Month: May 2020

Global Cooking with Junior Students

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LO 1 – Identify their own strengths and develop areas for personal growth.

In Global Cooking, we teach junior students how to cook food from different parts of the world, teach basic cooking skills, teach general facts about different countries and bring in volunteers from different nationalities to talk to the children about their country and food. I joined this activity because cooking and food is a major passion of mine and I love sharing my knowledge about it with other people. I went into this activity nervous about how to communicate with children and teach them something while keeping them safe in a dangerous environment that has knives and fire. After my first 10 minutes in the activity, I knew I was hooked and I was going to be a part of it until my journey at UWC ended. It is my favourite 1:30 hours in a week and I love spending time with the kids. I realised that I can actually be stern with the kids while also being a friend to them. It took a couple of days but I found the perfect balance of sternness and friendliness and it has worked ever since. The children respect me enough to listen to my instructions which in turn keeps them safe in the kitchen while also learning crucial cooking skills that I would have loved to learn at their age. I spent time answering their unique questions which I would have never thought have and has made me fascinated with a child’s thought process. I learn new things all the time trying to answer their questions. I enjoy explaining the science or reason behind some cooking processes and what to add or subtract to fix a kitchen faux pas. I have learnt multiple things about myself throughout this new adventure like I love teaching, that I can communicate with children and make them listen, have grown endless patience and that maybe this could someday lead to my future career path.

The Literature I’ve been reading in the COVID-19 Lockdown

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How my independent reading is connected with a text we’ve studied in terms of attention to a global issue.

In this extended lockdown, I’ve read a lot of books (just for self-entertainment) and lots of poems for my IB English class as I enjoy poems compared to classic literature now. One poem that I enjoyed immensely is “The Applicant” by Sylvia Plath. I have been looking into the Canongate Myth Series, Carol Ann Duffy’s work, Anne Sexton’s – Cinderella, and many more but the applicant truly caught my attention.

It speaks about a very present issue in today’s society but also from the 1980’s – inequality. It also reminds me of some ideas from “The Importance of Being Earnest” where the female characters are described as ditzy and subservient. The poem is about a male who goes for an interview and is asked what he can offer them when “something” is missing and that something is a wife.

  • Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then
    How can we give you a thing?

The employer describes the wife like an accessory a male needs when he talks about all she “offers”.

  • To bring teacups and roll away headaches
    And do whatever you tell it.
    Will you marry it?
    It is guaranteed

The employer also refers to a wife, a female as “it”. The pronoun shows an obvious disrespect to the female and also makes her appear as an object instead of a human being. The employer calls for a woman to come and present herself to the applicant.

  • I have the ticket for that.
    Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
    Well, what do you think of that?
    Naked as paper to start

The employer also refers to the female as “that” with the obvious disrespect that flows throughout the poem in regards to the female. He refers to a potential wife as a ticket to getting a job and refers to her as naked, as in like a blank slate where the male can manipulate her into anything he wants her to be for him.

The disrespectful terms for females runs though the next stanza where he refers to the female as a “living doll” further cementing the fact that the male can “play” with her as he likes. He refers to their future marriage years as silver and gold. He further undermines the value of a female by listing frivolous things he thinks she only has to offerlike sewing, cooking and talking endlessly.

  • But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,
    In fifty, gold.
    A living doll, everywhere you look.
    It can sew, it can cook,
    It can talk, talk, talk.

The employer ends the monologue by saying that marriage is the only option left for the applicant to ever be successful. The employer says “will you marry it” but it’s not a question, but a statement.

  • My boy, it’s your last resort.
    Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

The females in the importance of being earnest are regarded as silly and frivolous while choosing a potential husband based on a name and falling in love with a name rather than an actual person making females seem naive and dumb. The trope of the dumb trophy wife is exemplified here.