Kitchen Cultures and Classroom Cultures

“Mom, did you put chia seeds in the stir fry last night?” “Oh…I thought your sesame seeds looked different. No wonder the sauce was so thick!”

I could give a list of excuses: I’ve never used chia seeds before (they’re just starting to hit the health market in Japan). I figured maybe I just had forgotten what American sesame seeds looked like. I didn’t want to interrupt my daughter with yet another question about where to find stuff in her kitchen—I should be able to figure this out for myself. But that was really weird stir fry. 

I’m at an odd interlude in my life, living with each of my 2 daughters’ families for a month or so at a time (they live less than 2 miles apart). I’m thankful I can be here to help, to be part of my grandkids’ lives when we normally have the whole Pacific Ocean between us. To join in the 3-year-old’s elaborate dinosaur/shark roleplaying games. To hear the 1-year-old’s first word: outside. To rock the baby to sleep during Bible study. To cook dinner twice a week while one daughter takes online graduate courses.

It’s the kitchens that throw me off. I’m supposed to be the kitchen authority. The mother providing food for her children. And my children’s kitchens are sort of like mine, but different. And sort of like each other’s, but different. Every once in a while I get this weird Twilight Zone feeling of dislocation—now where is that rolling pin? I know I just used it the other day…or was that at the other house? Wait…is this the nut-free house or the meat-free house? 

My students must feel a bit of that dislocation, rotating from classroom to classroom—not once a month, but 7 times a day! What are the rules and expectations here again? They must differ from the math classroom to the English classroom at least as much they do from one daughter’s house to the other. That perspective motivates me to be clear and consistent with class expectations, culture, and protocols--maybe a mini-orientation every time students walk into the room, more anchor charts, and keep the daily agenda current--to be patient with extra reminders, and to have grace and maybe even humor when confusion and mistakes happen. It also gives me visceral understanding of the power of learning from failure: I will never again mistake chia seeds for sesame! 

But I do continue to be reminded of this perspective every time a new kitchen comedy occurs:

• “I’m afraid the tabouli salad is short on mint—the mint in your yard is so dried out I couldn’t get enough.” “Um…our mint is fine. Could you show me what plant you’re talking about?…Oh, that one? No idea what that one is. Our mint is over here.” 
• “I love just being able to go out in your garden and get stuff for dinner: tomatoes, kale, green onions.” “Um…we don’t have green onions.” “Hmm…I wonder what’s on the salad?”
• “I used up all your white flour in the noodles.” “Really!? No, look, there’s still a whole canister left. So what did you use?… Oh, that’s the high gluten flour I add to whole wheat flour to help it rise well.” “Ah…no wonder the noodles chewed like rubber!”

I'm glad I can laugh at and learn from my own mistakes as I bounce between the kitchen cultures of my 2 daughters. I'm glad my family can laugh at them, too. I hope remembering this can help me extend the same grace, humor, patience, and safety to my students as they bounce between many classroom cultures every day.