“You need to reach down and touch the thing that’s boiling inside of you and make it somehow useful.”
-–Audre Lorde
Equals My Teaching Philosophy
The kitchen has room for everyone. In the kitchen, students often first learn they are good with their hands, or that they can think quickly on their feet, or that they have a natural talent for leadership. The sassy or sullen “desk” student may also be a class leader in the kitchen, using his or her natural charisma to push the class to finish their food on time, or to problem solve using street smarts. My teaching philosophy is to help students dig for that thing they excel in, and then help them harness it and take off!
Every student brings a unique talent to the kitchen. On the first day of first-year classes, when we do introductions, students often mention they “don’t want to be a chef” or are only taking the class “because they have to.” I ask them to not feel that their disinterest is a get-out-of-jail-free card. I try to get students to see the value in a job well done, no matter the job. Cut the onion. Empty the trash. Do any task to the best of their ability, because that kitchen is where they are in space right now, and they will never have that moment back. Life is not a dress rehearsal and there is value in doing something to the best of their ability, no matter the task.
Many City Tech students have challenges at home. They are struggling financially, and they often are the first they know of in their community or family to attend college. I like to help them focus on the future and all the success that is waiting for them. To normalize college and help them discover they indeed are “college material,” and more importantly, people with unlimited and wonderful possibilities.
I like to share with them one of my favorite quotes:
But in the meantime, I remind students, they need to be able to identify forces in their lives that can keep them from success. All this can come to pass in the kitchen, and it is rewarding to see students making wise choices in the classroom, despite the circus that may be trying to consume them at home.
Through time and reflection, I have found that my teaching philosophy seems to come from identifying as an outsider. I am defined by my many years as a female chef, in an industry that was at its worst in the 1980s and 90s (when I was coming up). I worked in places where the game was to see who would cry first that day, men included. I had to fight and cajole and make nice and outfox and outwork every single day for over 20 years. It left a mark, and now that I work in a civilized environment, the scars are there but they also give me inspiration. I know how it feels to not matter, to every day come to work knowing I am the “other” and just being present made people uncomfortable. I think hard as to whether first generation students feel that way, and what internal dialogs are they having that maybe makes them feel they do not belong in college? I work hard to hold on to memories of what helped me back then; what made me keep going?
And then I did it all over again when I started teaching at City Tech. I was not an academic: I was a worker bee who just happened to love books and history and who had a gold star resume that enabled me to get hired; I was again an outsider. City Tech gave me a chance to recreate myself. So, I guess my philosophy is to always give a chance, and then a second chance. Many students are working to recreate themselves and need to be given avenues to do so.
In fall 2021 I had a student in my Internship class who simply was not passing; she did not do her weekly posts and I was forever chasing her for assignments while she dodged my e-mails and was a no-show for schedule meetings, I kept trying. Finally we had a heart to heart, and out spewed the fact that she had serious health issues and was in and out of the hospital. The fact that she was alive and going to college was remarkable. She came to trust me, and together we created a plan for her to pass the course. As part of her makeup work, I asked her to write about her experiences. She did, and I submitted it to City Tech Writer. Her joy over the honor of being selected was just so great! She kept in touch after graduating and I was thrilled to get a “big thank you for believing in me” note along with a picture of her with her freshly-earned master’s degree. And now she is a reservations manager at a the Gansevoort. And happy.
Here is a magazine article I wrote about my experience as a chef. I had titled it originally “Bitchin’ Confidential” but the editors balked… p 20-23 OH Spring Summer 2023 FOOD
