Chef's Table

I love good food. I love trying new places. I love the idea of curating an experience, especially with my wife. One place she took me on my last birthday was V. Mertz, probably one of the best restaurants I have ever been to right here in Omaha, that includes going to the James Beard Award Winning Zahav. But, one of my big life goals is to go to Alinea in Chicago. I was trying to get my brother-in-law to understand why going there would be so awesome, but words weren't cutting it. So we watched the 55 minute long Grant Achatz episode on Chef's Table.

Rewatching this episode during this time where education isn't really education and not knowing what education will look like for next year, this one quote stuck with me when Achatz was starting his new restaurant Alinea he said:

"We gathered the staff and I say everybody needs to believe the fact that we are about to open the best restaurant in the country. And anything else will be a failure."

Now I think that almost every part of this episode can be dissected and adapted to education, but when we start again in August, September, October, or whenever we start, what are we coming back to? Worksheets? Taking notes? Sitting in rows? Furthering equity gaps?

What if instead of going back to the same old school in the traditional sense, we came back to school thinking how would the best school in the country open? What would the first lesson be? What would the first unit be? How can we transform the learning of our students?

Listening to Zaretta Hammond's webinar Moving Beyond the Packet: Creating More Culturally Responsive Distance Learning Experiences she went into detail about making connections, using background knowledge, and actual doing. How can we rebuild school, because next year isn't like starting a new year. We have a chance to build a new system?.

Will we think that this chance is the one chance to be the best and anything else will be a failure?