, to get a sense of selfefficacy and to know how it feels to share something you’ve
made with others.
5.
What were the outcomes?
-Share evidence you gathered in evaluation/assessment. What
change was evident? Students and staff starting looking
forward to cooking day, they began to seek me/us out on
these days. This offered many opportunities to get to know and
connect with individual students.
- How did you know? They sought the cooking group out, asked
what we were cooking, would drop by to chat and check in. I
frequently asked what we were making next time.
- What new learning occurred? Learning about each other as
well as learning easy and affordable and sometimes multicultural recipes. Sharing a, meal can create opportunities for
Learning and build connection and community
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- How did this influence the learning environment and students’
learning? We got to know each other; connected over food,
made plant based foods for vegetarians, made dishes without
red pepper because of an allergy/sensitivity, made low or no
sugar recipes because persons were diabetic. We also made
gluten free recipes because we had people with gluten
intolerance. Teaching students healthy meals can be made
omitting certain items; that we care and we want to try to
accommodate their food allergies or sensitivities.
- What new areas of professional learning did you explore?
- It was very difficult to get students to commit before hand due
to the design of our school and programming; most students
dropped in so we reworked it to being a drop in course. We
reduced barriers that kept kids from dropping by. Learning by
doing is the best so we prepared cooked and served together.
We learned a lot about each other and shared stories over the
small meals. Once we took pressure of commitment or
needing to preregister off more students started showing up.
The study area outside of cooking class developed some
regulars because they knew we would be coming out to share.
6.
School Connectedness. The heart of School Connectedness is
the presence of caring relationships (e.g. students can identify
two adults in the school who care about them). Did this
activity/inquiry contribute to school connectedness, and if so,
how and in what ways?
Feeding people shows you care; there is no better way to show
I care than “breaking bread” with a student. Food and meals
bring people together. I have a much better connection with a
many students and staff as a result of running this food program;
it also helped students connect better with each. In Maslow’s
Hierarchy of needs, food is at the base along with air and
water! Meeting basic needs is stepping stone to building
relationships.
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7.
What are your reflections and how can you build on your
efforts? Share any reflections you have (e.g. what worked well,
what you would do differently next time).
-What did you learn? I learnt you don’t have to make grand
gestures or grand to show caring, build relationships and trust.
- How did this transform your teaching practice? I don’t need to
be an expert to share a passion, I share cooking because I love
to cook and know its value in building connection.
-What advice do you have for others? Try new things in order to
get to know your students, be creative and work to reduce
barriers for students to participate. Allow for some fluidity o
program so as to make time for connection.
- What’s next for you, your students and the school? I don’t
know what is next but I think it would be great to have a
daily/weekly food or snack program, youth learn better when
they are fed nutritious foods and it’s a way to connect daily to
our students
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