What If... Chef's Concept of Education - Part 1

What if…

What if education is the combined extension of our everyday life? What if it is the rope or the link that ties all of us together? What if education never stops? What if education is meant to be an experience rather than an assessment? What if education is something that we can mold and learn together or recursively or what if it is something that we can rewrite and reimagine? What if we can learn in a way no one has ever discovered? What if our children are full of lessons of life that we suppressed? What if we can dream? What if we can stop and listen to our children? What if education is meant to thrive on the will of every person to be whole and healthy? 

A Dining Experience…

These are only some of the what-ifs. Our American Education system is still and unequivocally built like the banking concept of education that Paulo Friere Has mentioned in his work. Our children are still that of a receptacle and we are simply dumping stuff in them to make them what we want them to be. But I would add the Chef’s Concept of education. I was visiting a school in St.Louis during the summer. I saw a man in a Full Executive Chef’s attire and next to him was what I assumed to be the Sous Chef and they were both moving almost like they were dancing or maybe simply moving synchronously with each other. They set up a beautiful buffet and servers came out and were set strategically around the room -- I began looking around because I assumed that there must be a wedding reception or some type of formal event happening so I tried to quickly move out of the dining area. In my haste to get out of the place multiple elementary students came running my way from the summer camp with their clothes worn and sweating, laughing, and playing and came running right into the dining experience that I just observed. So I go back into the room and I lift one of the tops on the food buffet and I see the best slice of strawberry preserves and almond butter sandwiches I have ever seen in my lifetime. As I walked away, I realized that the dining experience was for those kindergartners who were running around in the gym for the summer camp. I was in many ways confused, and distraugt. I will talk more about that experience in an upcoming blog. But for now -- see below.

The Chef’s Concept of Education… 

• Some Children have Executive Chefs with Gourmet Meals 

• Some Children have Cooks with Simple Recipe Meals 

• Some Children have a Warm Body to warm up Microwave Meals

• And on and on .. it goes… Until it gets to what we know --- that Some Children Have Nothing edible at all so their learning is malnourished. 

Stop the Malnutrition…

Well in the meantime -- Educators BYOF.