VALDOSTA — The order tickets hang in a neat row above the serving line. Below, a group of servers prepare plates of chicken quesadillas with sides of guacamole, salsa, lettuce and sour cream.

Tortillas are heated, cake is cut, and all of it is placed either in a box to go or on a plate to serve.

Though it looks, smells and feels like the back of any restaurant in America, it is atypical.

This restaurant is in a high school cafeteria and the people who run it are high school students.

Echols County High School is just one of many schools teaching students how to cook while also educating them on what it takes to work in the real world.

This is home economics in 2010.

Now called Family and Consumer Sciences, the field of study has expanded in an effort to give students a wider range of knowledge. Classes incorporate life skills with real-life work experience.

At Echols County High School, the only course is culinary arts within

Family and Consumer Sciences, but the course is full of students interested in learning.

For a relatively small, rural school, the culinary classes have 75 students participating, Karen Stone, culinary arts teacher, said.

Students are still learning how to cook, learning how to feed themselves and their families, but they are also learning vital skills that will help them find jobs.



Out of the home, into the workforce

At Lowndes High School students can choose “pathways” within Family and Consumer Sciences. They can take three courses within a pathway and receive certification in the field if they choose to take a certification test, Margie Chatelain, interior design teacher, said.

Interior design, culinary arts and nutrition and wellness and food science are offered at Lowndes High School.

Chatelain, who has been teaching for 24 years, started in the field when it was still called home economics.

When Chatelain began teaching, classes on cooking, sewing, child development, family finance and food nutrition were the norm.

Aspects of all those classes are still taught but now with an eye toward students becoming successful not only at home but in the workforce.

The goal is to have students, once they graduate high school, equipped with the proper skills to either go on to higher education or get an entry-level job and work their way up, Chatelain said.

“We really focus on job readiness and career skills,” she said.

While the program has changed from when Chatelain first started, the skills they are teaching now are just as important.

“I say in my classes every semester I teach, that you may not be able to use your math skills everyday, you may not have to recall those history facts, but everyday of your life you are going to have to prepare meals, mend clothing and balance checkbooks,” Chatelain said.

Learning these types of skills, Chatelain said, prepares students to succeed in other areas.

“If a student doesn’t have those basic needs taken care of at home, then no matter how good they are at academics, if they cannot take care of their personal needs, they are not going to do well with academics,” Chatelain said. “Through the years, I have really observed students who do have balanced meals and know how to take care of themselves do better academically.”

Chatelain teaches interior design. The classes give students foundational elements when it comes to the field. They learn about the different jobs within interior design and learn principles such as textile types, space planning, furniture and developing floor plans.

For Natalie Bishop, teaching culinary arts at LHS is an extension of her professional experience. Bishop was the catering manager at the University of Georgia before becoming a teacher.

Graduating with a culinary-arts degree, the professional chef decided eight years ago that teaching within the field would give her the opportunity to make an impression on young people.

Bishop said the changing social landscape as well as the job market have affected the classes taught to students.

While students learn how to cook in Bishop’s class, they also learn how to do bookkeeping for a restaurant, set up schedules, prepare catering for an event, proper etiquette and preparing menus.

The class also teaches students the importance of sitting and eating together, she said.

“Even if families are home, what I hear from kids is that the majority of them do not eat together,” Judy Beasley, nutrition and wellness and food science teacher, said.

Some students in Bishop’s class have never even set a table, Bishop said.

The dinner table is place where communication, especially for teenagers, can flourish, Beasley said.

“You can find out a lot about those children then,” Bishop said.

Both pathways, but especially culinary arts, are an outlet for students who may be looking for a reason to stay in school, Beasley said.

“I think there are a lot of students that you get in there that otherwise may not make it all the way through high school if they don’t pick up an interest in a program like that,” she said.

Beasley, who started her career in the dairy industry, said her class is usually the only place students will get information to make them healthy humans.

“I think this is the only nutrition most of our kids are ever going to see,” she said.

Within her class, Beasley instructs students on how to measure their fat intake, gauge their portion sizes, and chart family health history.

The main goal of the classes is to instill a good work ethic while also giving them the key components to succeed in their field of study, Bishop said.

The classes give students an outlet for creativity and a chance to put their academic studies to practical use, Bishop said.



Out of the kitchen, into the restaurant

Before this year, Echols County High’s Karen Stone had been teaching her students in a classroom equipped with a home-style kitchen. With the construction of a new school, the culinary-arts students have taken over the former school cafeteria and turned it into a classroom, complete with kitchen and cafe.

The atmosphere and location are perfect, Stone said, because it gives students a chance to understand what it would be like working in a restaurant.

This will allow students to get a job, say when they are in college, and tell prospective job applicants they have experience in a full-kitchen, Stone said.

Eleventh-grader Alyssa Hester, 16, got into culinary arts for the food, but she has learned that the class has provided her with much more than a good meal.

“I at least know how to cook a little bit and not burn it,” Hester said.

The classes provide students with vital skills, she said.

“Students need to know life skills, you are not going to live with your mama forever and you need to know how to cook more than just eggs,” Hester said.

The students rotate jobs. One week, a group serves customers while other groups are tasked with preparing, dishwashing and cleaning, Stone said.

Breeze Smith, 16, said she came into the class not knowing how to cook. The 11th grader said the class has helped her develop the skill and inspired a joy for baking.

“I would love to bake cakes and decorate and design them,” Smith said.

Monday through Thursday, the students run The Riverside Cafe which offers subs, soups and salads. On Friday, they get “paid” by being able to cook and eat a meal, Stone said.

Jasmine Arvizu, 17, said the class has given her a glimpse into what dishes other cultures prefer.

“I like cooking, especially since I’m Mexican. My culture expects girls to cook,” Arvizu said. “I work all the time and I don’t have time to cook at home, so I practice at school so I don’t get rusty.”

Though the class does produce Mexican dishes, Arvizu said it has exposed her to “Southern cooking.” The senior said she has even learned how to make potato salad.



• According to a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, 35 percent of adolescents are overweight or obese. Frequent consumption of take-out and prepared foods may be partly to blame.