Sweet Home Alabama Biscuits

Week three of working in the schools and this week has been quite the adventure. Starting on Monday I was in control of the class pretty much the whole day. I followed Mrs. Rihari's example but a lot of the planning was up to me as well as the organization of the day. I took control of management both in small group and whole class situations. Mrs. Rihari has opened the door for me to experience teaching as a New Zealand primary school teacher and although I realize that I have a long way to go I am absolutely loving it!

This week has reminded me that teaching is much more than just standing in front of a class and spouting information. A true teacher knows that she is the facilitator of learning not the fountain of knowledge. It's also been a good reminder that there is never a dull moment when it comes to teaching and classroom management. There have been good moments and bad but all for my benefit. Teaching involves reflective practice and I've had a chance to reflect every single day. My teacher is an awesome mentor! She provides helpful feedback and suggestions while allowing me to take the reigns and experience those ups and downs myself.

Fridays are cooking days in room 8 and today I got to add my own cultural bit into our usual activities. I've been trying as much as possible to include cultural parts of myself in our lessons just to give the kids a taste of my experiences versus theres. It's been SO awesome. The other day I talked to them about some new foods I've tried since being here and then shared some foods from my culture that they've probably never heard of like biscuits and gravy (when I say that they picture cookies with gravy poured over them). So today Mrs. Rihari let me make Sweet Home Alabama Biscuits with the kids.

For starters we told the kids it was a surprise until right before we were going to make them. Then I had a chance to talk more about my culture and actually bring out a real live banjo! Mrs. Rihari just happened to have one at her house that her dad picked up a long time ago and gave to her! Although I don't play myself I told the kids a little bit about blue grass music and where the banjo originated (Africa). Then we had the students close their eyes and imagine they were walking through an Alabama county fair (I was acting as narrator) and Mrs. Rihari brought out the banjo and with the help of a youtube video actually played the banjo! Ok well, maybe it wasn't really her playing but her air banjo skills rock. The students were so surprised to hear that kind of music that their eyes popped right open to see where it was coming from. The principal even stopped by the class to see what we were up to. It was SO much fun! Next came the actual baking part.

We divided the kids up into 4 small groups and there was a teacher/teacher aid working with each group. While they were baking I had a countryfied playlist going on in the background with some banjo jams and of course the classic Sweet Home Alabama song. The kids absolutely LOVED the experience! The cooking was all done by them. I specifically had written up the recipe and adapted it to the NZ method of cooking while making it easy for the year 6s to follow the directions. They had a chance to mix together all of the ingredients, roll out the dough, and then cut out the biscuits (we actually used cookie cutters so most of the biscuits turned out looking like gingerbread men and stars and hearts but that made the experience that much cooler.) They were surprised to see the biscuits raise up when they were baking in the oven.

After all of the groups had finished and the tables were clean (the flour was a bit tricky to clean up since the students had gotten it everywhere!) we had our taste test where the students went outside and were able to eat the biscuits with their choice of jam with butter. I showed them how we cut and eat the biscuits at home. Some of the students ate as many as four (and kept asking for more!). They said that they were so delicious and I even heard one girl tell her friends that she was going to go home and make them for her mum.

I loved this experience for so many reasons but mostly because we were able to share in a culture experience together. After the baking the students had to write about the experience in their master chiefs book. This book includes a copy of the recipe of what they made and their reflection of how it turned out. Cooking is definitely a tradition that I'm going to continue doing in my own classroom. True, we do have a full kitchen in our classroom (only because we've been relocated to the staffroom until our rooms has been renovated) but there are still so many possibilites for cooking that don't involve an oven or a stove. Plus the kids get SO excited about the chance to make something themselves. It was such a great experience!