The Bold and the Beautiful

I seem to make assumptions quite often about "prissy" students. I do not believe that culinary has any room for people that are not ready to take "the heat in the kitchen". I tend to judge the girls and guys that come in with their name brand clothes, manicures/pedicures, cute shoes that are definitely not kitchen safe, and look like they have not worked a day of manual labor in their life. My brain immediately tells me that these students are going to be trouble. They will not want to lift heavy things, cut things that could make their hands stink, get their clothes dirty, mess up their hair, or god forbid, CLEAN! Sometimes this may be true and I guess I base this on the "prissy" girls in culinary school. They would kill me when they would worry if the chef hat would mess up their hair. These girls were the ones that you would send to get something that didn't exist just to give you time to get the food cooked the right way. Well, this semester my opinion has been changed. I teach several of the "prissy" kids, boys and girls, and these kids have turned out to be the best. These are the ones that start mopping before anyone else. I think they may actually like that someone has finally given them some responsibility (I think their maids usually do everything at home, no joke). I have one girl that has become a shining star and has changed my opinion on how I look at my students. Now this is not true of all but it will still help me in creating stereotypes and giving all students a chance to prove they belong in my kitchen.