Chapter 1 reflection
Reading the first chapter has really encouraged me to think about teaching and the home economics classroom. I agree with Zwiers (2008) that when teaching it is important to take into consideration the diverse backgrounds that students come from. Recipes used in the home-ec classroom will often contain cooking terms that students may not be familiar with and that many cookbooks today have replaced with directions instead. Cooking terms used often describe an important technique that is necessary to know if someone were to be successful in making the product. It is then very important that the term is clearly demonstrated and defined for the students before expecting them to use the terms and to know what to do during a lab when they see it on their recipe. The cooking term ‘fold’ for example may be a confusing one as it has a meaning outside of cooking (for example, folding a piece of paper). However, in cooking it means to use a rubber spatula to combine ingredients by gently lifting from bottom to top so that air bubbles are preserved. If a student making a foam cake such as an angel food cake did not use the technique, their angel food cake will likely not have the texture or the appearance of one where the technique of folding was used. I know for myself, I was not familiar with most of the cooking terms before I started taking foods classes in high school. Even though I cooked a lot at home, most of the cooking terms that I knew were all in Chinese and the foods that I made at home with my family were different too. This chapter has definitely given me a lot to consider when teaching. It has really got me thinking about language used in recipes, how recipes can be written (eg. in paragraphs, in sentences etc. ) and which form may be more accessible to students, and to be more aware of what I may be omitting and what needs to be included when providing instructions and when communicating with students.