By: Edie Farrell
Photo courtesy of Edie Farrell
An amazing way to discover what you’re interested in and meet new people is through Golden’s wide array of electives. Golden offers more classes than you may be aware of,
which is why I chose to interview Ms. Naranjo about the new FCS (Family Consumer
Sciences; home-ec) Capstone class being offered at Golden this year. Naranjo already teaches two Culinary 1 classes, two Culinary 2 classes, and a baking & pastry class. So, I wondered:
“What’s your motivation behind starting this new class?”
“I just wanted there to be an option for you to take culinary [courses] every year you’re here,” she explained. “After such a great [first year teaching] baking and pastry, we needed an option after.”
The idea is that a student could go from culinary 1, to culinary 2, to baking and pastry, and then into this more independent Capstone course for those students passionate enough about culinary to take it a fourth year. As one of those students who is taking this Capstone class in my fourth year of taking culinary at Golden, I was curious:
“Does the longevity of the class depend on students’ work this year?”
“I wouldn’t say it exclusively depends on your work this year, but yes, it would probably factor in pretty heavily.”
This is rare, but with a class directly rooted in student initiative, the success of the class is less up to Naranjo and more up to the students taking it. Which, in a student’s fourth (and possibly final) year doing culinary classes, is probably the most appropriate set-up; especially since most students who make it this far do have some sort of interest in food service as a career. Naranjo has taught culinary here for 12 years, and throughout that time the set of FCS classes offered at Golden has ebbed and flowed almost every year. Because of the yearly tweaks to Golden’s culinary program, plus my own personal hopes for more FCS programs in schools, I also wanted to know:
“With less than 4 words, how’d you describe the state of FCS at this school?”
“Hm… Varied, scant, great.”
“Tell me more about that”
“The Quality of FCS is highly dependent on the teacher you have and how rigorous and serious they take themselves. Because there are, like, some pretty outdated programs and/or grumpy teachers that [make] people [not want to] take the class, which is insane, and it is a lot of work; it’s exhausting. So, it depends on the ability of that teacher to care for themselves and set enough boundaries that they can pour in what they need to pour in… I think I need to do a lot more work than a gen ed teacher.” Naranjo doesn’t point out that last part to make it into some sort of competition; it’s rare for a teacher’s behavior to hold so much weight in determining the success of an entire class or set of classes. It’s absolutely more pressure than a teacher in a guaranteed field/core class. “And [the success of FCS also depends on] if your administration values FCS or not. If a teacher makes a bad name for FCS, an administrative team might say, ‘Oh, we’re getting rid of that program.’” With this being said, we can see just how special it is that Golden’s culinary and FCS classes are flourishing as much as they are, and that’s solely due to the hard work of our staff.
Culinary isn’t something every high school student has access to in an educational environment, so it’s important students know that such a unique opportunity is here for them. Any student interested in culinary or hospitality in general would do well to join a Culinary 1 class next year to see how they like it, and possibly keep going if they please. But regardless of where a student’s interests may lie, even just one culinary class will equip students with skills that’ll benefit them the rest of their lives; everyone needs to eat.
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