In Their Chef’s Journey Class, Kalispell Middle School Students Learn About Career, Life

On a Tuesday afternoon, Elizabeth Schule’s classroom at Kalispell Middle School was a scene of controlled chaos.

Schule, one of two teachers in the school’s family and consumer sciences department, had students set up at stations around her classroom in their Chef’s Journey class. The class aims to teach students about the behind-the-scenes of culinary careers.

At one countertop, students poured milk over a pan of tres leches, a Latin American sponge cake. Groups of teens sat at tables in the center of the room cutting lamb and pork for fajitas. A pair of students used an oven to blacken corn. They added it to a large Tupperware container with more blackened corn as the class period wrapped. On the other side of the room, still more students zested limes. Schule moved around in what seemed like a choreographed routine, instructing students at each station and helping them individually as they worked on cooking several dishes.

The food the students prepared would be used the next day at an event in the school library. Representatives from the state’s Office of Public Instruction would be visiting and having lunch there, the students said. When that visit happened, the students in the Chef’s Journey class all had roles to play, ranging from sous-chef to kitchen manager, to waiters serving the meal.

The library was decked out in themed décor to match the Mexican food the students prepared, complete with lights and sombreros. Students in fellow family and consumer science instructor Jenny Baker’s class made those decorations. Other classes in the department helped with tasks ahead of the lunch, like preparing rice and beans.

It’s the third such event students have planned and executed this year. Students lauded the agency they had when it came to handling the event. They select and vote as a class on the theme for each one. Then, they test recipes and decide on a menu, and eventually step into the various roles that come with hosting the events.

Kalispell Public Schools has championed the concept of personalized competency-based education (PCBE), leading the charge for the state to implement the method of teaching and learning. The PCBE model focuses on providing students with choices in their classrooms.

While students in Schule’s class described that approach beginning to seep into their core subjects, they said it feels amplified in their family and consumer science courses. Schule and Baker described their role in the classroom as facilitators, allowing their students to call many of the shots. Students said Schule and Baker’s approach has provided them with independence, fostered mutual trust in the classroom, shown them future career options and made them more confident in their culinary skills.

“That’s why I teach,” Schule said. “I love kids, and I want kids to succeed, and I want them to find their own worth and trust themselves. And that’s how they do that — that whole growing a good person. So that’s why you do it, and that’s why I keep doing it.”

Schule’s journey to teaching wasn’t traditional. In fact, she began her professional career wanting to be a wildlife biologist. But teaching was always in the background.

Eventually, Schule worked her way into a teacher’s aide position in a classroom in Dayton. She earned her teaching certification, taught in Dayton for a few years, and took a job teaching sixth grade science at Kalispell Middle School 18 years ago. She remained in that role until a job in the family and consumer sciences department opened nine years ago.

Baker joined Schule in the department four years ago. She too had an unconventional way into the teaching profession. Baker came to the Flathead from the Balkan oil fields in eastern Montana. She was writing curriculum and eventually, was approached to teach. So, she went back and earned her teaching certification. Baker described her job at Kalispell Middle School as a “dream job.”

For the pair, offering their students a space to feel successful and try new things is important.

“This place — these two rooms — this place is a place so many kids just feel safe … They just feel good in this environment, and that means a lot,” Schule said.

Since Baker joined the department, she and Schule have pursued creative ideas that build more student choice into their classrooms. That pursuit spans from farm-to-table classes to the Chef’s Journey class and implementing catered events, making them into a department-wide affair.

The first time students planned and executed an event a couple years ago, they served a simple meal of spaghetti and meatballs with a salad on the side, Baker said. There weren’t decorations, or servers — the idea to incorporate those elements came later.

“The first two, we were like, ‘okay,’ and kind of guided (the students),” Baker said. “And then we just handed it to them, and they come up with the coolest amazing things. Beth and I both agreed that when you give them the authority, they go above and beyond. So, all of our concepts are now created by our students.”

Over the past two years, the event planning has become more elaborate as Schule, Baker and their students honed the concept more. It’s rare that Schule and Baker meet their students with a “no” answer.

“The two of us with too many ideas … But we kind of go with these big ideas and then try and tame it down to something we feel like we can manage, and then just try it,” Schule said. “And I think that the fact that we’re both really comfortable trying and enjoying the process of, ‘let’s try this, and things don’t always turn out.’

“And then, you know, we laugh about it,” Schule continued. “That’s what we’re always asking students to do. Like, that’s what we’re asking kids to do is be brave and be vulnerable and try something new and see what happens and know that it’s about the process.”

In this semester alone, students have hosted and decorated the school library for a Korean meal; a Texas-barbecue themed lunch; and the Mexican one they prepared for visitors to the school Wednesday. They take their roles seriously, and the lessons they say they’ve learned transcend beyond the doors of Kalispell Middle School.

Callee Peters, an eighth grader in Schule’s Chef’s Journey course, said she and a partner came up with the Mexican theme for Wednesday’s event. Throughout the course, she’s enjoyed hosting and helping with events.

“Cooking isn’t as hard as you think if you take time and go step to step,” Peters said.

The class has given Peters a stronger work ethic. Schule’s expectations that students maintain clean workspaces have taught Peters about organization as well.

But beyond hosting events, Peters pointed toward real-life applications from the course. For instance, one unit that left a mark for her was learning about food insecurity. Schule’s class went to the Flathead Food Bank, got a behind-the-scenes view on the issue and helped package holiday meals.

Other students, like Cora Rauscher, said the opportunities they’ve had in the family and consumer sciences department have inspired them to look to the food industry for future jobs.

Rauscher took a basic culinary course through the department as a seventh grader. She returned as an eighth grader for the Chef’s Journey class. She’s been a server during events twice this year. After her middle school experiences, she said she’d like to work for a catering company while in high school.    

Carter Dolan echoed Rauscher’s sentiments. He’s taken classes with Schule all three years of middle school, returning to her class this year because she’s a “good teacher.”

But throughout his middle school experience, Dolan has also learned he loves cooking. The opportunity to expand his skills and cook “diverse” dishes has inspired him. At one event the students worked, he heard from a high school student who was planning to attend culinary school in the future — an option he didn’t know was open to him before.

“I’m thinking about going to culinary school and starting my own restaurant,” Dolan said.

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