Pioneer culinary arts teacher whips up tasty dishes with a side of grades
This year, as students navigate through a virtual world by themselves, teachers and instructors have faced a seemingly never-ending set of challenges akin to baking a savory souffle, all without a proper recipe.
One of the biggest obstacles for teachers, along with battling the dreaded “Zoom fatigue,” has been finding out creative ways to translate their lesson plans into an online setting.
Now the traditional math, English, and science classes present their own challenges within distance learning, but what about nontraditional academic classes such as culinary arts?
How do the culinary students know that they have the right taste, smell, and consistency on anything they make? Luckily for the students at Pioneer High School, Laith Morse, the culinary arts instructor is there to help.
“For him to organize himself to teach a culinary class and have kids cooking at home and following along it really is something,” Pioneer Principal Sandra Reese said. “He is coming to work every day setting up his kitchen, arranging cameras and innovative ways so that kids can see cooking. He has figured out a way to do virtual cooking.”
Morse is in the midst of his fifth year at Pioneer and fourth as a full-time instructor after arriving on the campus in the fall of 2016.
After graduating from Woodcreek High School in 2003, he attended American River College and enrolled himself in their culinary arts program. He earned his associate’s degree in restaurant management and liberal arts before he graduated in 2009.
The next step was earning his bachelor’s in the art for food and nutrition from Sacramento State in 2012. After that, he began work on his master’s and teaching credential at National University while working as a sous chef at a retirement home in Auburn.
To get his teaching credential, he had to serve one semester as a student teacher to gain the appropriate experience. Over the winter break and before the spring semester, the school’s main culinary arts teacher took a medical leave of absence and did not return, opening up the door for him to land a full-time teaching job.
In the fall of 2017, he was officially hired as a culinary arts instructor.
“I fell in love with this place,” Morse said. “I loved the students. Everyone is friendly and respectful. It’s a great school to be at. I love being a chef, but I also love teaching the skills and techniques of what it takes to become a chef or pastry chef or baker. I love the creativity that comes from a bunch of ingredients and what it can turn into.”
Before the pandemic shut down schools back in March, Morse’s class was very hands-on. He had around 32 or so students per class and taught five periods.
Students would in the lab working on something every day except for one, where they’d
be doing written work or learning about a new skill.
Students in his beginner classes for ninth and tenth graders were always learning new recipes while the ones in his advanced classes would get into the entrepreneurial side of things like holding lunches or coffee carts for the teaching staff.
“I had a great culinary program in high school,” Morse recalls. “That’s why I’m trying to build my culinary program here at Pioneer to be like the one I had. I’m getting close to reaching those levels.”
All of his students still have the opportunity to earn different certifications at each level of his course to get food-related jobs.
“He has changed the course so that it isn’t just an old-fashioned home economics course,” Reese said. “It really is a culinary arts course. Kids who take his full complement of courses end up with the ability to go out and get real jobs right away. I feel he is really making an impact in helping kids find jobs that offer liveable wages.”
These days his classes are all online. He records his demos that he would normally be doing in the lab, and the students embark on an interactive video lesson where he plugs questions for them to answer throughout.
He does not require them to cook from home, but he is looking to set up some kits for students to take home later this semester or next year.
“That’s one thing I miss about this whole thing is not seeing them in the labs cooking on a regular basis,” Morse said. “I just miss the kids in general. The relationships they build with their group and the connections we all have. I don’t think we feel as connected this year because we are on Zoom all the time.”
Morse hopes to inspire his students to learn how to cook in order to eat healthier and not rely on pre-packaged or fast foods. If they choose to pursue a career in cooking, then that’s even better, he says.
“I feel all of the teachers have unique challenges that they are facing and doing a really great job, but the challenges that Laith faces are really unusual and unique,” Reese said. “He has nobody to bounce ideas off of. When you’re the only teacher of an only course, you’ve got to working ways that others don’t have to, and you have to work alone. It can be a lonely job in that regard. He has managed to overcome those hurdles, and the kids are doing very well, and the whole program is really blossoming.”