Shoulder to Shoulder, Eye to Eye

I am now wrapping up my first full semester teaching the restaurant management lab that runs from 8:30 to 2:20, five days a week.  I am blessed with a chef instructor and TA's to get the fine dining restaurant and Cafe up and running each day.  I have mainly been expediter at lunch in our fine dining restaurant as well as check in now and then during the morning to see that we are getting ready to open the doors to the public. 

I got off to a shaky start since it has been 20 years since I worked full time in the back-of-the house but once I got my legs under me I was able to run the position and teach at the same time.  I LOVE teaching the lab everyday because the application of what the student knows and has learned happens in real time.  I am in there shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye, with the kids as we call in the orders and sell them each day from 11:30 to 1:00 PM.  I really think they love working alongside the teacher, too.  It is beholden to me to keep  my cool no matter how crazy it gets with kids who have never cooked or served a day in their life as the customers come in the door expecting quality food and service.  It is the ultimate teaching challenge.

I will make a confession to you.  I was bored out of my mind with lecture classes so glad I took on the ultimate teaching challenge of running the restaurant lab with novice students.  I have done all the teaching and learning techniques out there in my lecture classes and they were awesome at the time but soon -- based on the kind of person I am -- became old.  But when it comes to the restaurant lab, EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT AND SOME DAYS ARE HORRIBLE!  But so much learning is taking place on good days and bad to discuss as a teachable moment(s) while the lab is in full swing or at the end of the day when we do our debrief.  I look forward to implementing our revised teaching techniques and sharing them in the spring semester.

So those of you who are out there teaching similar classes you are so LUCKY!  I wish I had realized it sooner and taken on the ultimate challenge of teaching the restaurant labs.  Cannot wait so see what we continue to do make improvements and share with you in the future.  Oh and thanks to Colin Roche I will be using some of his ideas to use my newly acquired Flip digital recorder to film demonstrations students will need to watch before coming to lab so they have a clue about what we are talking about when giving instruction.