The first day of school was a bit hectic for Lawrence Central junior Ryleigh Turner, who got a change of scenery after signing up for nutritional wellness class, also known as cooking class. LC no longer had the kitchens to use for the class. This meant Turner had to board the shuttle to Lawrence North after arriving at her home school. The long transit caused her and her fellow LC classmates to arrive late to the class. Although it was an unusual start and a new change, Turner attributes the smooth transition to her cooking teacher, Debi Brim, who was patient with her students and helped make the transition as smooth as possible.
“Mrs. Brim is a really good teacher so she makes everything simple,” Turner said.
This year, LC made the decision to tear out the kitchens for their cooking classes and to turn them into a senior cafeteria. This left a large group of LC students who were planning on taking the class kitchenless. However, the school came up with a solution, which was to let the students go to LN to take the class. This was done with little warning to Brim, who suddenly found herself with a new set of challenges.
While the situation seemed at first a little chaotic, four weeks in things have settled down. Although some students were concerned about adding more people, many have adjusted to the new class size. Chestina Passley, an LC junior, enjoys the change.
“It’s fun getting to mingle with different students from a different school in a different class,” Passley said.
Passley believes the change is positive and doesn’t really have any gripes with the new system. Junior Vivian Faulk also enjoys the change.
“I think it’s nice that we can meet different people and it actually makes things faster having more people,” Faulk said.
While the change has been mostly positive, according to the students, there are some issues that Brim brought up. For instance, Brim says the kitchen labs are really only designed for four people. LN sophomore Naya Shaw was first a little worried about the class with the change and how all of the student’s would get along, but she too seems to like how it has turned out. Shaw suggests this may be due to the calm nature of the class and having Brim as a teacher.
“We can see how well they work with LN because it’s not really a competition just two different students from different schools working together in the kitchen. It’s fun. Everyone gets to know one and another and there is no bad blood,” Shaw said.
Students in the class start out learning the basics and then move on to learning more advanced techniques throughout the year.
“We are learning how to do more advanced cooking like in there we are doing cupcakes and there is a ganache and a glaze and later we’ll be doing fried chicken, pancakes, etc. Just learning the basics so that when we are at home and we are hungry we know how to make something,” Shaw said.
At first, the change seemed like it would create a bit of chaos however, Brim has managed to keep things under control and keep students engaged.
“I am in my element this is where I’m supposed to be what I call detours of life got me to where I am right now. I will happily do this the rest of my life,” Brim said.
Even with the issues that the change has created Brim still stays positive. She believes having slightly too many students in a class is better than not having the class at all.
“It’s a good problem to have,” Brim said.