2009/04/01

Field Journal Summary

Well, firstly to mention, nothing goes as planned. Originally, we hoped to bake far more things in our 4 sessions than we ended up with. We did not bake brownies and scones but cookies, muffins, cupcakes and an apple pie are all great achievements of our project.

In this final summary, I will use short descriptions and key words of my findings because:

-K.I.S.S.: Keep it short and simple (or Keep it simple stupid) rather than verbose.

-time management: Punctuality is crucial, and under estimation of time allocation will almost always occur. Plan accordingly.

-organization: Setting up a fixed meeting time and a structure for a lesson should always take place in advance.

-flexibility: Improvisation is important and often necessary in both planning (finding dates in busy schedules) and executing (alternating recipes).

-recipes: Recipes are useful guides which should be followed for a reason but not copied verbatim.

-scale: All the numbers given have relations to other measuring units. Furthermore, as with simple math multiplication, they can be scaled to obtain a desired amount of savouries.

-approach: In order to create a desired positive environment, both a teacher and a learner should be eager and enthusiastic about what they are doing.

-attitude: Attitude should definitely be positive and relaxed, preferably with an adequate sense of humour.

-active interaction: Teaching and learning of baking is double sided process where both parties have to be equally involved.

-variability: Instructions can be all verbal (orders), visual (examples) and written (recipes). Both a teacher and a learner are actively involved in all of them: verbal – presenting & listening, visual – showing & repeating, written – guiding & understanding. Alternatively, a student can learn by pure observation in certain cases. Doing is, however, always more welcome than lecturing.

-supervision: Learner’s freedom to bake and teacher’s degree of help define the rate of progress. More pupil’s independency usually means a higher challenge and therefore stronger experience.

-analogy: It is often beneficial to find a real life example which helps to comprehend the nature of baking better. For example, the consistency of dough compared to a snow ball does that job.

-debriefing: Final sum up of a lesson helps to realize different points of view and get a feedback.

-vocabulary: In European and Northern American baking terminologies, there are significant differences that should not be ignored if one wants to keep baking at both places.

-health: Never forget this aspect of baking whenever you work with eatables.

-hygiene: Even if they do not like to, they have to wash their hands and clean the dishes, hah!

Overall, I noticed that there is not a thick line in between roles of a teacher and a student in baking. Yes, an instructor is usually the more experienced one, but both parties bake together in one. As a student, I learned to pay attention, listen, observe, reproduce, read structured plans, solve unexpected events and -finally- bake like an American!

Lastly to mention, I am glad I was an active part of this project. I am going to continue baking and I would repeat this project again, maybe from the facilitating point of view. Who knows…