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.