Devouring the lesson

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/01/2020 (1557 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the halls of Linden Meadows School, a mix of languages ring out ahead of the class bell: Korean, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, and Arabic are just a taste of the diversity represented in the student population.

But when the kids get together in Stephanie Fehr’s classroom, any perceived differences in vocabulary melt away with the prospect of freshly baked cookies.

Fehr teaches a nutrition class at the south end school and spearheads a program called Book Cooks that supports English language learners as they settle into a new school environment.

“It’s a way to build on our similarities, and also our differences,” Fehr, 33, said. “Kids come with different food stories, and food is community to me.

“Cooking at home looks different for different families, but eating and enjoying and being together and drawing connections is a great experience and something I know all the children enjoy.”

In the past four years, the face of Linden Meadows School has changed rapidly, principal Teresa Rogers said. About 40 per cent of Linden Meadows students who have lived in Canada for fewer than four years are taking English as an additional language, she said, and that number is increasing.

With the growing diversity of language, experience, and backgrounds in the student population, it became evident that teachers at Linden Meadows would have to shift the way they teach.

Fehr was uniquely qualified to take on the challenge, Rogers said.

“Newcomer students often begin very reticent in terms of expressing language; this got kids speaking more quickly because they’re comfortable and hands-on,” Rogers said.

“Stephanie is very humble about how she contributes, and I think she’s not even aware sometimes of how her passion for cooking, enthusiasm for learning, and ability to create really safe and caring spaces for children helped everything connect.”

The hands-on program for kindergarten and Grade 1 students starts with Fehr reading a story (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff is a popular choice with the kids).

She then leads them as they follow a recipe in the food lab, connecting scenes from the book with the ingredients in their mixing bowls and encouraging them to practise the new lingo.

“I’m working with the kids one on one and we’re all working together,” Fehr said. “It helps to build community, especially for the newcomer students, who might be a little bit shy at first, who think of it as a safe place to come and learn.

“I think sometimes what people don’t realize is there is a lot of problem solving and learning from mistakes,” she added. “There’s teamwork and life skills that are applicable as soon as they go home. So it’s quite motivating to see students working together, sometimes students that are not close, and they have a goal and reach it together.”

For Fehr, “teamwork” and “goal” are more than just buzzwords used in academic settings.

The lifelong Winnipegger from St. Vital has been a reservist with HMCS Chippawa since 2004.

She has helped to provide flood relief to Manitoba communities, travelled the globe representing Canada on the military’s soccer team and served as part of the Guard of Honour for Prince Charles during his last stop in the city.

She has also volunteered in Kenya with Free the Children, where she spent four weeks helping to build a community school and teaching kids.

It’s where she discovered her passion for education.

Outside of the classroom, she coaches soccer to students at Linden Meadows and is pursuing a special education degree with a focus in English as an additional language.

“I always want to think about serving others and giving back in any way,” Fehr said. “Doing Book Cooks maybe serves a small population, but it’s bigger than that. It’s community; it’s culture.”

Fehr’s classroom lessons — however simple the recipes or stories may be — are having an effect outside of Linden Meadows, Rogers said.

Students discover similarities, share what they’ve learned and take home the ingredients for a new language.

“One of the differences that Stephanie makes in our community with our newcomer population, is she introduces our newcomer families to new foods and the kids go home excited to try something. The families do reach out to her excited to share in what the children are learning at school,” Rogers said.

“It’s community building,” said Fehr.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca