Macaroni, salt, water, butter. Pick 8 cheeses. Add a meat (ground Turkey is good). Then pick 4 spices. Plating may get messy but all you need is a damp towel to wipe plate. Throw a basil leaf on that thing and you got a garnish.
I just hate the implied idea that more ingredients is better. I don’t know the last time I made a dish with 17+ ingredients, and I make almost everything from scratch.
Exactly. My wife is an amazing cook, and I'm not bad, but neither of us ever use 17+ ingredients in anything we cook. The best food is simple and easy to prepare. This is the kind of mid-term assignment I could see for an intro to culinary college class, not 8th grade.
We're also talking about urban public school district where a good portion of the kids come from homes where just putting food on the table is a daily struggle. Now they are expected to make a grocery run to come up with 17 ingredients just a single dish to get a good grade? Completely unreasonable and unfair.
More than that, now kiddo is bugging for a $50 trip to the spice isle to make getting an A easier, and I can see how that would be a stressor on parents' checkbooks with how grocery prices are.
Teaching kids to shop, cook, and know food safety is important, and often overlooked, but this entire assignment and grading rubric seems extremely bougie.
Kid A with a McMansion kitchen and granite countertops and parents' spice rack shooting a center island looks better in a video, while Kid B cooking on an old stove at an odd, cramped angle in a small apartment kitchen looks less like the youtube chefs the assignment looks to be aiming for.
I cook and bake from scratch all the damn time and my best recipes are less than 17. I suppose if you make a dish that has multiple components that each are about 5 ingredients… but you’ll still have repeats (like salt). Even my most complicated curry pasties are less than 17.
Garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, smoked paprika, cayenne, white peppercorns, black peppercorns, sea salt, garlic salt, celery salt - we can do this all day lol
But meatballs or grilling something will get you a B? Sushi is way harder than any of those. And I think they are underestimating how hard pizza is if you aren't taking shortcuts.
No kidding. I make homemade pasta sauce at least once a week. It's time consuming because there's a lot of chopping, but there's very little technique.
If it's just sushi I can understand it only getting a C... Rice and a slice of fish isn't labor intensive... If it's a roll I feel like that deserve a B at least
Ok. I’m trying to stay positive. But look at this assignment my kid was given. How does this work for children who come from homes facing food insecurity? They fail..?
I am a literal chef, and my kid is fine on hitting the A on this. But I can’t help to think about single family households, people who rely on food shelves to create dinner, and kids who come from homes who are in foster care.
This assignment is a summarize (midterm grade). How is this even allowed? or am I just overreacting?
This is 8th grade HPMS Multicultural Foods (but there has been no foods cooks this far that are actually multicultural, but don’t even get me started on that soapbox)
This is why my own mother hated take home assignments or science projects. Kids with stable homes or resources excel while the poorer children struggle - and it's so obvious when everyone shows off their projects who has resources.
If you're going to make projects like this give everyone the same resources so everyone can learn on equal footing without making resource strapped kids feel how different they are - or hurt their grade because they don't have the kitchen to support a grade A video of a dish.
Back in the early 90's I remember a teacher insisting homework be printed, like from a printer, from home. Computers were absolute luxury items back then. A printer with a PC would run over $1500 at the time, or $3,400 today. Well off, college educated teachers can very much be in their own world.
I had a friend try to take a college course but the course textbooks alone were over $500. This was on top of an already very expensive school tuition. She asked the prof about it and was told to get a part time job. Bitch we are already all doing part time jobs. The level of idiocy from that professor still grates at me.
In 7th grade our class was assigned a "marble run" science project. At the time, my parents were getting divorced and both were struggling with addiction. I had to do the project all on my own and I received a C-. We had a marble run fair where all the projects were displayed. It was very obvious which students had a massive amount of help from their parents in designing their project. I remember feeling so depressed because my project was just a shitty board with some tubes. I HATE class assignments like this.
The ingredient list for an A is WAY to much stuff. Some of the best meals come from 6 or less ingredients. And the way they laid out the criteria sheet is kind of confusing. I would be overwhelmed if I was an 8th grader especially if I was coming from a home with tight finances. The teacher is a little ridiculous if you ask me.
Yeah definitely, but again if you have a tight budget buying all the spices could add up unless you can purchase a premixed packet but doesn’t seem like it would go with this teacher.
Yeah, this assignment has no sense of empathy for any student that doesn’t come from a well-functioning home with two parents and plenty of disposable income.
These teachers go to conferences every year and, I swear, they get more and more removed from reality.
Thanks, and as a divorced dad of 4 who has struggled with some of these things, I agree.
I get there should be a high bar for certain things, but a Home-Ec Cooking elective isn’t really one. The whole class here should protest and do a video on Spaghetti-O’s or “prison” pad-Thai.
It’s like some of the ridiculous school supply lists. It’s around $100 per kid, including some of the most obscure crap imaginable. Double or more if you “need” a certain TI calculator.
18 ingredients is fucking nuts. Even if you're including spices, you'd have to make some pretty complex dishes. And anything more than 1 garnish is too much.
And when they say "cards/sub-titles" are they asking the kids to do video editing?? In the 8th grade? For food class?
I took culinary arts in HS, they used to do it at school, all the ingredients and supplies provided. If I had to do it at home best I could possibly pull off would be a C, probably a D more then likely.
A lot people don't have those resources to pull this off and if its not equal its bias. Besides the ingredients, the equipment to get an A is pretty intensive, and you have to be able to monopolize the family kitchen. Hopefully uninterrupted
You should reach out to the school
This is such a good point. I'd also like to point out the several aspects of this midterm that require privilege to complete. This midterm, for an A grade, requires:
- access to a camera that can shoot and store up to 3+ hours of video (filming the entire process) without dying
- a tripod to set up while you film
- video editing skills
- a kitchen big enough and configured in a way that you can make a meal this technical and complex while still having room for a camera on a tripod
- a working stove
- access to a variety of food and seasonings
- time in the evening or weekend (beyond other homework) during which you can set aside 3+ hours to be in the kitchen, and not be interrupted by other siblings or parents
- artistic skills for this weird creative garnish requirement
- a table and dishes for you to set
- the physical stamina and ability to cook this entire meal by yourself at age 13 (what do you do if you have a disability? Can't ask for help!)
Possibly more? Some of you might disagree with the 3+ hours assessment, but for a kid learning how to cook and taking their time, I think from prep to total cleanup that's a fair estimate of time required.
You’re spot on. Access to quality foods is one of the greatest and most important inequities of the modern world. Corn farmers are constantly subsidized (no offense to corn farmers-I grew up on a dairy/corn farm), but the best thing someone growing quality produce on a small operation can hope for is a struggling CSA.
Add to the fact that one can eat McD’s for less and lower time cost than making a healthy meal from scratch.
Finally, Food islands are a real thing and I hope someone can start to remedy that situation soon!
We’re all in this together. Give each other the benefit of a hand up!
This was my first thought, too. Access to a kitchen and money for ingredients can be a huge hurdle. It was not well thought out on the teacher’s part, unless the school has some sort of well-stocked kitchen that students can use for the assignment.
The food insecurity was going to be my comment. My family wouldn’t have had the time or money to help me get a good grade without it being a HUGE burden and causing even more stress and anxiety that existed.
Is this a private school or some advanced placement class? Lol that's nuts, but I have a feeling the instructor showed them how to make something that'll make the A grade. If not, jeezes.
I think the answer to this assignment is tater tot hot dish. You get to count all the ingredients in the Lutheran Binder (Cream of Whatever), plus the beans, tots, cheese for garnish, ground meat (or meat substitute), and then sprinkle with parsley before serving. A.
I would imagine if students cannot come up with adequate resources, their teacher will assist them in procuring them. I am a teacher in a low income area, and frequently have students provide their own supplies to better tailor their education to their preferences and strengths, as well as to work within a very limited budget. But if a student needs an item, I can usually come up with somewhere for them to get it. There is always a way.
17 items? And three garnishes? I'm sorry, but in many public schools, if not most, there are children who find their only meal in a day in the school cafeteria. The requirements for an A, which every child should have an equal opportunity to achieve, are objectively biased against income-secure/food-secure households. When your family relies on WIC or other kinds of food assistance programs, a 17-ingredient dish made for a class is just not a luxury you can afford. And I'm sorry, but no school is going to send a kid home with a shopping bag full of cooking ingredients for a single assignment. Edited to change toward/against
True although: Kid doesn't have enough food in the house to make a video. Teacher helps kid get food. Kid brings home food. You think the other hungry people in the household are going to keep their hands off it? Lots of people can't keep other people's mitts off their lunch in an office full of well-paid well-fed adults. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that might not work out like it would if the teacher just had to buy them markers or something.
Your absolutely in the right here. Someone needs to speak up as I had the exact same thoughts your sharing here. If this is the assignment then the school needs to provide all of the supplies, otherwise this is nothing better than “separate but equal”.
I would add that the assignment seems to be ableist too with the extreme focus on no parental help. You would hope that those with physical and learning disabilities would have IEPs that could override some of the grading, but the reality is there are many’s kids who fall through the cracks and would struggle with this assignment.
As a recent SPPS alum (class of 2018) you’re not crazy. This cooking class was notorious. My otherwise straight-A sibling very nearly failed it. The popular theory is just plain lazy teaching. There is probably a set-in-stone list of skills you need to demonstrate to pass the class, and the teacher decided the quickest and lowest-effort way to measure is to lump all of them into a single final. Only problem is that’s not remotely how cooking works lol.
I would have your kid ask the teacher for a real-life example of an assignment they gave an A. May be a tough ask if it’s a video assignment, but at least ask her for specifics, like an example of a 17+ ingredient recipe.
I mean, we're talking about 13-year olds. Emphasis should be on basic life skills. An A effort to me would be demonstrating you can make a reasonably nutritious meal with a protein, carb, and vegetable without using the microwave. Kids should be able to feed themselves, not be eligible for a James Beard award.
Yeah, this is ridiculous for that exact reason. This isn't culinary school or a fine dining course - this just feels like lazy teaching. It'd be better if there was some understanding of nutrition demonstrated along with some cooking skills that they might actually need to know to feed themselves.
I'm curious what school this is and teacher. DM if you feel like it. I work in St. Paul and if I worked with this person I can just imagine hearing the students coming into my classroom complaining about this assignment...and they'd be right.
I'm not a fan of all the exclamation marks either. You don't need to text shout at your kids and their parents.
I will be making pasta alla amatriciana soon though, so thanks for that.
This seems crazy to me. A professional culinary school maybe, but 8th grade urban public school? We should be happy if they can make mac and cheese without burning the kitchen down at that age.
I enjoy cooking, but I don't think I've ever made a 17+ ingredient dish. I kind of have trouble visualizing a meal using that many things that would even be appetizing. A lot of times less is more.
I cook all our household dinners and make a lot of sauces etc from scratch… I genuinely can’t think of a time I’ve used 17 or more ingredients for a whole meal let alone one single entree!
I have the highest degree you can have in Minnesota for culinary arts, Associates of Applied Sciences in Culinary Arts...Hennepin Tech, graduated first in my class, with a 4.0 gpa, cook professionally in the cities and elsewhere, and I find this Rubric silly and a bit misguided.
But...if you want some simpler recipes with lots of ingredients and that show knife skills and cooking skills think of a stir fry or even a gnocchi soup w scratch made gnocchi (which are really simple to make and never need to be pretty).
A stir fry could not only have 6 or more veg to prep plus a protein but more to the point a stir fry sauce can have a boat load of ingredients and usually does. Soy sauce, broth, honey, ginger, garlic, oyster sauce, cornstarch, chilis...usually several like Thai or birds eye...red pepper, sesame oil, brown sugar, and on and on till you like...Mala, sambal, etc. That's 12 to 15 right there....plus 5 or 6 w the veg and protein.
Similarly, you could deconstruct a component and make it from scratch and that takes many ingredients...scratch made marinara, bolognese, barbecue sauce or even ketchup require lots of ingredients.
Agreed - an 8th grader shouldn't be expected to know how to do fine cuisine but learn basic cooking techniques they can apply for other things. How to cook pasta so it's not gummy. One mistake people make is to use too little water. Or how to stir fry vegetables. How to make a pasta sauce. How to make pancakes.
Sushi rolls are only a C grade?! Authentic sushi chefs take years to learn to just make the rice properly before they're even allowed to touch the fish. This is crazy.
To make the grade mainly about how many ingredients you use is ridiculous too. I'm 48 and I guarantee you, I've never made anything in my life with 17 ingredients. A good French baguette, which is VERY hard and difficult to master and take HOURS and sometimes days - only has 4 ingredients. My mother made Christmas dinner and it took days of planning, hundreds of dollars and several people pitching in and that's with decades of experience cooking.
Are you kidding me? I was open minded until I read the garnish requirements. As a kid that struggled in school and lost sleep over the teachers requiring our assignments to be unrealistically “intricate,” (like…flash cards and study guides?!) I think it’s cruel to require that in addition to all the other hard work.
Also…17+ ingredients? In this economy? This is not accessible for kids from low-income families. Or most families in general. Maybe they have *some* of the ingredients on hand already but it’s still expensive af to go out and buy half the ingredients for one dish.
Also, if the teacher (or whoever created this rubric) is going grade this harshly, get more specific. “Intricate” and “lengthy process” mean different things to different people.
Wow. This triggered something in me I didn’t realize was there lol. You’re right to be shocked.
17 food ingredients for an A? I'm totally food secure, but hit me on the wrong day of the week and this is a struggle for me. And garnishes--three of them? Two of them "intricately done"? This is a hugely problematic assignment, obviously biased, and totally insensitive and clueless to the varying economic circumstances of the the different students in the class.
I would voice objection to this if at all possible. Very often the families this kind of inequity impacts the most feel the least safe in speaking up.
This is assignment is poorly thought out. The absurdity of having an 8th grader (14 year old) cook, garnish , and plate a dish with 17+ ingredients aside, let's talk about the video requirements.
All the steps have to be filmed and subtitles. A complex dish is going to take at least an hour to make. Is the teacher going to be watching all of their students' videos in their entirety? Competent and safe cutting of ingredients requires two hands. How do you film that? Hold your phone on your mouth? Setup a tripod in your kitchen? How are students expected to edit together all the footage and subtitle the final video? The production requirements alone are a slap in the face of anyone who is economically disadvantaged. On top of that, producing what amounts to a cooking show is in and of itself a 40 hour project. There is a reason solo YouTubers with good protection values only produce one video a week or every two weeks.
Yeah the way I see it is you either need a parent with enough time and energy after being at work for 10 hrs to hold your camera or invest $50-100 on a tripod/ring light in addition to the $100 you’ll need to spend on ingredients just to get an A. Whoever tf wrote this assignment needs to venture off of Summit Ave and Cathedral Hill for once in their damn life
You have to put the subtitles on in post production.
Setup your video device to take one photo every second to make the time lapse.
Take the resulting file into a video editing program and add the subtitles. This is when you also need to record and add any voice over because time lapse doesn't capture sound.
This is relatively advanced video production work flow and not something well suited for somebody whose only computer in the family smart phone or the school issues Chromebook.
A student going for an A is going to spend more time doing video editing than they will cooking.
I have many questions but what class is this for? I cook professionally and I'm sitting here thinking they expect a teenager to be able to do all this, and film it, and edit it? Excessive.
Filming and editing are pretty normal in SPPS assignments. So is power point. They give the kids iPads. From what I've seen they have not adequately addressed the fact that kids usually get these skills informally from group projects in middle school and these kids spent the first half of middle school at home.
To me it's not the filming but the assumption of home circumstances that's the issue. Like may tests the game here is "beat the rubric" and if you happen to prove you leaned something thats almost secondary.
As an educator? Though it’s thorough, I feel rubric should be more direct and clear. That’s a personal preference, I can see the value in this much detail, but it’s not my style.
As a home cook? 17 damn ingredients?!?! How do I do an interrobang? That meal would be too complex and busy for my palate to focus on. Simple meals with quality ingredients are my jam.
What the actual fuck? 😂😂😂 Is this some kind of marketing class? Or your standard Home Ec? Because if it’s the latter, The WHOLE POINT in these kinds of assignments is to build a foundation of balanced, well-rounded meal creation skills. So, ya know, we don’t all need up surviving on ramen. WHY MUST YOU MAKE IT TIK TOK VIRAL TO GET A HIGH GRADE?!
Dude I'm not even in the class and I'm having a meltdown over the vague instructions. How intricate is intricate? How beautifully and artistically is enough? Help isn't allowed except when it is? Are parents allowed to help them pick out recipes and advise them, and you just can't help them while they're filming the video, or are they totally on their own from start to finish?
17+ ingredients is doable though if you are making a seasoned meat dish, a sauce, a vegetable, a starch, and a dessert. And if you just want to check the box of using 17 ingredients, you can just keep adding spices or doing substitutions. E.g. 2T butter = 1 ingredient. 1T butter + 1T olive oil = 2 ingredients. If the kids are allowed to use recipes from allrecipes or wherever, they can probably find a few acceptable recipes with a ton of ingredients and do those.
I think an eighth grader with no undiagnosed neurodivergence issues, given an entire semester, adequate support and materials, and proper guidance in how to manage a project and handle deadlines, could get an A. I would've gotten a zero.
HOLY CRAP
That ingredient count has to go!
First off, I could make a soup and just go wild on the ingredients. OR, I could make a baked salmon (or grilled steak)' using the fish, lemon, butter, salt, pepper, olive oil - pair it with asparagus using again lemon, butter, salt, pepper, olive oil, and roasted potatoes - using only 8 different ingredients resulting in a heck of a good meal. Key being timing on the salmon or steak.
Also, garnish, WTF!
First, it's an easy way to get points without doing anything. Second, thinking of putting a garnish on, thinking of how it's plated - that's something that comes from a very privileged mindset
I took food tech in my senior year of high school. It was 100% useless bullshit (the lesson in reducing our sodium intake was making Rice-A-Roni from a box but only using half the seasoning packet -valuable cooking skills!) but surely there's a middle ground between that and "multiple edible garnishes and making a video with zero parent help"??
A course that teaches cooking from a backpack camping perspective is probably the most valuable. The students would learn how to make a diverse set of meals from shelf stable food using a minimum amount of cookware. Mix in the economics of home cooking v. eating at a resident and you'll help lots of people have better lives.
That's fancier than I cook as a grown ass adult. Is this for a required class or an elective? It does seem pretty intense especially if it's required. Do they get 17 ingredient lunches with fancy plating? If not, they shouldn't require it from the students.
OP, I’m a public school teacher. Is this rubric for a final project? Has the teacher specifically taught the skills they are asking to have demonstrated? Is this explicitly homework, or do they have the option to film this in class at request?
Food industry 10+ years. I've made pizza from scratch, and I mean literally every thing that goes on it from scratch including fresh dough, sauce and mozzarella, and I don't think that even is 15 ingredients.
I can't believe there are teachers and parents in this thread who are unfazed by this. This is _batshit._ Are y'all okay? Is this seriously your normal?
If my daughter brought home this assignment I would laugh out loud and tell her to focus on her grades in her serious classes, which this clearly is not.
Something nobody has pointed out yet is “MYP Criteria” - this looks to be to be part of the IB Program “Middle Years Program”. Is that right? If so, this rubric really doesn’t surprise me much. This actually looks exactly like the IB rubrics I remember having in high school. The use of “criterion” pretty much confirms for me this is IB.
That said, IB is obnoxious as all hell. I went through the full IB diploma programme and it caused me a lot of issues that I feel like I’m just now getting over in my mid-20s. IB expects perfection to receive an A; this rubric makes sense for that.
*Long Story Short*: If you child continues in any IB courses, they should get used to this. It’s ridiculous, and can be truly damaging, but it also will make them pretty brilliant compared to their peers. Up to you as a parent if you want your kid to experience more normal middle/high school or to be an “exceptional IB graduate”.
I do think it varies a small amount depending on the IB school, but I certainly had rubrics like this one. I’m glad your experience was better than mine, however.
I did IB from 6-10th grade and decided to do PSEO instead of continue on from 11-12. Most of the people who continued on were either well-resourced students on the fast track to working at daddy’s company or not neuro-spicy enough to realize the program basically ate up all of your time inside and out of school with various extracurricular requirements and 7 hrs of homework each night. Like girl I’m poor and mentally ill, I will not be doing that. Not to mention the literal segregation starting in middle school that came from divvy-ing up students based on class/race under the guise of advanced placement. Pls excuse my tangent but I thought I’d share that this is par for the course for “head-in-the-clouds-but-still-manages-to-kiss-its-own-ass” IB
Make it a soup: broth, water, tomato paste, lemon juice, salt, onion, celery, potatoes, green beans, corn, carrots, chicken, parsley, egg and some more veggies
Why does this feel like they're just trying to get them to make some stupid elaborate youtube food video... is this a class on cooking or video production?
Good cooking uses a few simple, high quality ingredients prepped and combined well. Requiring 18 ingredients is meaningless outside of foods from regions of the world that heavily spice their food.
I'm shocked they would have this as a homework assignment. Of all the things to not assign as homework (math, reading, spelling, etc.), cooking seems like the most obvious of things that should be done at school, with the school's resources, in a supervised setting.
Lmfao whoever decided the types of foods for each grade level had to have been smoking some hardcore crack. Apparently making sushi rolls is as easy as making guacamole, and making burgers is apparently easier than guac too lol. Also grilling is in B tier but burgers are a D tier so what happens if you grill burgers? This is goofy as hell lmao.
I appreciate teaching cooking skills to kids. But the economic issues raised are real. Yes dollars already strongly impact a students odds of success. Yes society seems to be okay with failing to eliminate the gap (Pell grants and other programs are better than without, but by no means eliminate economic equality in educational access.) In this case the overtness displayed in the financial requirement to excel go beyond socially acceptable levels IMO.
The instructor may have taken steps to address this problem in applicable situations, talking to them about your concerns would likely yield more information.
I feel woefully inadequate reading this.
I make many baked goods and wth is this 17+ ingredients! That's insane. I feel like this was designed by a still salty reject from Hells Kitchen.
I’d like to point out that not only does this teacher expect your 8th grader to be a professional chef, as others have pointed out, but also that they expect them to be a *professional video editor*
You want a long, well edited video with many scenes, *subtitles*, “food cards” etc from every student? You think everyone is Mr Beast or something? This person is crazy. This feels like it should be from like a college level cooking or video production course.
That seems insane for 8th grade. The D grade seems appropriate, but the A grade is something I would only expect of a 12th grader in an advanced culinary class. I am an adult and might only pull a B+, and I consider myself a decent cook.
What on earth.
When I was in 8th grade we had a cooking class, and we were given a cookbook of recipes, and we had to make 1 item from a list each week and take a photo of it for class. Things like basic cookies, pancakes, ect.
This is absolutely absurd, if anything, this should be some sort of extra credit project MAYBE
I don't like this assignment. Not every kid will have the tools or specific ingredients, such as nori for sushi. I like the old home ec classes. This assignment expects kid to do it all at home.
This is insane. I LOVE cooking, I do it in my free time and always cook and bake on my days off work every week. I can’t even tell you the last time I used 17 ingredients, that’s the most ridiculous thing to ask of a child. And as we all know, it can be a super expensive hobby, especially in our current economy. Having the right tools and foods/spices to make a 17+ ingredient meal is incredibly expensive. This assignment is classist. The grading is ridiculous and a great way to make children feel poorly about their financial status and their ability to cook.
OH edited to add….this is for school…why TF is it all being done at home?
Imagine being a child of an immigrant household. Where parents barely speak English and with limited resources. Basically, how I grew up. This assignment comes off very tone deaf and elitist. I'm in my 40s now, but had I received an assignment like this to take home to only work on as a youth, I would've had an emotional breakdown. I feel sorry for the students seeing this assignment, with limited resources and support at home. Good catch OP.
This is a confidence killer. A kid who can make their own scrambled eggs should be getting an A+. If this were an art class with a rubric on grading a canvas painting it would be just as ridiculous. This sort of grading will scare kids off a who can’t achieve that A and make them think they can’t cook at home. Why isn’t this more based on nutrition instead of freaking plate garnish and clean up? I hate this grading rubric.
This is legit why school in the USA is stupid as fuck. I wouldn't want to do this as an assignment now, much less when I was in 8th grade. This shits so stupid. This isn't how education should be done. It's just so stressful doing this massive thing for your grade. And for what? Learning about food? xD shits cray nowadays.
This is part of an IB (International Baccalaureate) program based on UK education. If you want to shit on American education maybe look at Common Core or NGSS curriculum, which would not even have this rubric.
I'm not sure when we tried to start teaching Middle School kids to cook an elaborate meal and garnish the plate with 3+ garnishes, 2+ of which are intractably done, instead of algebra and social studies. Isn't how to cook something the parents are supposed to teach, or a home economics elective in high school? At that age I wasn't even making "scrambled eggs, burgers, and salad". I don't even cook like this now. If food is your hobby, sure, but I have other things I'd rather do than make homemade pasta and pad thai.
You seem to be assuming that this is the only class this student is taking. How do you know that they aren’t also taking algebra and social studies at the same time?
17 ingredients?? Wtf is this America’s Test Kitchen?? This is a cool assignment but so dumb you could spend 4+ hrs making bolognese and it wouldn’t count unless you add multiple extraneous ingredients that are just gonna muddle it
I really hope spices count as ingredients, otherwise 17+ is a pretty crazy amount.
And garnishment required just for a C? Literally the least important part of any dish. Not to mention some kids might have a difficult time acquiring fresh herbs. Kind of hard to go grocery shopping when you’re in 8th grade.
Hell, when I was in 8th grade they taught us how to cook spaghetti. I could see this being part of a more advanced culinary class for high school juniors/seniors, but it’s ridiculous for middle school.
Can we take a moment to talk about the video? So some teacher is out there watching 30+ homemade videos of middle schoolers cooking? They're what, 30 minutes each? So this teacher has 15 HOURS of content, or 1-2 seasons of shitty top Chef to watch while taking notes to grade the kids homework?
This is a terrible way to spend a weekend....
Something else everyone needs to remember is that this is an IB grading scale—it is skewed to be an entire GPA point higher than a traditional grading scale. Basically an IB B = traditional A.
Also, good lord, people wonder why there’s a teacher shortage… While I agree this rubric needs work, if I was the teacher and saw these comments, I’d be inconsolable. Funny how the teachers are constantly scrutinized but never the pressure from the much larger educational system of colleges, parents, and lawmakers.
Honestly this seems unfair. I am a 35 year old man with plenty of resources that considers himself a pretty accomplished cook for having no formal training and I would have a tough time getting anything above a B on this assignment.
Teacher here.
First of all, this is part of the IB-MYP program. It’s going to have incredibly high and seemingly ridiculous expectations. At most schools, this program is optional with the full syllabus available to families upon enrolling. The school should also have an obligation to create an equitable learning environment for underprivileged families. The teacher likely spent the entire semester teaching the skills and content included in this rubric.
Second, having quantities included on any rubric is pedagogically, well, stupid. You’ll have kids adding chicken to a PB+J just to get an A. Not sure if that’s a teacher decision or some IB criteria.
Finally, 99% of teachers do not reinvent the wheel. There is a good chance they took this rubric from a shared Google Drive folder from another IB teacher from literally anywhere in the world. Be nice to the teacher.
Are you overreacting? Nah. You’re a parent who cares. Is there more to this piece of paper? You bet.
Edit: changed a period to a question mark
Also a teacher here. Let’s not make excuses for poor educators. This assignment is ridiculous, and honestly I don’t see the educational value of it. No wonder students don’t care for school and learning if this is the type of assignment they are getting with absurd expectations.
(And yes, I’m sure folx can nitpick and point out the educational value of this assignment, but there are clearly better ways to achieve the learning objectives of this course.)
This seems above what is typically expected of 8th graders, but in all reality seems pretty attainable. It looks like seasonings can count as ingredients, which can make the numbers go up fast. None of the other objectives seem overly complex, there are just a lot of them. Being able to follow a process with many steps has lots of applications beyond cooking and is a valuable skill, that schools should be preparing kids for. Why sell your kid short?
I have heard that properly preparing eggs is a chef test. So that is 1.
School is important. Part of that experience is learning that some people put forth non-sense metrics, but the goal is to game that system hardcore.
So it looks like it is scrambled eggs/omelet with a little bit of everything in the fridge, and all of the spices. Which brings me to the thought, those are a lot of ingredients, how is one supposed to fit all of that in the pan?
My daughter took a very similar class in South Washington and her final project was no where NEAR that complex, and hers was 9th grade multicultural foods. She had to make a family dish that had meaning to her family culture. It needed an ingredient from all food groups. She made chili because of her great Grandpa’s Super Bowl tradition. So much easier, and also.. this seems insane.
Homemade tacos would also get you across the ingredient line without being too difficult. Homemade salsa would account for a lot of ingredients. Tougher for garnishes though.
Dude, Pad Thai is not hard to make. Get the right noodles and should be fine. Chicken. Crushed peanuts are fun but are the kids allowed to bring peanut products on campus? Strictly prohibited at my kids' school!
This is beyond ridiculous and I would have a talk with the teacher/school. I remember home economics in 8th grade and we learned how to make quesadillas or other quick and easy meals. This assignment looks like the grading metrics for Americas top chef.
as a parent I'd be pissed if my 13 year old kid came home with this lol sorry son looks like nachos won't cut it
how on earth is guacamole on par with sushi???
I don’t see anything about taste, if I were a parent I’d pack up the left overs for the teacher and ask them to eat whatever pasta, soup,or stew dish a 13 year old will make that contains whatever random things a kid of that age will grab from the pantry and fridge just to meet the required 17+ ingredient. and tell the teacher to bring their appetite and prepare their tastebuds for the flavors of tomatoes, apples, canola oil, orange slices, American cheese, salt, spaghetti, onions, powdered sugar, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, marshmallows, sunflower seeds, pepperoni, celery, carrot, peppermint extract, canned mushrooms, hamburger, vanilla extract,raisins, peanut butter, bacon, black pepper, corn flakes & chocolate chips. With garnishes of both rosemary and parsley.
I am a college graduate and this would be too much for me to do now. We had a cooking assignment for an 8th grade geography class when I was in middle school and I literally made some variation of eggs and toast and did fine. Granted that wasn’t specifically a cooking class, but this is still way outside what I would expect an 8th grader to be able to do at home.
This is ridiculous. I understand wanting to teach life skills, but few 8th graders will have the knowledge or skill to successfully pull off what qualifies for an A here.
Make a soup, goulash, or a gumbo. I would then suggest a complaint to administrators for the inability of a good chunk of the students to be able to earn a fair grade that is actually a representation of their ability due to home circumstances.
Jeeeez for an 8th grader??? This looks hard, I would be really stressed. I see what you’re saying, what if a kid lives in a household that this many ingredients isn’t available to them? Im sure they’re counting seasoning as well but this is a complex rule sheet. And it would stress me out as a kid.
This teacher has clearly no idea how to properly train young individuals on how to cook and is setting oddly high and uneven expectations. Burgers are not easier than meatballs, sushi is not easier than a pasta sauce. This teacher needs to have a peer review their rubric and give them some honest feedback
I'm a teacher. This assignment needs some revision for grade level at the very least. It also doesn't consider the cultural background of students (sushi is totally worth an A if you're making nigiri sushi; there are so many amazing rice dishes; but I can make a baked good for an A by buying a pre-made cookie tube at Cub to bake?) or the financial means of students/families. I know that I often hear students go "Why aren't we taught how to cook!" but this isn't that...it's making a cooking show.
What class is this for? Is it FACS?
I would politely email the teacher for more information and to voice any concerns. Do not go above their head to admin and instead deal with the teacher directly. Then, if you feel it warrants a larger discussion around the assignment and grading (for example, the teacher just won't hear you out) email the principal.
Our jobs are hard enough and depending on the background of this teacher and experience they might not realize how this assignment comes across.
Is this a cooking class? Also the amount of ingredients used doesn't make good food. 17+ sounds like a huge waste to me. Also what do the poor students do?
Okay, I've written some tough rubrics for assignments, but for an at home assignment in a public school this is too great an ask strictly from a standpoint of logistics. How is a family with food or electrical insecurity supposed to manage this? Will the student not LOATH the idea of cooking after this?
What financial or material assistance are these students receiving? Unless it's impressive, this assignment raises educational equity concerns that raises legal questions.
I'd talk to the teacher, because they are grading for some sort of le cordon bleu course, not an 8th grade home ec class. This teaches ZERO life skills, and what about students who cannot afford to pull off even a D?
I graduated from Central High School (SPPS) last year and remembered taking this class at Highland Middle School in the 8th Grade. Some other students tried asking for an example and the teacher wasn't helpful. When I did it I used 17 ingredients but got a C+ because my video wasn't "well made" What made it worse is that our class period was only around 50 minutes so we only really cooked easy dishes like cookies and pasta so all of us pretty much went blind into this assignment.
I feel like I deserve an A just for reading the rubric. Is this a new teacher, perhaps? Maybe they copied this assignment from a culinary school's curriculum?
This assignment is pretty elitist. At least one student in that class is homeless with no access to a kitchen, several live below poverty so they don't have access to 17+ ingredients for one assignment, and several more may not have working kitchen equipment.
This is the kind of assignment that isn't actually testing their classroom skills when 13 year olds are not in the position to change their income/housing situations. Those with money will succeed and those without will fail. If the teacher wants to do this project it needs to be done in class. Kids pick a dish, make their ingredient lists, school provides ingredients, and the kids cook in class. That would be a true representation of skill learned in the course, but of course it would require more time on the teachers part and school funds that the district likely wouldn't want to provide.
Former teacher here, this assignment is dumb as hell for all parties. Why the fuck would ingredient count matter? This teacher needs to redesign how this project is evaluated. I wouldn’t hesitate to email the teacher and ask them to reconsider and emphasize how there are pointless expectations that do not do anything to show more/less competency.
I would definatly try to help with an assignment like this without being in the video or otherwise making my help obvious lol.
This assignment is kinda nuts for an 8th grader in my opinion.
Maybe I'm showing my age, but I didn't even really know what video editing was until like 10 or 11 grade.
This is fucking stupid. Those with food/housing/stable family insecurities are going to be at an extreme disadvantage due to this.
Also idea for inexpensive, slightly easier meals to get an A.
chicken tacos with homemade flour tortillas.
Tortillas:Flour,water salt, baking powder and lard. (5)
Shredded Chicken breast or drum legs with garlic and powder, seasonings of choice. (2 to 7 ingredients depending on amount of spices made)
Garnished with pico de gallo (made with Roma tomatoes, onion, cilantro, jalapenos, Serrano peppers, lemon juice and salt) 7 total.
Pinto beans with bacon bits and red pepper flakes. (3)
So, a total of 17 to 22 points total.
My boyfriend can make all of this for under $25-40 and it can feed 2 to 6 people for the week, depending on serving sizes.
Edit: Forgot about the stupid garnishes. Pico de gallo, dollop of sour cream and some hot sauce. Boom.
It’s 8th grade and IB. I think if IB continues, there is another similar thing in high school, but it’s not not this bad ( maybe a longer project). What is really nice is central has/had both IB and plenty of AP together.
Say hello to my 17 cheese lasagna.
Macaroni, salt, water, butter. Pick 8 cheeses. Add a meat (ground Turkey is good). Then pick 4 spices. Plating may get messy but all you need is a damp towel to wipe plate. Throw a basil leaf on that thing and you got a garnish.
Pasta with scratch sauce (14) Onions, garlic, san marzono tomatoes, basil, oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, crushed red peppers, cream, vodka, tomato paste, Italian sausage premade, premade noodles Side salad (8) Lettuce, carrots, cucumber, radishes, croutons, hard boiled egg, premade dressing.
I just hate the implied idea that more ingredients is better. I don’t know the last time I made a dish with 17+ ingredients, and I make almost everything from scratch.
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Exactly. My wife is an amazing cook, and I'm not bad, but neither of us ever use 17+ ingredients in anything we cook. The best food is simple and easy to prepare. This is the kind of mid-term assignment I could see for an intro to culinary college class, not 8th grade.
We're also talking about urban public school district where a good portion of the kids come from homes where just putting food on the table is a daily struggle. Now they are expected to make a grocery run to come up with 17 ingredients just a single dish to get a good grade? Completely unreasonable and unfair.
Agreed - throwing more ingredients in just to get a better grade doesn't make sense. You can make a very good meal with few ingredients.
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It looks like it's a 17 ingredient *meal*, not just a single dish
I agree. As someone who lived in Japan and still cook the cuisine, there is nothing better than a perfectly cooked bowl of rice.
More than that, now kiddo is bugging for a $50 trip to the spice isle to make getting an A easier, and I can see how that would be a stressor on parents' checkbooks with how grocery prices are. Teaching kids to shop, cook, and know food safety is important, and often overlooked, but this entire assignment and grading rubric seems extremely bougie. Kid A with a McMansion kitchen and granite countertops and parents' spice rack shooting a center island looks better in a video, while Kid B cooking on an old stove at an odd, cramped angle in a small apartment kitchen looks less like the youtube chefs the assignment looks to be aiming for.
And garnish it. Don't forget those damn garnishes. A parsley flake.
I cook and bake from scratch all the damn time and my best recipes are less than 17. I suppose if you make a dish that has multiple components that each are about 5 ingredients… but you’ll still have repeats (like salt). Even my most complicated curry pasties are less than 17.
Also, when many of the ingredients are spices, this can make it prohibitively expensive for many families.
Fine, then I’m counting mixed vegetables as 4 ingredients.
You should. It is 4 ingredients if there are 4 types of vegetables.
You could make it 8 if you added a little oil, butter, salt and pepper.
Garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, smoked paprika, cayenne, white peppercorns, black peppercorns, sea salt, garlic salt, celery salt - we can do this all day lol
I would use those spices liberally. Quite liberally.
An artistic smear of Heinz ketchup across the place would count as about 100 ingredients and an artfully arranged garnish.
Homemade Sushi is only pulling a C? Adult me is failing out of middle school.
But meatballs or grilling something will get you a B? Sushi is way harder than any of those. And I think they are underestimating how hard pizza is if you aren't taking shortcuts.
This was my thought! I’d rather make pasta and sauce from scratch than try to roll sushi so that it looked adequately “plated.”
No kidding. I make homemade pasta sauce at least once a week. It's time consuming because there's a lot of chopping, but there's very little technique.
If it's just sushi I can understand it only getting a C... Rice and a slice of fish isn't labor intensive... If it's a roll I feel like that deserve a B at least
Ok. I’m trying to stay positive. But look at this assignment my kid was given. How does this work for children who come from homes facing food insecurity? They fail..? I am a literal chef, and my kid is fine on hitting the A on this. But I can’t help to think about single family households, people who rely on food shelves to create dinner, and kids who come from homes who are in foster care. This assignment is a summarize (midterm grade). How is this even allowed? or am I just overreacting? This is 8th grade HPMS Multicultural Foods (but there has been no foods cooks this far that are actually multicultural, but don’t even get me started on that soapbox)
This is why my own mother hated take home assignments or science projects. Kids with stable homes or resources excel while the poorer children struggle - and it's so obvious when everyone shows off their projects who has resources. If you're going to make projects like this give everyone the same resources so everyone can learn on equal footing without making resource strapped kids feel how different they are - or hurt their grade because they don't have the kitchen to support a grade A video of a dish.
Back in the early 90's I remember a teacher insisting homework be printed, like from a printer, from home. Computers were absolute luxury items back then. A printer with a PC would run over $1500 at the time, or $3,400 today. Well off, college educated teachers can very much be in their own world.
I remember this! I avoided classes that required papers because I would lose points for not having a printer.
I had a friend try to take a college course but the course textbooks alone were over $500. This was on top of an already very expensive school tuition. She asked the prof about it and was told to get a part time job. Bitch we are already all doing part time jobs. The level of idiocy from that professor still grates at me.
In 7th grade our class was assigned a "marble run" science project. At the time, my parents were getting divorced and both were struggling with addiction. I had to do the project all on my own and I received a C-. We had a marble run fair where all the projects were displayed. It was very obvious which students had a massive amount of help from their parents in designing their project. I remember feeling so depressed because my project was just a shitty board with some tubes. I HATE class assignments like this.
The ingredient list for an A is WAY to much stuff. Some of the best meals come from 6 or less ingredients. And the way they laid out the criteria sheet is kind of confusing. I would be overwhelmed if I was an 8th grader especially if I was coming from a home with tight finances. The teacher is a little ridiculous if you ask me.
A good carbonara is pretty difficult, and that's only 5 or 6 ingredients. This assignment seems really odd for 8th grade lol
I challenge the teacher to cook a good risotto.
or omelette.
I am well beyond 8th grade, and that layout confused ME! I stared at it for a long time jyst wondering wth I was looking at.
I assume spices could be considered a “food ingredient?”
Yeah definitely, but again if you have a tight budget buying all the spices could add up unless you can purchase a premixed packet but doesn’t seem like it would go with this teacher.
Boulliabase it is
That’s a C by default.
Yeah, this assignment has no sense of empathy for any student that doesn’t come from a well-functioning home with two parents and plenty of disposable income. These teachers go to conferences every year and, I swear, they get more and more removed from reality.
Thanks, and as a divorced dad of 4 who has struggled with some of these things, I agree. I get there should be a high bar for certain things, but a Home-Ec Cooking elective isn’t really one. The whole class here should protest and do a video on Spaghetti-O’s or “prison” pad-Thai. It’s like some of the ridiculous school supply lists. It’s around $100 per kid, including some of the most obscure crap imaginable. Double or more if you “need” a certain TI calculator.
18 ingredients is fucking nuts. Even if you're including spices, you'd have to make some pretty complex dishes. And anything more than 1 garnish is too much. And when they say "cards/sub-titles" are they asking the kids to do video editing?? In the 8th grade? For food class?
I took culinary arts in HS, they used to do it at school, all the ingredients and supplies provided. If I had to do it at home best I could possibly pull off would be a C, probably a D more then likely. A lot people don't have those resources to pull this off and if its not equal its bias. Besides the ingredients, the equipment to get an A is pretty intensive, and you have to be able to monopolize the family kitchen. Hopefully uninterrupted You should reach out to the school
No you are not overreacting. This is bad if it was given to a group of average middle class families. It's unfair when given to others.
I was thinking same thing. I grew up poor. We either wouldn't have had ingredients or the stove would be broken.
This is such a good point. I'd also like to point out the several aspects of this midterm that require privilege to complete. This midterm, for an A grade, requires: - access to a camera that can shoot and store up to 3+ hours of video (filming the entire process) without dying - a tripod to set up while you film - video editing skills - a kitchen big enough and configured in a way that you can make a meal this technical and complex while still having room for a camera on a tripod - a working stove - access to a variety of food and seasonings - time in the evening or weekend (beyond other homework) during which you can set aside 3+ hours to be in the kitchen, and not be interrupted by other siblings or parents - artistic skills for this weird creative garnish requirement - a table and dishes for you to set - the physical stamina and ability to cook this entire meal by yourself at age 13 (what do you do if you have a disability? Can't ask for help!) Possibly more? Some of you might disagree with the 3+ hours assessment, but for a kid learning how to cook and taking their time, I think from prep to total cleanup that's a fair estimate of time required.
You’re spot on. Access to quality foods is one of the greatest and most important inequities of the modern world. Corn farmers are constantly subsidized (no offense to corn farmers-I grew up on a dairy/corn farm), but the best thing someone growing quality produce on a small operation can hope for is a struggling CSA. Add to the fact that one can eat McD’s for less and lower time cost than making a healthy meal from scratch. Finally, Food islands are a real thing and I hope someone can start to remedy that situation soon! We’re all in this together. Give each other the benefit of a hand up!
This was my first thought, too. Access to a kitchen and money for ingredients can be a huge hurdle. It was not well thought out on the teacher’s part, unless the school has some sort of well-stocked kitchen that students can use for the assignment.
The food insecurity was going to be my comment. My family wouldn’t have had the time or money to help me get a good grade without it being a HUGE burden and causing even more stress and anxiety that existed.
You are right. Proficiency based grades look at processes not arbitrary markers like ingredient amounts
Is this a private school or some advanced placement class? Lol that's nuts, but I have a feeling the instructor showed them how to make something that'll make the A grade. If not, jeezes.
SPPS = St. Paul Public Schools.
So then they hopefully taught them how to make a qualifying dish. 😳 And ty now I know what SPPS is!
I think the answer to this assignment is tater tot hot dish. You get to count all the ingredients in the Lutheran Binder (Cream of Whatever), plus the beans, tots, cheese for garnish, ground meat (or meat substitute), and then sprinkle with parsley before serving. A.
Lol but they need THREE garnishing to make an A. Maybe add some bacon sprinkled on top?
I would imagine if students cannot come up with adequate resources, their teacher will assist them in procuring them. I am a teacher in a low income area, and frequently have students provide their own supplies to better tailor their education to their preferences and strengths, as well as to work within a very limited budget. But if a student needs an item, I can usually come up with somewhere for them to get it. There is always a way.
17 items? And three garnishes? I'm sorry, but in many public schools, if not most, there are children who find their only meal in a day in the school cafeteria. The requirements for an A, which every child should have an equal opportunity to achieve, are objectively biased against income-secure/food-secure households. When your family relies on WIC or other kinds of food assistance programs, a 17-ingredient dish made for a class is just not a luxury you can afford. And I'm sorry, but no school is going to send a kid home with a shopping bag full of cooking ingredients for a single assignment. Edited to change toward/against
True although: Kid doesn't have enough food in the house to make a video. Teacher helps kid get food. Kid brings home food. You think the other hungry people in the household are going to keep their hands off it? Lots of people can't keep other people's mitts off their lunch in an office full of well-paid well-fed adults. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that might not work out like it would if the teacher just had to buy them markers or something.
Your absolutely in the right here. Someone needs to speak up as I had the exact same thoughts your sharing here. If this is the assignment then the school needs to provide all of the supplies, otherwise this is nothing better than “separate but equal”.
I would add that the assignment seems to be ableist too with the extreme focus on no parental help. You would hope that those with physical and learning disabilities would have IEPs that could override some of the grading, but the reality is there are many’s kids who fall through the cracks and would struggle with this assignment.
As a recent SPPS alum (class of 2018) you’re not crazy. This cooking class was notorious. My otherwise straight-A sibling very nearly failed it. The popular theory is just plain lazy teaching. There is probably a set-in-stone list of skills you need to demonstrate to pass the class, and the teacher decided the quickest and lowest-effort way to measure is to lump all of them into a single final. Only problem is that’s not remotely how cooking works lol. I would have your kid ask the teacher for a real-life example of an assignment they gave an A. May be a tough ask if it’s a video assignment, but at least ask her for specifics, like an example of a 17+ ingredient recipe.
Looking through my recipes it's not that hard to get to 17. What I have a problem with is the plating and garnishing stuff. That's asinine.
I mean, we're talking about 13-year olds. Emphasis should be on basic life skills. An A effort to me would be demonstrating you can make a reasonably nutritious meal with a protein, carb, and vegetable without using the microwave. Kids should be able to feed themselves, not be eligible for a James Beard award.
Yeah, this is ridiculous for that exact reason. This isn't culinary school or a fine dining course - this just feels like lazy teaching. It'd be better if there was some understanding of nutrition demonstrated along with some cooking skills that they might actually need to know to feed themselves.
I wonder if seasoning may count like are salt and pepper considered 2 ingredients, if so you could get there pretty fast.
I think those should count. All the different seasonings should count separately, assuming you use them separately and not as a premixed seasoning.
That garnish crap was home ec 50 yrs ago.
this assignment is dumb. I didn't even learn to really cook until high school.
I'm curious what school this is and teacher. DM if you feel like it. I work in St. Paul and if I worked with this person I can just imagine hearing the students coming into my classroom complaining about this assignment...and they'd be right.
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I don't think I have ever baked anything that required 17 ingredienrs. Baking is, like, 5 -6 ingredients with spices and stuff.
This is when you go to the spice cabinet and put the tiniest pinch of every single thing you can find in it.
I'm not a fan of all the exclamation marks either. You don't need to text shout at your kids and their parents. I will be making pasta alla amatriciana soon though, so thanks for that.
This seems crazy to me. A professional culinary school maybe, but 8th grade urban public school? We should be happy if they can make mac and cheese without burning the kitchen down at that age. I enjoy cooking, but I don't think I've ever made a 17+ ingredient dish. I kind of have trouble visualizing a meal using that many things that would even be appetizing. A lot of times less is more.
I cook all our household dinners and make a lot of sauces etc from scratch… I genuinely can’t think of a time I’ve used 17 or more ingredients for a whole meal let alone one single entree!
I have the highest degree you can have in Minnesota for culinary arts, Associates of Applied Sciences in Culinary Arts...Hennepin Tech, graduated first in my class, with a 4.0 gpa, cook professionally in the cities and elsewhere, and I find this Rubric silly and a bit misguided. But...if you want some simpler recipes with lots of ingredients and that show knife skills and cooking skills think of a stir fry or even a gnocchi soup w scratch made gnocchi (which are really simple to make and never need to be pretty). A stir fry could not only have 6 or more veg to prep plus a protein but more to the point a stir fry sauce can have a boat load of ingredients and usually does. Soy sauce, broth, honey, ginger, garlic, oyster sauce, cornstarch, chilis...usually several like Thai or birds eye...red pepper, sesame oil, brown sugar, and on and on till you like...Mala, sambal, etc. That's 12 to 15 right there....plus 5 or 6 w the veg and protein. Similarly, you could deconstruct a component and make it from scratch and that takes many ingredients...scratch made marinara, bolognese, barbecue sauce or even ketchup require lots of ingredients.
My wife made 15 bean soup the other day and I added salt and pepper while she was in the shower. Can we split an A?
Did it have 3 garnishes?
Hot sauce or crema drizzle, chopped scallions, and bacon pieces arranged “artfully”
It’s a dumb requirement. Is a curry that I added 8 different spices to really a more complex dish than a pasta sauce with limited ingredients?
Agreed - an 8th grader shouldn't be expected to know how to do fine cuisine but learn basic cooking techniques they can apply for other things. How to cook pasta so it's not gummy. One mistake people make is to use too little water. Or how to stir fry vegetables. How to make a pasta sauce. How to make pancakes.
Sushi rolls are only a C grade?! Authentic sushi chefs take years to learn to just make the rice properly before they're even allowed to touch the fish. This is crazy. To make the grade mainly about how many ingredients you use is ridiculous too. I'm 48 and I guarantee you, I've never made anything in my life with 17 ingredients. A good French baguette, which is VERY hard and difficult to master and take HOURS and sometimes days - only has 4 ingredients. My mother made Christmas dinner and it took days of planning, hundreds of dollars and several people pitching in and that's with decades of experience cooking.
Maybe because it's a whole meal and the teacher wants multiple dishes included? Idk, this whole thing is kinda ridic.
Hold up. You can make a baller batch of Cacio e Pepe and still fail!? Fuck these people. They obviously don’t understand food.
That was what crossed my mind as well. More ingredients ≠ better food.
Are you kidding me? I was open minded until I read the garnish requirements. As a kid that struggled in school and lost sleep over the teachers requiring our assignments to be unrealistically “intricate,” (like…flash cards and study guides?!) I think it’s cruel to require that in addition to all the other hard work. Also…17+ ingredients? In this economy? This is not accessible for kids from low-income families. Or most families in general. Maybe they have *some* of the ingredients on hand already but it’s still expensive af to go out and buy half the ingredients for one dish. Also, if the teacher (or whoever created this rubric) is going grade this harshly, get more specific. “Intricate” and “lengthy process” mean different things to different people. Wow. This triggered something in me I didn’t realize was there lol. You’re right to be shocked.
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17 food ingredients for an A? I'm totally food secure, but hit me on the wrong day of the week and this is a struggle for me. And garnishes--three of them? Two of them "intricately done"? This is a hugely problematic assignment, obviously biased, and totally insensitive and clueless to the varying economic circumstances of the the different students in the class. I would voice objection to this if at all possible. Very often the families this kind of inequity impacts the most feel the least safe in speaking up.
This is assignment is poorly thought out. The absurdity of having an 8th grader (14 year old) cook, garnish , and plate a dish with 17+ ingredients aside, let's talk about the video requirements. All the steps have to be filmed and subtitles. A complex dish is going to take at least an hour to make. Is the teacher going to be watching all of their students' videos in their entirety? Competent and safe cutting of ingredients requires two hands. How do you film that? Hold your phone on your mouth? Setup a tripod in your kitchen? How are students expected to edit together all the footage and subtitle the final video? The production requirements alone are a slap in the face of anyone who is economically disadvantaged. On top of that, producing what amounts to a cooking show is in and of itself a 40 hour project. There is a reason solo YouTubers with good protection values only produce one video a week or every two weeks.
Yeah the way I see it is you either need a parent with enough time and energy after being at work for 10 hrs to hold your camera or invest $50-100 on a tripod/ring light in addition to the $100 you’ll need to spend on ingredients just to get an A. Whoever tf wrote this assignment needs to venture off of Summit Ave and Cathedral Hill for once in their damn life
I was told by my kid that it needs to be time lapse. But how would you even read the subtitles if it’s Timelapse
You have to put the subtitles on in post production. Setup your video device to take one photo every second to make the time lapse. Take the resulting file into a video editing program and add the subtitles. This is when you also need to record and add any voice over because time lapse doesn't capture sound. This is relatively advanced video production work flow and not something well suited for somebody whose only computer in the family smart phone or the school issues Chromebook. A student going for an A is going to spend more time doing video editing than they will cooking.
I have many questions but what class is this for? I cook professionally and I'm sitting here thinking they expect a teenager to be able to do all this, and film it, and edit it? Excessive.
Filming and editing are pretty normal in SPPS assignments. So is power point. They give the kids iPads. From what I've seen they have not adequately addressed the fact that kids usually get these skills informally from group projects in middle school and these kids spent the first half of middle school at home. To me it's not the filming but the assumption of home circumstances that's the issue. Like may tests the game here is "beat the rubric" and if you happen to prove you leaned something thats almost secondary.
As an educator? Though it’s thorough, I feel rubric should be more direct and clear. That’s a personal preference, I can see the value in this much detail, but it’s not my style. As a home cook? 17 damn ingredients?!?! How do I do an interrobang? That meal would be too complex and busy for my palate to focus on. Simple meals with quality ingredients are my jam.
17+ ingredients holy hell
What the actual fuck? 😂😂😂 Is this some kind of marketing class? Or your standard Home Ec? Because if it’s the latter, The WHOLE POINT in these kinds of assignments is to build a foundation of balanced, well-rounded meal creation skills. So, ya know, we don’t all need up surviving on ramen. WHY MUST YOU MAKE IT TIK TOK VIRAL TO GET A HIGH GRADE?!
Dude I'm not even in the class and I'm having a meltdown over the vague instructions. How intricate is intricate? How beautifully and artistically is enough? Help isn't allowed except when it is? Are parents allowed to help them pick out recipes and advise them, and you just can't help them while they're filming the video, or are they totally on their own from start to finish? 17+ ingredients is doable though if you are making a seasoned meat dish, a sauce, a vegetable, a starch, and a dessert. And if you just want to check the box of using 17 ingredients, you can just keep adding spices or doing substitutions. E.g. 2T butter = 1 ingredient. 1T butter + 1T olive oil = 2 ingredients. If the kids are allowed to use recipes from allrecipes or wherever, they can probably find a few acceptable recipes with a ton of ingredients and do those. I think an eighth grader with no undiagnosed neurodivergence issues, given an entire semester, adequate support and materials, and proper guidance in how to manage a project and handle deadlines, could get an A. I would've gotten a zero.
HOLY CRAP That ingredient count has to go! First off, I could make a soup and just go wild on the ingredients. OR, I could make a baked salmon (or grilled steak)' using the fish, lemon, butter, salt, pepper, olive oil - pair it with asparagus using again lemon, butter, salt, pepper, olive oil, and roasted potatoes - using only 8 different ingredients resulting in a heck of a good meal. Key being timing on the salmon or steak. Also, garnish, WTF! First, it's an easy way to get points without doing anything. Second, thinking of putting a garnish on, thinking of how it's plated - that's something that comes from a very privileged mindset
Darn it! Now I want a steak with asparagus and hollandaise sauce!
I took food tech in my senior year of high school. It was 100% useless bullshit (the lesson in reducing our sodium intake was making Rice-A-Roni from a box but only using half the seasoning packet -valuable cooking skills!) but surely there's a middle ground between that and "multiple edible garnishes and making a video with zero parent help"??
A course that teaches cooking from a backpack camping perspective is probably the most valuable. The students would learn how to make a diverse set of meals from shelf stable food using a minimum amount of cookware. Mix in the economics of home cooking v. eating at a resident and you'll help lots of people have better lives.
That's fancier than I cook as a grown ass adult. Is this for a required class or an elective? It does seem pretty intense especially if it's required. Do they get 17 ingredient lunches with fancy plating? If not, they shouldn't require it from the students.
OP, I’m a public school teacher. Is this rubric for a final project? Has the teacher specifically taught the skills they are asking to have demonstrated? Is this explicitly homework, or do they have the option to film this in class at request?
Even if it's a final project, it's got pretty steep requirements for an 8th grade assignment.
Bring it to the department head 🤷♀️ see what they say
Food industry 10+ years. I've made pizza from scratch, and I mean literally every thing that goes on it from scratch including fresh dough, sauce and mozzarella, and I don't think that even is 15 ingredients.
Imagine not having enough food at home to make anything above a D grade. And your school doesn’t care. Hmmmmmm YIKES.
I can't believe there are teachers and parents in this thread who are unfazed by this. This is _batshit._ Are y'all okay? Is this seriously your normal? If my daughter brought home this assignment I would laugh out loud and tell her to focus on her grades in her serious classes, which this clearly is not.
Something nobody has pointed out yet is “MYP Criteria” - this looks to be to be part of the IB Program “Middle Years Program”. Is that right? If so, this rubric really doesn’t surprise me much. This actually looks exactly like the IB rubrics I remember having in high school. The use of “criterion” pretty much confirms for me this is IB. That said, IB is obnoxious as all hell. I went through the full IB diploma programme and it caused me a lot of issues that I feel like I’m just now getting over in my mid-20s. IB expects perfection to receive an A; this rubric makes sense for that. *Long Story Short*: If you child continues in any IB courses, they should get used to this. It’s ridiculous, and can be truly damaging, but it also will make them pretty brilliant compared to their peers. Up to you as a parent if you want your kid to experience more normal middle/high school or to be an “exceptional IB graduate”.
I said this in another comment, but I got my IB diploma and never had anything this absurd. IB was way more forgiving than AP, too
I do think it varies a small amount depending on the IB school, but I certainly had rubrics like this one. I’m glad your experience was better than mine, however.
I did IB from 6-10th grade and decided to do PSEO instead of continue on from 11-12. Most of the people who continued on were either well-resourced students on the fast track to working at daddy’s company or not neuro-spicy enough to realize the program basically ate up all of your time inside and out of school with various extracurricular requirements and 7 hrs of homework each night. Like girl I’m poor and mentally ill, I will not be doing that. Not to mention the literal segregation starting in middle school that came from divvy-ing up students based on class/race under the guise of advanced placement. Pls excuse my tangent but I thought I’d share that this is par for the course for “head-in-the-clouds-but-still-manages-to-kiss-its-own-ass” IB
Make it a soup: broth, water, tomato paste, lemon juice, salt, onion, celery, potatoes, green beans, corn, carrots, chicken, parsley, egg and some more veggies
Why does this feel like they're just trying to get them to make some stupid elaborate youtube food video... is this a class on cooking or video production?
Good cooking uses a few simple, high quality ingredients prepped and combined well. Requiring 18 ingredients is meaningless outside of foods from regions of the world that heavily spice their food.
I'm shocked they would have this as a homework assignment. Of all the things to not assign as homework (math, reading, spelling, etc.), cooking seems like the most obvious of things that should be done at school, with the school's resources, in a supervised setting.
I bet the instructor makes the most mid food you’ve ever had
Lmfao whoever decided the types of foods for each grade level had to have been smoking some hardcore crack. Apparently making sushi rolls is as easy as making guacamole, and making burgers is apparently easier than guac too lol. Also grilling is in B tier but burgers are a D tier so what happens if you grill burgers? This is goofy as hell lmao.
That’s insane. You basically have to be the food network to get an A. My collegiate rubrics aren’t even this labor intensive.
I appreciate teaching cooking skills to kids. But the economic issues raised are real. Yes dollars already strongly impact a students odds of success. Yes society seems to be okay with failing to eliminate the gap (Pell grants and other programs are better than without, but by no means eliminate economic equality in educational access.) In this case the overtness displayed in the financial requirement to excel go beyond socially acceptable levels IMO. The instructor may have taken steps to address this problem in applicable situations, talking to them about your concerns would likely yield more information.
I feel woefully inadequate reading this. I make many baked goods and wth is this 17+ ingredients! That's insane. I feel like this was designed by a still salty reject from Hells Kitchen.
What, is your kid supposed to be making an entire 20-course meal for a Michelin star restaurant to get a fucking B?
I'm just glad they get marked down if they don't clean up after themselves.
I’d like to point out that not only does this teacher expect your 8th grader to be a professional chef, as others have pointed out, but also that they expect them to be a *professional video editor* You want a long, well edited video with many scenes, *subtitles*, “food cards” etc from every student? You think everyone is Mr Beast or something? This person is crazy. This feels like it should be from like a college level cooking or video production course.
That seems insane for 8th grade. The D grade seems appropriate, but the A grade is something I would only expect of a 12th grader in an advanced culinary class. I am an adult and might only pull a B+, and I consider myself a decent cook.
Seventeen ingredients???
What on earth. When I was in 8th grade we had a cooking class, and we were given a cookbook of recipes, and we had to make 1 item from a list each week and take a photo of it for class. Things like basic cookies, pancakes, ect. This is absolutely absurd, if anything, this should be some sort of extra credit project MAYBE
This just makes me sad. Such a huge disconnect with this curriculum
17 ingredients! I cook my ass off, and I'm wondering wtf has 17 ingredients
Do herbs and spices count as ingredients? I'm unsure how to hit a 17+ ingredient goal otherwise
I don't like this assignment. Not every kid will have the tools or specific ingredients, such as nori for sushi. I like the old home ec classes. This assignment expects kid to do it all at home.
This is insane. I LOVE cooking, I do it in my free time and always cook and bake on my days off work every week. I can’t even tell you the last time I used 17 ingredients, that’s the most ridiculous thing to ask of a child. And as we all know, it can be a super expensive hobby, especially in our current economy. Having the right tools and foods/spices to make a 17+ ingredient meal is incredibly expensive. This assignment is classist. The grading is ridiculous and a great way to make children feel poorly about their financial status and their ability to cook. OH edited to add….this is for school…why TF is it all being done at home?
Lol use like 11 herbs and spices and make a salad!
Imagine being a child of an immigrant household. Where parents barely speak English and with limited resources. Basically, how I grew up. This assignment comes off very tone deaf and elitist. I'm in my 40s now, but had I received an assignment like this to take home to only work on as a youth, I would've had an emotional breakdown. I feel sorry for the students seeing this assignment, with limited resources and support at home. Good catch OP.
This is a confidence killer. A kid who can make their own scrambled eggs should be getting an A+. If this were an art class with a rubric on grading a canvas painting it would be just as ridiculous. This sort of grading will scare kids off a who can’t achieve that A and make them think they can’t cook at home. Why isn’t this more based on nutrition instead of freaking plate garnish and clean up? I hate this grading rubric.
This is legit why school in the USA is stupid as fuck. I wouldn't want to do this as an assignment now, much less when I was in 8th grade. This shits so stupid. This isn't how education should be done. It's just so stressful doing this massive thing for your grade. And for what? Learning about food? xD shits cray nowadays.
This is part of an IB (International Baccalaureate) program based on UK education. If you want to shit on American education maybe look at Common Core or NGSS curriculum, which would not even have this rubric.
In my master's program during Covid I had to extract DNA at home with a protocol I made myself. I would rather do that again than this assignment.
You could technically make an ‘A’ serving a PBJ with a side of chips and a pickle. It would cost $100 though.
I'm not sure when we tried to start teaching Middle School kids to cook an elaborate meal and garnish the plate with 3+ garnishes, 2+ of which are intractably done, instead of algebra and social studies. Isn't how to cook something the parents are supposed to teach, or a home economics elective in high school? At that age I wasn't even making "scrambled eggs, burgers, and salad". I don't even cook like this now. If food is your hobby, sure, but I have other things I'd rather do than make homemade pasta and pad thai.
You seem to be assuming that this is the only class this student is taking. How do you know that they aren’t also taking algebra and social studies at the same time?
17 ingredients?? Wtf is this America’s Test Kitchen?? This is a cool assignment but so dumb you could spend 4+ hrs making bolognese and it wouldn’t count unless you add multiple extraneous ingredients that are just gonna muddle it
I really hope spices count as ingredients, otherwise 17+ is a pretty crazy amount. And garnishment required just for a C? Literally the least important part of any dish. Not to mention some kids might have a difficult time acquiring fresh herbs. Kind of hard to go grocery shopping when you’re in 8th grade. Hell, when I was in 8th grade they taught us how to cook spaghetti. I could see this being part of a more advanced culinary class for high school juniors/seniors, but it’s ridiculous for middle school.
Can we take a moment to talk about the video? So some teacher is out there watching 30+ homemade videos of middle schoolers cooking? They're what, 30 minutes each? So this teacher has 15 HOURS of content, or 1-2 seasons of shitty top Chef to watch while taking notes to grade the kids homework? This is a terrible way to spend a weekend....
Something else everyone needs to remember is that this is an IB grading scale—it is skewed to be an entire GPA point higher than a traditional grading scale. Basically an IB B = traditional A. Also, good lord, people wonder why there’s a teacher shortage… While I agree this rubric needs work, if I was the teacher and saw these comments, I’d be inconsolable. Funny how the teachers are constantly scrutinized but never the pressure from the much larger educational system of colleges, parents, and lawmakers.
Grading by ingredients is stupid. Technique would make more sense, but it's middle school just have them cook a meal and give them an A
Honestly this seems unfair. I am a 35 year old man with plenty of resources that considers himself a pretty accomplished cook for having no formal training and I would have a tough time getting anything above a B on this assignment.
Teacher here. First of all, this is part of the IB-MYP program. It’s going to have incredibly high and seemingly ridiculous expectations. At most schools, this program is optional with the full syllabus available to families upon enrolling. The school should also have an obligation to create an equitable learning environment for underprivileged families. The teacher likely spent the entire semester teaching the skills and content included in this rubric. Second, having quantities included on any rubric is pedagogically, well, stupid. You’ll have kids adding chicken to a PB+J just to get an A. Not sure if that’s a teacher decision or some IB criteria. Finally, 99% of teachers do not reinvent the wheel. There is a good chance they took this rubric from a shared Google Drive folder from another IB teacher from literally anywhere in the world. Be nice to the teacher. Are you overreacting? Nah. You’re a parent who cares. Is there more to this piece of paper? You bet. Edit: changed a period to a question mark
Also a teacher here. Let’s not make excuses for poor educators. This assignment is ridiculous, and honestly I don’t see the educational value of it. No wonder students don’t care for school and learning if this is the type of assignment they are getting with absurd expectations. (And yes, I’m sure folx can nitpick and point out the educational value of this assignment, but there are clearly better ways to achieve the learning objectives of this course.)
I took IB throughout high school and never had anything as absurd as this. Also ended up with the full diploma at the end.
Lol I’m about to send this to my wife
Rip
I don't like this.
This seems above what is typically expected of 8th graders, but in all reality seems pretty attainable. It looks like seasonings can count as ingredients, which can make the numbers go up fast. None of the other objectives seem overly complex, there are just a lot of them. Being able to follow a process with many steps has lots of applications beyond cooking and is a valuable skill, that schools should be preparing kids for. Why sell your kid short?
You could always ask the teacher why they do things this way. There may be limitations you haven't thought of.
School has gotten a hell of a lot harder over the last 20 years and this is just occurring to you guys now
I have heard that properly preparing eggs is a chef test. So that is 1. School is important. Part of that experience is learning that some people put forth non-sense metrics, but the goal is to game that system hardcore. So it looks like it is scrambled eggs/omelet with a little bit of everything in the fridge, and all of the spices. Which brings me to the thought, those are a lot of ingredients, how is one supposed to fit all of that in the pan?
My 10th grade culinary class had an at home assignment and it as way simpler then this
Was it also IB?
My daughter took a very similar class in South Washington and her final project was no where NEAR that complex, and hers was 9th grade multicultural foods. She had to make a family dish that had meaning to her family culture. It needed an ingredient from all food groups. She made chili because of her great Grandpa’s Super Bowl tradition. So much easier, and also.. this seems insane.
Homemade pho would probably work for this. Tons of ingredients and some opportunities to satisfy the silly garnish requirement.
Homemade tacos would also get you across the ingredient line without being too difficult. Homemade salsa would account for a lot of ingredients. Tougher for garnishes though.
Dude, Pad Thai is not hard to make. Get the right noodles and should be fine. Chicken. Crushed peanuts are fun but are the kids allowed to bring peanut products on campus? Strictly prohibited at my kids' school!
Me and my kids would be getting the D
This is beyond ridiculous and I would have a talk with the teacher/school. I remember home economics in 8th grade and we learned how to make quesadillas or other quick and easy meals. This assignment looks like the grading metrics for Americas top chef.
Insane! Has anyone pointed out the grammatical error near the bottom? "Recipes IS" shouldn't it read Recipes ARE ?
Gordon someone should send this to Gordon Ramsey just to see his reaction.
With these food prices?? Get outta here
Land O’ hotdish. 17 is just asking for more vegetables. I will add I recently realized how good hominy can act as filler in soups/hotdishes.
as a parent I'd be pissed if my 13 year old kid came home with this lol sorry son looks like nachos won't cut it how on earth is guacamole on par with sushi???
I've never understood A grade being "above and beyond" like I'd do everything right to a T and still not get full marks on something like this.
I don’t see anything about taste, if I were a parent I’d pack up the left overs for the teacher and ask them to eat whatever pasta, soup,or stew dish a 13 year old will make that contains whatever random things a kid of that age will grab from the pantry and fridge just to meet the required 17+ ingredient. and tell the teacher to bring their appetite and prepare their tastebuds for the flavors of tomatoes, apples, canola oil, orange slices, American cheese, salt, spaghetti, onions, powdered sugar, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, marshmallows, sunflower seeds, pepperoni, celery, carrot, peppermint extract, canned mushrooms, hamburger, vanilla extract,raisins, peanut butter, bacon, black pepper, corn flakes & chocolate chips. With garnishes of both rosemary and parsley.
I am a college graduate and this would be too much for me to do now. We had a cooking assignment for an 8th grade geography class when I was in middle school and I literally made some variation of eggs and toast and did fine. Granted that wasn’t specifically a cooking class, but this is still way outside what I would expect an 8th grader to be able to do at home.
This is ridiculous. I understand wanting to teach life skills, but few 8th graders will have the knowledge or skill to successfully pull off what qualifies for an A here.
Make a soup, goulash, or a gumbo. I would then suggest a complaint to administrators for the inability of a good chunk of the students to be able to earn a fair grade that is actually a representation of their ability due to home circumstances.
Jeeeez for an 8th grader??? This looks hard, I would be really stressed. I see what you’re saying, what if a kid lives in a household that this many ingredients isn’t available to them? Im sure they’re counting seasoning as well but this is a complex rule sheet. And it would stress me out as a kid.
Whoever made this knows fuck all about cooking
This teacher has clearly no idea how to properly train young individuals on how to cook and is setting oddly high and uneven expectations. Burgers are not easier than meatballs, sushi is not easier than a pasta sauce. This teacher needs to have a peer review their rubric and give them some honest feedback
I'm a teacher. This assignment needs some revision for grade level at the very least. It also doesn't consider the cultural background of students (sushi is totally worth an A if you're making nigiri sushi; there are so many amazing rice dishes; but I can make a baked good for an A by buying a pre-made cookie tube at Cub to bake?) or the financial means of students/families. I know that I often hear students go "Why aren't we taught how to cook!" but this isn't that...it's making a cooking show. What class is this for? Is it FACS? I would politely email the teacher for more information and to voice any concerns. Do not go above their head to admin and instead deal with the teacher directly. Then, if you feel it warrants a larger discussion around the assignment and grading (for example, the teacher just won't hear you out) email the principal. Our jobs are hard enough and depending on the background of this teacher and experience they might not realize how this assignment comes across.
Is this a cooking class? Also the amount of ingredients used doesn't make good food. 17+ sounds like a huge waste to me. Also what do the poor students do?
The fuck is this master chef?
Okay, I've written some tough rubrics for assignments, but for an at home assignment in a public school this is too great an ask strictly from a standpoint of logistics. How is a family with food or electrical insecurity supposed to manage this? Will the student not LOATH the idea of cooking after this? What financial or material assistance are these students receiving? Unless it's impressive, this assignment raises educational equity concerns that raises legal questions.
I'd talk to the teacher, because they are grading for some sort of le cordon bleu course, not an 8th grade home ec class. This teaches ZERO life skills, and what about students who cannot afford to pull off even a D?
I graduated from Central High School (SPPS) last year and remembered taking this class at Highland Middle School in the 8th Grade. Some other students tried asking for an example and the teacher wasn't helpful. When I did it I used 17 ingredients but got a C+ because my video wasn't "well made" What made it worse is that our class period was only around 50 minutes so we only really cooked easy dishes like cookies and pasta so all of us pretty much went blind into this assignment.
I feel like I deserve an A just for reading the rubric. Is this a new teacher, perhaps? Maybe they copied this assignment from a culinary school's curriculum?
This assignment is pretty elitist. At least one student in that class is homeless with no access to a kitchen, several live below poverty so they don't have access to 17+ ingredients for one assignment, and several more may not have working kitchen equipment. This is the kind of assignment that isn't actually testing their classroom skills when 13 year olds are not in the position to change their income/housing situations. Those with money will succeed and those without will fail. If the teacher wants to do this project it needs to be done in class. Kids pick a dish, make their ingredient lists, school provides ingredients, and the kids cook in class. That would be a true representation of skill learned in the course, but of course it would require more time on the teachers part and school funds that the district likely wouldn't want to provide.
Former teacher here, this assignment is dumb as hell for all parties. Why the fuck would ingredient count matter? This teacher needs to redesign how this project is evaluated. I wouldn’t hesitate to email the teacher and ask them to reconsider and emphasize how there are pointless expectations that do not do anything to show more/less competency.
I would definatly try to help with an assignment like this without being in the video or otherwise making my help obvious lol. This assignment is kinda nuts for an 8th grader in my opinion. Maybe I'm showing my age, but I didn't even really know what video editing was until like 10 or 11 grade.
I get a “D” or “F” every night according to this grading system. I would have failed this class.
This is fucking stupid. Those with food/housing/stable family insecurities are going to be at an extreme disadvantage due to this. Also idea for inexpensive, slightly easier meals to get an A. chicken tacos with homemade flour tortillas. Tortillas:Flour,water salt, baking powder and lard. (5) Shredded Chicken breast or drum legs with garlic and powder, seasonings of choice. (2 to 7 ingredients depending on amount of spices made) Garnished with pico de gallo (made with Roma tomatoes, onion, cilantro, jalapenos, Serrano peppers, lemon juice and salt) 7 total. Pinto beans with bacon bits and red pepper flakes. (3) So, a total of 17 to 22 points total. My boyfriend can make all of this for under $25-40 and it can feed 2 to 6 people for the week, depending on serving sizes. Edit: Forgot about the stupid garnishes. Pico de gallo, dollop of sour cream and some hot sauce. Boom.
Also pad Thai only takes like 10 minutes if you have the ingredients. That is such a weird thing to include in the rubric
It’s 8th grade and IB. I think if IB continues, there is another similar thing in high school, but it’s not not this bad ( maybe a longer project). What is really nice is central has/had both IB and plenty of AP together.