Last weekend my eight-year-old son wanted to do some cooking with me. I’m pleased to say that he likes my food and he understands that his dad loves to cook.
In terms of ingredients, I already had to hand some chicken breast, potatoes, broccoli and carrots. I also know that many children will eat more vegetables when they are smothered in Sauce Hollandaise, which my youngest son likes to call “Holiday Sauce”.
So, as a die-hard teacher, I decided first to show him what to do, then to let him do it while watching, and then to let him carry on without me watching.
From this experience I learnt at least three fascinating things.
First of all, how little many young people today understand about where our food comes from. For example, my son had no idea that chips (fries) come from potatoes! He had no idea that potatoes and carrots are roots. He had no idea that a chicken had to die to provide him with his meat intake or that the part of the chicken the likes the most comes from its breast. (As an aside, one day I will give him the book “Eating Animals” to read, which my oldest son has read and who is now a vegan).
Secondly, I learned that often the smartest creative ideas come from just doing things together. I suddenly realised that we could cut the potatoes into the shape of his name, which he did and then fried them, as in the photo above.
The final, for me more interesting, issue happened during the third of the three above-mentioned teaching processes. While I was deliberately busy doing something else, my son, while he was frying the home-made schnitzel, suddenly noticed that I wasn’t at all watching or paying attention to what he was doing. He suddenly commented, “Dad, why aren’t you watching me?” I replied, “Because I trust you and have every confidence in you at this point that you can do this on your own.”
He seemed really surprised and added, “But at school the teachers are always watching you and criticising you for getting things wrong. It’s as if they don’t trust you.”
I know as a teacher of course that school is different from home. Yet I suspect my son made an important pedagogical point.
He also ate more than I have ever seen him eat before during one meal, including his vegetables and holiday sauce. That was probably in order to impress. Be that as it may, I am unlikely to forget this culinary experience with an eight-year-old. And I guess too that we all learn better when we have the impression that our mentors trust in our success?
