The Witt Seminar Wants to Cook!

by Ray Pultinas

Cooking with my students has been among the most transformative experiences I’ve had as a teacher with over 20 years in the classroom.  There is something transfixing when we work around food.  It is an intensely social occasion that accumulates its own energy and momentum as a meal moves from the planning stage through prep and cooking and finally enjoying with one another the rewards of our efforts.  It is also a highly cooperative enterprise that seems to bring out the most charming, confident and satisfying expressions in my students as they compete with one another for a chance to help measure or pour or mix ingredients.  Those who stand back to observe the scene are often looking for a role to play, something to do, and in the kitchen there is always something to do.  Students guard over the cooking detail they’ve assumed or have been asked to perform, yet I detect a cooperative anticipation of the tastes they’ve all helped to create out of raw ingredients.  What will the magic of this mixing and making be?   Of course, this is the kind of delayed gratification that we would want to encourage in all of our classes and with all of the subjects we teach.

Mark and Elca

In the fall of 2005, I was given permission to teach a course on activism and publication at DeWitt Clinton High School called the Witt Seminar.  Four school wide conferences on activism and three publications later, in 2009 we decided to narrow our focus on food politics in an attempt to confront the poor eating habits of our students.  With alarming rates of obesity, diabetes and other health and diet related illnesses in the Bronx and reflected in our student population we felt that we could have an immediate impact studying and working on this problem.  One of our first tasks was to develop a survey to inform ourselves of the eating habits of our students and we learned that most students self reported that they know the value of eating healthy food but also find it difficult to obtain it.  Of the approximately 400 students we surveyed in our school of almost 5,000 students, almost 70% felt that eating healthy food is necessary in order to do well in school.  70% said they found nutritious food to be delicious and satisfying.  However, there is a significant amount of students, 53.9%, reporting that they never eat school cafeteria food and only 25%, one in four students, eat cafeteria food more than 3 times per week.   This might indicate that most students do not feel that the cafeteria offers healthy and nutritious food.  When asked to describe the lunches served in our school cafeteria, a total of 49% found that the food was either not too nutritious or not at all nutritious.  Also significant are the 24% of students who had no opinion.  Only 1.4% of students found the food to be very nutritious and 25.2% found the food to be only “somewhat nutritious.”  And where do students who don’t eat cafeteria lunch eat during the day?  Among those who do not eat cafeteria food, over 60% wait until after school to eat.  While only 15% of students surveyed bring their own lunch, over 26% use either the snack line, the G.O. store or R.O.T.C. to meet their hunger demands by purchasing chips, cookies and now the ever-present granola bars. 

Debra, Cire, Kimberly and Abigail

The present mission of the Witt Seminar emerged in the fall of 2009 and we have oriented our curriculum to address what we saw as fundamental needs of our students to have healthy food choices at our school.  We partnered with the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food and became one of only six high schools in the city to participate in the Cool School Food program.  Our school cafeteria now offers plant-based (vegetarian and vegan) menu options twice per week.  The Witt Seminar has promoted these meals through biweekly public announcements, posters and bulletin boards, as well as healthy school food “speak outs” and food “sampling” events in the school cafeteria.  We also started a school garden and in the fall of 2010, thanks to our partnership with Behind the Book, celebrated our first harvest by inviting Wellness in the School founder and world renowned chef, Bill Telepan to use our abundant eggplant, acorn squash, basil, turnips and onions to cook our first harvest meal.  Our Green Thumb registered school garden continues to flourish with generous support from Citizens Committee for New York City and Grow to Learn. 

Third floor bulletin board

Poster near cafeteria entrance, basement level

Though we have acquired a modest sum of money to continue to grow our garden, we are currently seeking support that will enable our Witt Seminar students as well as other students at DeWitt Clinton to have increased opportunities to prepare their own healthy meals from the food we grow in our garden and healthy food that can be found, grown or purchased in our local urban communities.  We need to make it possible for the students in our school to develop culinary skills that they could take back to their friends, families and communities. I have learned that caring communities can emerge around shared food and if we want our young people to eat better we need to teach them to make their own delicious healthy food so they are not as dependent on fast and convenient food.  In order to empower our students to make healthy food choices they must experience directly the vegetables, fruits, grains, and other ingredients that go into the preparation of healthy food. Our long-term goal is to convert an abandoned teachers cafeteria space into a working instructional kitchen to expand opportunities for students to cook for themselves, make oven meals or bake bread.   This would take a substantial amount of money for we would need to purchase a stove, refrigerator as well as kitchen supplies, equipment and utensils.  A more modest goal is to use what we already have while we build towards this larger dream.  We have cleared and cleaned an alternative cooking space amidst the unused steam tables and microwaves to practice the arts of preparing our own meals using an electric skillet.  

Abigail scooping the last of the Banana Beignet batter

What we are missing is a solid foundation in community food education that an organization like Family Cook Productions currently provides to teachers and students.    The program would allow me to be certified as a community food educator and help train students to become food educators as well.  The training would allow me to run Teen Battle Competitions that have already made a powerful impact on the food issues in urban environments like ours. To run this program successfully, we also will require a healthy food budget that will keep our program running throughout the school year.  

Gogola (Banana Beignets) are delicious.  (See "Eat, Pray, Smear" by Julia Moskin, March 23, 2011, New York Times.)