Our school, alongside physical activities and education, emphasizes on artistic development and growth as well. This is why they offer various disciplines in arts, such as drama, dances, instruments and music etc. For several years, I was at first a student of Visual Arts and then a student of Drama. In G11, however, I wanted to branch out and try something totally new. At that time, culinary arts or ‘cooking’ was a new Arts option and I wanted to try my hand at something radically new for me.
LO1-Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
Cooking and the domain of culinary arts has never been an interest or talent of mine per se. That is primarily why I decided to venture out into something new and try my luck in cooking. Initially, the discipline and nature of the art was beyond my scope and I found it tough to keep up with people who have been working in this before me. This was primarily reflected in the fact that basic skills, such as chopping vegetables, was difficult for me. Yet, I never succumbed to this and kept moving on and on. I feel that my skills certainly improved throughout.
LO2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
As mentioned before, the primary challenge was inculcating a totally foreign skill. Cooking is a difficult skill for novices to learn and my process of learning was no different. I accidentally cut my fingers many a time and the various different types of heating the food, using instruments such as a microwave and cooking up various types of food such as desserts was a challenging but exciting endeavor for me. Not to mention the fact that after cooking up all sorts of goodies, we were the ones who devoured them!
LO5- Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
Our class consisted of around 20 students and 1 teacher. All of us worked on one singular dish or type of dish and several of us worked on preparing the ingredients or equipment necessary for cooking. Collaboration was essential here as one overly eager chef may cause the downfall of the entire group. Therefore, it was compulsory to work on different items and slowly build our meal by making the necessary components of the dish first. Communication between chefs was also very important for preparing the proper dish in a proper quantity. I often took part in chopping and cutting the vegetables or other food items. All of this proved to be fruitful in the end, when we went out to bring plates and enjoy our food which we worked meticulously upon.
To conclude, my AS was very fun. Unfortunately, we have no cooking this year or I am sure that I would have taken it this time as well. The learner profiles ‘Communicators’, ‘Risk-Takers’ and ‘Balanced’ were included in my learning. Overall, the entire year of cooking was both delicious and very good for developing new skills in me.