Tag: education

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Tonight, Let the Kids Cook

By Laura Johnson Andrews

Students learn cooking skills and try new foods in Mitchell-based nonprofit Time at the Table’s Kitchen Kids program. Photo by Billy Mawhiney.


In a world of harried schedules and grab-and-go food, the traditional cozy family supper around the dinner table is no longer the reality for many Americans. But would a return to family mealtimes be better for our health and overall well-being?

Billy Mawhiney of Time at the Table, a Mitchell-based nonprofit, thinks so.”I was fortunate as a child to grow up in a home where family dinner was a priority. Even during sports season my mother would sit with me while I ate dinner at the table, involving herself into my life. When I began researching family dinner and realizing that only 1 in 3 American families eat around the table, I knew we had to do something about it.”

Time at the Table offers a variety of tools that support their slogan,”Reconnecting families, one table at a time.” One of the most successful has been their Kitchen Kids program. Kitchen Kids is a series of classes for children in grades 3-8 designed to give them”cooking confidence” in a safe and entertaining environment.

When kids learn their way around the kitchen, it encourages them to take those skills home and show them to Mom and Dad, helping families connect in a fun, delicious way. The four-lesson series starts simply. Mawhiney says,”The first lesson is always attention getting — making pasta from scratch. It gets your hands dirty and focuses on simple, basic ingredients kids know.”

The classes also encourage children to try new and healthier foods. A grant from the USDA has allowed Kitchen Kids organizers to track the program’s success in nudging children into eating fruits and vegetables. It’s working — 83% of students show an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption after attending Kitchen Kids.

Groups are kept small, so students have plenty of help as they learn.”We keep the class ratio to 1:5 with volunteers from the RSVP program in Mitchell. The James Valley Community Center not only allows us to use their space, but also supports us with great volunteers to have an extra set of eyes and hands to help guide the kids,” says Mawhiney.

The program has been so successful in Mitchell that it’s expanding into Sioux Falls. A two-part Kitchen Kids class will be held on November 3 and 17 at the Cross Pointe Baptist Church from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The $40 cost covers both sessions, with scholarships available upon request.

Mawhiney would like to see Kitchen Kids-style programs available in communities across the state. To that end, Time at the Table is developing a Kitchen Kids Resource Guide to help local groups start up a program of their own, with well-tested recipes, step-by-step guidance for instructors and more. Time at the Table also offers family classes for parents with smaller children.

For more information or to donate to their scholarship program, contact Billy Mawhiney at 605-550-0335 or bmawhiney@timeatthetable.org.

A Kitchen Kids student prepares pizza rolls. Photo by Billy Mawhiney.

Pizza Rolls

From the Kitchen Kids Resource Guide

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for the pan
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for rolling
Kosher salt
Black pepper, freshly ground
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 15-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon basil (dried or fresh)
2/3 cup shredded mozzarella
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 egg

In a mixing bowl or food processor, combine oil, flour and a generous pinch of salt. Mix together until mixture resembles small peas. Add yogurt and stir to combine a sticky dough. If dough is a little dry, add 1-2 tablespoons ice water. Cover dough and refrigerate until ready to use.

In another mixing bowl, combine crushed tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Stir well.

Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 1/8″ thick. Use a floured 4″ cookie cutter, cup or bowl (a plastic food container works well) to cut the dough into circles. Re-roll scraps and continue cutting until all dough has been used up. You should have 14-16 circles.

Place about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the tomato filling on one half of the dough circle. Fold the other half over and press gently but firmly along the edges of the circle to seal it, forming a half-moon. Use the back of a fork to create a scalloped edge along the seal. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough circles.

Beat the egg with 1/8 cup water to make an egg wash. Brush the tops of the pizza rolls with the egg wash and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.

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Who Should Pay For Good Public Programs?

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

My 2012 ballot is somewhat humdrum: mark the D’s, vote no on Governor Daugaard’s really bad ideas (Referred Laws 14 and 16), and make sure I affix enough postage. Simple.

Initiated Measure 15 is not so simple. More than 33,000 signatories placed IM 15 on the ballot to ask us to consider increasing our state sales tax from 4% to 5% to boost funding for K-12 education and Medicaid.

Practically, I should find voting for IM 15 easy. I teach. I have a daughter in public school. Passing IM 15 means $91 million more for K-12 education, or about $730 more for each student. With 20 kids in her first-grade class, that’s over $14,000 worth of new books, field trips, art supplies and other practical things that could help my daughter learn more.

Politically, I could find IM 15 useful in challenging some vital South Dakota Republican mythology. I’ve heard Republican legislators fantasize out loud that they have a mandate from the voters not to raise taxes. They claim that they’d like to increase funding for education and other programs but that the voters won’t stand for any tax increases. These lazy statesmen thus justify their own inability and unwillingness to seek new revenue to solve policy problems.

Passing IM 15 at the ballot box would repudiate this self-justifying myth. It would say to Republican legislators, “The voters think education and health care are important enough to spend more money on; why don’t you?”

But one key principle keeps me in doubt on IM 15: we would expand our reliance on a regressive tax. The poorest 40% of wage-earners would pay a touch over 1% of their income to cover this tax increase, while the richest 20% would pay just 0.3% more from their income. South Dakota’s millionaires would pay just 0.1% more out of their hefty pocketbooks. In practical terms, the blue-collar family down the street has to find a way to cut out three days’ worth of meals and other expenses to pay for this tax increase; your CEO neighbor skips one fancy dinner at Minerva’s and turns off the contributions to her hedge fund for an afternoon.

K-12 education and Medicaid are vital public services. Our legislature lacks the political will to fund them properly. But can we justify funding public services by making South Dakota’s tax system even more unfair to lower-income people?

That’s the hardest question South Dakotans face on this year’s ballot.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.



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Kids Prepare for Pow Wow

North Elementary School in Mission will end the school year with a Wacipi (pow wow) on Friday, May 18. Students at the K-3 school have been making preparations, and it has become a learning experience that you won’t find in the usual textbooks. The pow wow begins with a feed at 11:30 a.m. at the Sinte Gleska Multi-purpose Building, and the music and dancing will follow. Photos by Bernie Hunhoff.

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Educational Excellence

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

A couple months ago, the debate over Governor Daugaard’s education bill got me wondering what’s so bad about our South Dakota schools that we need some big, ugly legislation to”fix” them. Last weekend, as I collected signatures to refer that legislation to a public vote, I met a neighbor who said our schools are”good enough”… and that”good enough” is their biggest problem.

As he signed my referral petition, this neighbor–let’s call him Fred–recalled an article he read in our local paper last fall about Spearfish High School’s higher-than-average ACT scores. Fred recalled the bad side of the report, noting that only 39% of Spearfish students scored high enough for ACT to consider them ready for college in all four academic areas tested. In the article, Spearfish HS principal (and my boss!) Steve Morford questioned that data, saying his conversations and follow-ups with Spearfish grads indicate they are”very well prepared for college.”

Fred wanted a different answer. He didn’t want an assurance that things are fine. Fred wanted to hear the principal grab those stats by the horns and say,”You’re right! That number is too low! Here’s how we’re going to raise it.”

Had I had the Web handy, I might have pointed out to Fred that the national percentage of students fully ready for college by ACT’s reckoning is 25%; the statewide percentage is 29%. So really, on what seems to be a pretty tough scale, Spearfish is rocking the socks off much of South Dakota.

I don’t think Fred was to be assuaged. He said he asks folks to name the best high school in South Dakota–not the school that makes the news with football or basketball championships, but the school that provides the best education in South Dakota. No one can tell him … and on the spot, I couldn’t either.

I might suggest that ranking South Dakota schools by academic excellence is a complicated question, but Fred senses that South Dakotans aren’t really interested in asking the question. Fred senses a distinct complacency about our schools. He senses a lack of desire to push for excellence. He senses an endemic willingness to settle for not getting in the way of the smart kids while we bring the stragglers along… or at least keep them out of trouble.

Fred put his critique in the context of South Dakota’s aspirations for the Homestake Lab. He can envision a world-class research facility that would attract the world’s best scientists to the Black Hills. But he says those scientists will come only if they can place their kids in world-class schools. Those scientists will not bring their families if Lead-Deadwood, Spearfish and Sturgis only offer schools that are”good enough.”

Booster-pricking talk like that won’t get Fred elected to any local school boards. But Fred gets me wondering: how committed am I in my classroom to academic excellence? Are our K-12 schools committed to offering the best education possible? Or in the face of tight budgets and maybe some South Dakota inferiority complex, have we defined”possible” down to”good enough”?

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.

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Small-D Democracy and Crafting Education Policy

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

I’m a Democrat. I’m also a democrat.

Big-D Democrat means I vote for nice folks like Mitch Fargen, Tim Johnson, and Barack Obama, then bust their chops every now and then for compromising so much with Republicans.

Small-d democrat means I’m less interested in helping specific politicians gain power and more interested in helping the demos be the crats. I want the people to rule. I want every citizen, from downtown Sioux Falls to twenty miles west of Wanblee, to have an equal say in their government, and as much say as possible.

One key element of good small-d democracy is making the people’s participation in their government transparent. The legitimacy of democracy depends on our knowing that lots of our fellow citizens are participating, that their voices are being heard, and that those voices effect real change in policy.

If we take Governor Dennis Daugaard at his word, this year’s House Bill 1234 was democracy at its finest:

This year, the Legislature began with my education proposal, and took input from hundreds of people to address concerns and make it a better plan. In my 16 years as a legislator, Lieutenant Governor, and now as Governor, I have never seen the Legislature receive and incorporate so much constituent input on a single bill [Gov. Dennis Daugaard,”Governor’s Column,” March 5, 2012].

I’ve never seen so much constituent input incorporated in legislation, either… not even on HB 1234. An ad hoc committee of six legislators met to write and revise the bill. A working group of school administrators met to field public input and distill it into recommendations for that committee. But these meetings were held behind closed doors. They produced no public minutes, no record of proposals, rebuttals, or decisions. We don’t know who the”hundreds” of inputters were, let alone what their input was.

We do have on the record two online petitions that drew signatures from thousands of South Dakotans opposing HB 1234. We have on record news reports from crackerbarrels around the state where nearly everyone who spoke up said HB 1234 was a bad idea. We have legislators both for and against the bill saying they heard the same prevailing sentiment in their calls and e-mails.

The record says that the South Dakota Legislature ignored a lot of constitutent input. Not exactly an inspiring example of democracy.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.

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South Dakota Schools: What’s the Problem?

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

Basic management principles say that before you implement a solution, you should define the problem you’re trying to solve.

In the State of the State Address on January 10, Governor Daugaard proposed a package of policy solutions for South Dakota’s public schools. In that speech, the Governor offered this assessment of our K-12 system:

I am proud of South Dakota’s schools. Our students’ test scores — our ACT scores and NAEP scores — routinely exceed national averages. Our high school graduation rate is strong. And our high school graduates go on to post-secondary education at one of the highest rates in the nation [Governor Dennis Daugaard, State of the State Address, Pierre, SD, 2012.01.10].

Beating national averages, graduating, going to college… am I the only one having difficulty seeing the problem here?

Now remember, I spend every workday in a classroom, surrounded by kids who are a couple-three years away from college. If there is a problem, I want to know about it so I can fix it.

So tell me: what is the problem with South Dakota’s public schools? Don’t slip into vague complaints about unions or bureaucrats or lazy teachers. Get specific. Talk about me.

Check out my lesson plans online. Tell me what French vocabulary, grammar, and culture I should do more of, or less of. Tell me if I’m giving too much homework, or too little. Be specific.

Come to my classroom. It’s a public classroom; you pay my salary and the light bill. Come watch me teach. Come watch the kids learn. Stay for at least one full 90-minute block. Come for several lessons in a row, just so you know I’m not putting on a big show the day you come and then handing out worksheets and snoozing the next couple days. Tell me how I’m letting you and these kids down. Be specific.

Or visit your own school district. Read the textbooks and lesson plans. Watch the teachers and the students closely. Identify things your teachers are doing well and things they need to do better. Be specific.

Public education is not some ideological chess game. It is real, daily work, happening in your town, on your dime. Go see it happen. Go look for failure. If you see failure, then by gum, let’s fix it.

But if you see success, if you see teachers and students busting their chops, why would you gamble that”success” on”solutions” from Pierre?

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.

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Cooperation, Not Competition

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

During my first teaching evaluation at Madison High School, my principal, Dennis Germann, said,”There’s a difference between being efficient and being effective.”

This morning, I heard our Secretary of Education, Melody Schopp, say on public radio that she’s not worried that the merit bonuses proposed by our governor would cause teachers to stop collaborating with each other. The truly great teachers, she said, have never been motivated by monetary rewards.

Both Germann and Schopp recognized that public education doesn’t work like a business. (Well, I’m sure my principal didn’t; I’m not sure our Secretary has thought through the philosophical contradiction of her boss’s plan and her defense thereof.)

We educators try to do things efficiently, but we don’t measure our success in terms of number of students run through the mill each hour. I’m teaching French right now. Instead of constructing a quick computer-scorable multiple-choice test that all of my students could take at the same time, I’m conducting 19 hours of one-on-one interviews to give each student a chance to show me what she’s learned.

We don’t calculate returns on investment with our students. We teachers sometimes sweat more to help a failing student reach a D than we do to help a B student snag an A. Our constitutional mandate to provide a free and adequate education to all South Dakota children prevents us from cutting loose the less productive bottom percentiles for the sake of dedicating more resources to the most promising GDP generators.

We don’t look at our students as commodities on which we personally can make a profit. Our professional code of ethics forbids us from doing so. We help students not to boost our pay but to enrich our community with young people who can participate not just in the economy but in our democracy, in our culture.

We teachers collaborate. When the new teacher down the hall needs advice or lesson ideas, we share. We know that another teacher performing better doesn’t threaten us; it helps us.

The core values of public education are cooperation and community, not competition. Governor Daugaard’s proposed merit bonuses undermine those core values. Kids become commodities. Colleagues become competitors. Public education becomes a rat race.

Teachers don’t want that. Parents and kids shouldn’t want that. Let your teachers focus on what matters –not beating each other for bonuses, but working together to do right by our kids.

Cory Allen Heidelberger writes the Madville Times political blog. He grew up on the shores of Lake Herman. He studied math and history at SDSU and information systems at DSU, and is currently teaching French at Spearfish High School. A longtime country dweller, Cory is enjoying “urban” living with his family in Spearfish.