SOL3: Turning a Cook into a Baker
I started the Keto diet on January 7 of this year. It was not a New Year's resolution, because that's just a recipe for failure. It was, instead, a realization that I couldn't afford to buy all new clothes, and if I continued in the direction I was going, that was going to have to happen. I hadn't worn anything but leggings for the Christmas holidays, and I realized that in spite of my leggings saying, "Relax, girl. Have some more cake. We gotchu," my jeans were screaming, "You must stop!" I decided it was time to listen to my jeans.
After 2 months and twenty pounds down, I am glad that I did. I really like keto, and it hasn't been that hard to maintain. The worst times are when we go somewhere to eat when they bring the carbs out for free and put them on the table. Like the chips and salsa at Chili's tonight. Or the basket of bread at my favorite Italian restaurant. Or, God forbid, the cheddar garlic biscuits at Red Lobster. But I'm here in my skinny jeans, and the fact that they aren't painful to wear (and the number inside the waistband) gives me the willpower to stare down the basket of chips and just say no.
I have also discovered that keto baking is awesome. It's so much more forgiving than regular baking! I tend to just eye-ball ingredients, and therefore I am a terrible baker. I love to cook, but not so much with the measuring and the science of baking. Give me a soup or a casserole where I can just throw things together and I'm a chef. Keto baking is the same way. As long as you get the measurements roughly correct, everything turns out fine!
As I tend to do, I filter everything in my life through the lens of teaching. This year, we have been going through a training about lesson planning (it's basically Understanding by Design by a different name). It is a lengthy, tedious process, leading to a carefully crafted, lengthy and tedious lesson plan. Well. I am the same kind of lesson planner as I am a baker. I eyeball it. Let me just throw some stuff together and see how it turns out!
I should definitely add that when I got married seventeen years ago, I knew nothing about cooking. I was clueless. I followed every recipe verbatim. I didn't vary the steps or the measurements at all, much less try to eyeball anything. But I discovered that I really liked cooking. It came naturally to me. I started to learn about how much seasoning went into a set amount of liquid, what spices complimented each other, what ingredients frequently intermingled in the same dishes. As I started to understand the concepts behind the cooking I was doing, I needed recipes less and less. I started to trust my instincts.
Same with teaching. Seventeen years ago when I started teaching (1st year of marriage and teaching at the same time was rough, let me tell you!), I was clueless. I knew nothing about teaching. I didn't even major in education; I was lateral entry. I wrote lesson plans that were pages long. I scoured books and the Internet for ideas and help. I followed the plan exactly. But I discovered I really liked teaching, and I'm really good at it. It came naturally to me. I started to learn how lessons made sense over the progression of a year. I learned to read the room, to see if the plan I started with was best or if I needed to improvise. As I started to understand the concepts behind what I was doing, I needed detailed plans less and less. I started to trust my instincts.
The burnout I'm feeling is caused at least in part by this training. The message being communicated to me through this process is that I am not allowed to trust my instincts. I am a cook, and they want to make me a baker. I can bake. I can do it, but I will never enjoy it like I enjoy cooking. I need freedom and creativity in concocting recipes and interesting flavor combinations, without the necessity for precision and paperwork. I need to be trusted in the classroom like my family trusts me in the kitchen.
After 2 months and twenty pounds down, I am glad that I did. I really like keto, and it hasn't been that hard to maintain. The worst times are when we go somewhere to eat when they bring the carbs out for free and put them on the table. Like the chips and salsa at Chili's tonight. Or the basket of bread at my favorite Italian restaurant. Or, God forbid, the cheddar garlic biscuits at Red Lobster. But I'm here in my skinny jeans, and the fact that they aren't painful to wear (and the number inside the waistband) gives me the willpower to stare down the basket of chips and just say no.
I have also discovered that keto baking is awesome. It's so much more forgiving than regular baking! I tend to just eye-ball ingredients, and therefore I am a terrible baker. I love to cook, but not so much with the measuring and the science of baking. Give me a soup or a casserole where I can just throw things together and I'm a chef. Keto baking is the same way. As long as you get the measurements roughly correct, everything turns out fine!
As I tend to do, I filter everything in my life through the lens of teaching. This year, we have been going through a training about lesson planning (it's basically Understanding by Design by a different name). It is a lengthy, tedious process, leading to a carefully crafted, lengthy and tedious lesson plan. Well. I am the same kind of lesson planner as I am a baker. I eyeball it. Let me just throw some stuff together and see how it turns out!
I should definitely add that when I got married seventeen years ago, I knew nothing about cooking. I was clueless. I followed every recipe verbatim. I didn't vary the steps or the measurements at all, much less try to eyeball anything. But I discovered that I really liked cooking. It came naturally to me. I started to learn about how much seasoning went into a set amount of liquid, what spices complimented each other, what ingredients frequently intermingled in the same dishes. As I started to understand the concepts behind the cooking I was doing, I needed recipes less and less. I started to trust my instincts.
Same with teaching. Seventeen years ago when I started teaching (1st year of marriage and teaching at the same time was rough, let me tell you!), I was clueless. I knew nothing about teaching. I didn't even major in education; I was lateral entry. I wrote lesson plans that were pages long. I scoured books and the Internet for ideas and help. I followed the plan exactly. But I discovered I really liked teaching, and I'm really good at it. It came naturally to me. I started to learn how lessons made sense over the progression of a year. I learned to read the room, to see if the plan I started with was best or if I needed to improvise. As I started to understand the concepts behind what I was doing, I needed detailed plans less and less. I started to trust my instincts.
The burnout I'm feeling is caused at least in part by this training. The message being communicated to me through this process is that I am not allowed to trust my instincts. I am a cook, and they want to make me a baker. I can bake. I can do it, but I will never enjoy it like I enjoy cooking. I need freedom and creativity in concocting recipes and interesting flavor combinations, without the necessity for precision and paperwork. I need to be trusted in the classroom like my family trusts me in the kitchen.
I hope that whoever is doing the training is making space for the art of teaching. This training is like drilling grammar without a story to put it in, doing dance steps without music. It is hard to hold on to your instincts without some balance and perspective in PD -- glad to read your extended metaphor here, but I am sure your students trust you!
ReplyDeleteYes, great simile. It is exactly like drill and kill exercises. It's a schoolwide mandated PD, if that helps to see the balance (or lack thereof). Differentiation and personalized learning all day long in the classroom, but PD never seems to get the message!
DeleteLoved this slice! (And my leggings have been saying the same thing to me for quite awhile, so keto may be in my future too!). I am a baker in the kitchen but absolutely a cook in the classroom, and it's the only way I can teach. I can imagine the frustration and pain of being ask to bake in the classroom when you're an amazing cook. Super powerful metaphor for this experience--and a really insightful way to think about teaching. (I've been having some miscommunications lately with one of my preservice teachers who is doing her student teaching right now, and I think it's because she's a baker and I'm giving her suggestions to be a cook! So I'm going to figure out how to communicate in a way she can hear and offer advice that will be more helpful!)
ReplyDeleteI was baking keto blueberry bars as I wrote this, trying to figure out some idea for slicing because I had terrible writer's block. Glad the metaphor came across; I was worried it might be too labored. I do believe there is a great divide between the cooks and the bakers in the classroom! (Not that either is the wrong way, just that we all have a preference. Wonder how much that accounts for the success of sites like TpT, where everything is spelled out exactly and you just follow the recipe.) Definitely something to think about.
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