Made it over to the Home Ec side finally, got a chance to see the cafeteria program in action.

Chef A’s entire class was on a field trip so myself, the other TC I am at the school with, and a student from Mr. C’s wood shop filled in to get the lunch program ready.

I was on the ginger sauce for the pork (turned out pretty fine if I do say so myself) and “general” duties (read dishwashing, serving, and pushing the fried rice and pork to the elementary kids who love pizza pretzels/pops). We sold out, so I guess the day was a success.

After assisting the repairman with the ZEP dishwasher repair I caught the second half of the elementary wood skills exploration class and we continued on with our cool custom cut mini boat paddles. Another good day at SESS, very laid back and relaxed atmosphere both in the school and the town.

Working with some of the higher behavioural risk kids in the woodshop has been a real eye opener. 1 in particular reminds me of myself a lot at that age – impatient, needing assistance but refusing it when the time comes, taking shortcuts etc. I am approaching him from a more collaborative standpoint, asking questions, mulling over possible solutions, and offering positive feedback when good ideas are presented. Seems to be working so far, and the project is quite fun and challenging. I have to be careful with what the students confide when working one on one however, as they express their frustrations with the teachers who are trying to install some self discipline in a very negative fashion, and the inherent good cop/bad cop dynamic can develop if you do not address those negative statements immediately and accurately. I try to frame it in the sense of safety and experience, for example: “The reason we take these steps when working on the table saw is that Mr. C has more experience than both of us, and he knows that not taking these longer steps can result in unpredictable and dangerous behaviour of the saw – just because it didn’t kick back this time, doesn’t mean it won’t the next”.

I’m pretty happy to be working with this new crew and seeing different ideas and perspectives. It is rare that a day goes by without at least one valuable lesson learned.

Just getting midway through the first week of community field experience out here in scenic, beautiful Keremeos BC.

The family that is hosting me is very nice indeed! Cute kids that ask me all sorts of questions I can’t answer! Walking outside of the school I am greeted with an amazing view of what they call the “K” mountain (because it has a K shape on the face), and yes, I could get used to this very quickly.

The hardest part of the first few days for me is always the names – introducing and re-introducing myself to staff and students as I try to remember some discerning features and/or associations; everyone is so patient here.

So far, I have spent most of my time between the wood shop, metal shop, and auto shop, as well as the CAD class and Vex robotics, and as always found myself impressed with the breadth of knowledge the students posses. As it is late in the year, I am not trying to wedge myself in here to teach some lessons, but rather provide my services as a second resource floating through the class to collaborate and hopefully assist the students through some sticking points. But as we all know, things just generally follow their own path, and my role will likely change over the coming weeks.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend something I have wanted to sit it on for quite a while, a First Nations workshop. The speaker was excellent, and led through many self reflective exercises to get us to peer at the base of the iceberg underneath the water level. In addition, I learned a little bit about the creator’s story, and how the plants and animals play a role in the collective DNA of nature. It was a great 2 hours, with some awkward moments, emotional sharing, and even some rhythmic interplay – definitely what a workshop should be!

Looking forward to the rest of the week, and working a bit in the Home Ec/cafeteria program portion with the school chef.