Lesson Learned

So one of my students asked if he can bring pina coladas for his Latin American food project...

I said sure...
I should have said no...

For years at CAA the Global Studies teacher has been doing food projects with her class.  Its naturally very popular with the kids because it involves eating and little to no school work...

I, wanting to be liked and considered a cool teacher, did not want to end this tradition.  Besides I like to eat and it sounded easier than teaching...

It also seemed like perfect timing.  This week is crazy, insanely, ridiculously busy.  Anticipating this I planned for Latin America food day to fall on Thursday of this week.

The guidelines were; (colon, semi-colon, I have NO CLUE!)

1. Choose a recipe from a Latin American country
2. Make the dish yourself
3. Bring a recipe card with the recipes written on it
4. Bring the food and eat it!

Simple, simple, simple.

Unless your class is 20, 15-16 year old boys.  Because if its 20, 15-16 year old boys then its,

chaos, chaos, chaos

And if you are already tired and stressed out and your head is going a million other directions, even what should be simple, it can suddenly feel like your climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen!

So, Mr. Pina Colada brought the fixins, in a large green storage bin...
He included a whole, unchopped, pineapple.  Various cans of juice, measuring cups a blender a pitcher, bags of ice...he was prepared.  Except he had no clue what to do with it all.  He was really overwhelmed even with the first step of making juice in the pitcher.  He asked me to chop the pineapple, which I declined....

I did encourage him, tried to give him direction. But then, thinking my advice had been wise and carefully listened to, headed off to monitor the other boys as they were placing their food items on the table....

I had managed to walk about 10 feet away from Mr. Pina Colada when another student approached me saying "uh Mrs. Fry, we have a problem..."

Yes, indeed we had a BIG problem.  I wish I had the present of mind to say, "hold that pose, while I grab my camera"  but I didn't, so no disaster pic. 

It would seem that Mr. Pina Colada had poured an entire pitcher of his juice mix into his blender without first checking to make sure the bottom of the blender container was fastened.  So it was a nice funnel for an entire pitcher of sticky juice (minus Pineapple because I wouldn't cut it up) all over the counter and the brand new carpet in our brand new Ad building....

Mr. Pina Colada was rattled.  He was frozen, not moving, not sure what to do... I, trying to be encouraging and motivating, stayed calm and tried to clean things up with 2 paper towels and a recylcling container...

While I was cleaning the sticky mess up, I turned just as another student, we will call him Mr. Salsa, dumped his salsa all over the carpet...

As I headed to the door, I'm not sure if I was gonna run or look for back up...Mrs Bowes showed up and calmly offered assistance.  She is AMAZING! Love her! Hope to grow up to be like her!  She stopped whatever she was doing and rounded up cleaning supplies and helped me mop things up!

Thankfully, I had the good sense to have them eat outside...

Next time we will do the entire meal outside!



It's a good thing I love them...

Next post I'll tell you about how you make a covered wagon out of plywood, butcher paper and pipe and how to turn a entry way into a mine shaft with butcher paper, dollar store table cloths, black cloths and Christmas lights...


Frychik