GOLDEN GATE —
Becky Iannone likes to refer to her classroom as “organized chaos.”
Students come into her classroom and put on T-shirts in bright greens and orange. They pull hair nets out of small, plastic bags and place them on their head.
And then they grab the knives.
But in Iannone’s class, it is OK to have knives. Iannone runs Golden Gate Middle School’s culinary arts class. The school developed a specialized culinary program as a way to offer high school credit to eighth-grade students who didn’t take algebra or Spanish, the two other high school courses offered at the school.
The program also boosts interest for Golden Gate High School’s culinary academy.
“It is the only place where a student can earn a high school credit that will be attached to a high school academy while attending a middle school,” wrote Dale Johnson, the district’s supervisor of Career and Technical Education, in an e-mail. “Specifically, it is hoped that middle school students will be more likely to complete high school academy requirements if the program begins in eighth grade.”
Iannone, who taught culinary arts for years up North before coming to Collier County 10 years ago, said she approached Golden Gate Middle School Principal Leslie Morris and asked if she could look for a culinary curriculum that was being stored in the kitchen on the second floor of the school.
“It is the only place where a student can earn a high school credit that will be attached to a high school academy while attending a middle school,” wrote Dale Johnson, the district’s supervisor of Career and Technical Education, in an e-mail. “Specifically, it is hoped that middle school students will be more likely to complete high school academy requirements if the program begins in eighth grade.”
“She said, ‘You taught culinary. Why aren’t you teaching it now?’” said Iannone, who also teaches technology at the school. “It’s my passion.”
Iannone and Morris agreed to pilot the program last year with her technology students. Iannone taught technology to the students for nine weeks and culinary arts for nine weeks.
Although the program isn’t officially part of the Golden Gate High School Culinary Academy due to requirements placed on the academy by the National Restaurant Association, students do earn the high school credit for Culinary 1.
Still, other middle schools in the county have programs designed to encourage students to enter the academy programs at the high schools they eventually might attend.
The Gateway to Technology program at East Naples Middle School is designed to create student interest into the Pathways to Engineering and Architecture Academy at Naples High School. The students don’t earn high school credit, but they are introduced to the basic components of engineering and technology.
Students at Cypress Palm Middle School in Golden Gate Estates are given the opportunity to participate in a special technology course called Exploration of Production Technology that introduces students to the various components of construction, with the hope that it will spark interest in the construction academy at Palmetto Ridge High School.
This year, Iannone started with two classes of eighth-graders, with about 40 students in each class.
“The joys of the class-size amendment,” Iannone jokes, referring to the state Constitutional Amendment that requires class sizes to be limited in core classes like English and math to 22 students in middle school.
The unintended result is that elective classes such as culinary arts have more than 22 students in the class.
Because her classes have so many students, Iannone teaches one lesson over four days. A group of about 10 students works in the kitchens, with Iannone supervising them. The remaining eighth-graders work in groups on lessons about cooking.
On Thursday, while students learned to peel and chop vegetables that will eventually be used in muffins and soup, the other students learned about the different types of knives and the different parts of the knife.
“I like being in the kitchen much better (than the classwork),” said eighth-grader Faryn Loskot, 13. “It’s a good class. I wanted to learn to cook better. And it’s good to know in case you need a job.”
“I was tired of my mom telling me I didn’t know how to cook,” said Katya Lopez, 13. “It’s a really fun class. It was this or P.E. and I’m not going to sweat.”
Many of the students who selected culinary arts as an elective said they wanted to learn how to help their mothers at home.
“I was tired of my mom telling me I didn’t know how to cook,” said Katya Lopez, 13. “It’s a really fun class. It was this or P.E. and I’m not going to sweat.”
Katya said she likes the new version of the culinary class.
“I took a similar class last year and the teacher never let us do anything,” she said. “In this class we get to cut the vegetables, we get to make the appetizers.”
The students’ first project was to work in teams to make appetizers like artichoke cheese puffs, creamy bruchetta and black bean dip. The students then had to present their appetizers in a buffet.
“They were so proud and everything was edible,” Iannone said. “We didn’t have to like everything, but we had to try it. Then they evaluated what the best dish was, who did the best presenting.”
Aaren Jones, 13, said she took the class to “learn how to cook American food.”
“My family is Haitian, so we cook Haitian food,” she said, adding her favorite Haitian dish is fried plantains. “Now that I (am cooking), I could see myself doing this for a job. It’s fun.”
When students leave her classroom, Iannone said she hoped the students have the basic culinary industry standard skills and confidence in themselves to read a recipe and have it turn out well. She said she hopes the students understand that food allows them to be creative and use their imaginations.
“I think a lot of the students came in thinking we were just going to bake cookies and eat them,” she said. “I want to push them beyond the obvious.”
Eventually, Iannone said it is her hope the students will be able to make dishes to sell to faculty members as a fundraiser for the program.
“It would be great if one of them like it enough that they would get out and learn to work in this industry,” she said. “In this area, it’s great because of all of the restaurants we have in town.”
