Author Archives: lindalazor
WOW!
Our WOW! Event was last Wednesday. I was so proud of the students. And very impressed with the variety of Apprenticeships this fall. The Citizen Schools WOW! Events are designed to have students demonstrate what they have learned during their apprenticeship to their parents, school teachers and community visitors. The students for Nutritional cooking all […]
Reflections on Kindness
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Last Thursday’s class was one of our most challenging since we were cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner. My Citizen Teacher co-lead was not well enough to come, but the Citizen Schools staff and Executive Director who thought she was just there to visit chipped […]
Menu planning and Low income family diets
We are just one week away from our final apprenticeship. As a last “Do” exercise we asked each of the students last week to choose a theme for a special meal event and create a menu. The top student menus chosen will be featured at the “WOW!” event Dec. 11. The selection criteria is having […]
Nutritional link to heart health (Hint: love your vegetables)
Last Thursday “Chef Carol” joined us from Santa Cruz. Carol is a “food entrepreneur” who works with Farmhouse Culture in Santa Cruz. She also recently completed a 6-month culinary program. Carol previously worked for a cardiovascular bio-tech company. One of the interesting things she shared with me is research shows there is a nutritional link […]
Careers and Fettuccine
Thinking about Careers is always the theme for one lesson. The classroom next door had a flipchart titled “Dream” on it with different careers shown below. That is what these apprenticeships are about – they expand the horizons of the students, and link education with future opportunities. We started with an exercise where each student […]
The Dangers of Sugar and Food Labels
Last Thursday we were fortunate to have Christina join our apprenticeship to discuss the basics of sugar consumption and label reading. Christina is a professional nutritionist who works at Whole Foods. Christina demonstrated the amount of sugar that is in some commonly eaten foods. For example, children’s breakfast cereals – one cup had 11 teaspoons […]
The Pursuit of Happiness and Smoothies
I attended a panel at Stanford on Happiness last Friday. Research shows meaning and purpose leads to long-term happiness, and pursuing pleasure results in short-term happiness. One interesting finding is the meaning of happiness shifts with age: from excitement in your late teens, to pursuing goals in your 20’s, then finding balance, followed by […]
Fajitas, Diabetes and WOW! Planning
Another fun apprenticeship last Thursday making home-made guacamole and fajitas. The students really enjoy the recipe preparation (specifically “cutting and chopping”!). They also loved eating chicken fajitas with a wide array of toppings. It was interesting to observe the response to having brown rice (we had brown rice mixed with beans as a topping – […]
The Cost of Inaction
You may think my passion for helping children in low income areas comes from compassion and the desire for social justice. That is true, however there is also a strong business case for taking action to remediate the Silicon Valley opportunity gap, The gap between the wealthy and very poor in the Bay Area is […]
Early Observations and Fruit Salad
This was our first “formal” apprenticeship. The format for this week (like future weeks) will be some type of engagement exercise related to the topic following by cooking. As usual, there was a high amount of energy, but once everyone started cooking they focused on the task. The results were some pretty delicious (and nutritious) […]
A Citizen Teacher's Experience 
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