Culinary During COVID

As it stands, everybody knows that this year has been a difficult one for teachers in the school system. They have had to adjust their regular ways of teaching and exclude certain criteria that would typically be explained in their classrooms. This transition has been especially difficult for the hands-on classes, such as wood shop, art, gardening, music, and, finally, culinary arts.

The FCHS Culinary Arts classes have been forced to make some major adjustments to their usual regime. If you have ever wondered how these hands on classes are dealing with the ramifications of covid, you came to the right place.

“I’m very used to teaching hands on. So this year, having all of my assignments being online, it’s been totally different because you can’t learn how to use a knife over a computer screen.” Says Jonnay Grooms, a Culinary Arts Teacher at Fluvanna County High School. Performing cooking labs has been quite an obstacle for Grooms this year, especially since her class is centered around these cooking lessons. But in spite of everything, Grooms has stayed strong, and developed new methods of teaching that both her, and the students can enjoy. “I have been doing a lot of projects that will engage the students. I’m not a “read the book, do the worksheet” type of person. So with the online learning, I have been giving them assignments that will be of interest to them.” Grooms went on to explain what kind of projects her class has been conducting, and this is what she said, “One of the assignments was a Tik Tok project where they had to make a meal for their family, but they needed to record themselves doing some sort of Tik Tok trend in the making. Another one was an Instagram Photography project, where they had to photograph a glass of water, or meal that they ate, and capture why that meal was appealing. At the end we compared how many Instagram likes their posts received.” Said Grooms.
Recently, FCHS has sent it’s students back to in person school four days a week. This has allowed both teachers and students to experience a somewhat normalcy in their school lives again. As for culinary, this means the opportunity to complete hands on labs, and instructions in the kitchen. “I am looking forward to having all of my kids back in person next year, and hopefully by that time everyone will be fully vaccinated.” Grooms added. Next year will definitely be a year to look forward to for the hands-on classes here at FCHS.