Core module career/Life skills started with a lot of expectations. Students from MYP 4-5 were expected to explore what their future might look like, in sometime from now.
Of course look at their future right now, it might seem challenging however we all happily discovered that some were certain about what they wanted to do, others were dreaming about what they could do, and some others were just wondering what they could do best.
In any of the cases, all of them started to explore their character traits, strengths/weakness and personality. They all realised that their character traits, strengths and weakness will make a difference. Some of them agreed with their unfolded dreams and others decided to work harder in what they would like to have.
In my opinion the highlight of this module was the plan, organisation and time invested in our cooking session. This cooking session was suggested last year in a survey towards the end of the school year and in preparation for the new year to come as one of the strengths in Core, last year PSHE, was to take students’ opinion and suggestions on board. Therefore, last year students were asked what they would like to see in the Core programme/curriculum and a cooking session, amongst many others, came up.
As you can see in some of the pictures shared, and in the student’s comments. They had a lot of fun. This activity was not just one of many others. Students were asked what they would like to cook, how much money they will need to spend, who would they be cooking with, how much time they will have to spend…etc, . The main scenario was to make sure that they experience a real situation that might happen to them in the future to come when they will be studying far or not far away from home.
They all agreed that this is a must skill to master since a good diet might affect them in their studies and future career.
Therefore I would like to take this opportunity in sharing some of students’ experience as well as Mr Joseph, who was our professional photographer. Thanks to him we managed to capture unforgettable moments.
From Joseph:
Our cooking as a class project had a few hidden experiences enjoyed by all. We first set out with clear intentions to prepare a dish from scratch by following a very detailed recipe. Quickly the fun began and all of MYP4A immediately started stirring, sprinkling, measuring, pouring and participating with all that is expected to reach success. As all groups interacted individually it became apparent that success had to be realized because it was obvious a little competition was in the air. As I looked around the room I think every teacher and student had a smile on their face and I could hear hands on evidence of chef’s in the making. The kitchen quickly filled with the aroma of yeast and fresh dough, with delicious salads and scrambled eggs cooking to perfection. A little cooking experiment not only prepares the MYP student for real life events but it also helps to build the comradery expected in the IB student. Measuring and stirring to follow directions wasn’t the only benefit of such an event equally important was the level of patience and respect for each individual in this somewhat tiny little kitchen. If you had peered through the window it might just have reminded you of a home cooked meal and too many cooks in the kitchen only no one took charge and all worked towards success.
Sneh, Kathryn, Ishaan and Soumil –
Although in the initial stages of comprehending life skills and our career paths seemed tedious to most, we believed that to fully appreciate the effort adults put into their daily lives, we had to conduct a challenge of our own. Through an almost unanimous suggestion, we decided that this challenge would be that of cooking. Cooking at its surface seems like it is a feasible task – one that can be explored by anyone wishing to do so. However, soon we realized that the organization, communication and research involved in the process that leads to cooking, is of utmost significance, if not even more than making the food itself. We attempted to collect the prices of the items that we would utilize during our cooking session, however we soon apprehended the fact that to adhere to our strict budget of 1000 rupees, compromises had to be made. Instead of using premium olive oil, we decided to use normal oil which is cheaper that the former. Communicating throughout this process portrayed an immense challenge considering the fact that everybody was proposing their own ideas, and processing these ideas was a strenuous task with people attempting to push for the success of their ideas. Hence, we had to efficiently discuss our ideas as a team and allocate the advantages and drawbacks to implementing our ideas methodically, if we were to succeed. We learnt that when working in a group, with an intriguing task such as cooking, one had to make compromises and think ahead in the future. Some of the questions were perused as our discussion continued where; Do we really need to cook this meal? How will we find … ingredients? Who will be incharge of what when cooking? How will we communicate during the session itself? Consequently, once all the details were finalized we commenced cooking our dishes. A difficulty that we faced as a group was the fact that our hot plate would not function in the presence of a non-stick pan, hence we were coerced into using the metal pans that were present. These pans heated rather fast, thus cooking the bacon in such pans allowed oil to bounce out. Since both Kathryn and Ishaan were afraid of getting burns from this oil, we had to collaborate as a group to allocate jobs. Ishaan was incharge of removing the bacon from the packet and placing it on the pan, as well as removing it from the pan after it cooked, Kathryn made the sandwiches, while I cooked the bacon. To effectively collaborate in a constricted environment such as the student kitchen was demanding, however we fought through the troubles and came out on top. This life skills module has allowed us, as 4 students of the MYP program, to fully apprehend the difficulties in organizing, communicating and implementing plans in our daily lives as adults. The task reinforced responsibility and collaboration within our group.
Shreya, Nidhi, Mahika:
Cooking, in the most theoretical way, seems like the easiest task one could do. Buy the ingredients, cook and clean up. Right? Most definitely not. From almost burning the kitchen down to ‘trying’ to clean up, everything was way more difficult than anticipated. One thing is for sure, cooking is not as easy as it seems! As if budgeting, as well as dividing the work amongst ourselves wasn’t tedious enough, the actual day set for cooking proved to be a nightmare. All of us, oblivious to proper kitchen ‘hacks’, almost unintentionally completely destroyed our side of the kitchen, and had fun while doing it! How are we supposed to know that wet utensils are bad for cooking chicken? As many a wise ones said, you learn from your experiences. What we learnt from this mock real life example of cooking was that, adulting is hard, and all of us definitely underestimate the challenges us soon to be adults will face, and how easily the adults around us seem to deal with it {truly inspirational}. Also never put many pieces of chicken in hot, oil.Yikes.
Mason, Niccolo, and Rishabh:
The dish we decided to cook didn’t take more than 20 minutes to finish cooking and finish cleaning up. The dish we made was very affordable, fulfilling, easy to make, and was easy to modify to feed more than one person. We made scrambled eggs. From doing this cooking session we learned that the most complicated food to make is not always the best because many things can go wrong.
