TL;DR:
- You don’t have to be an expert to provide feedback.
- We can take feedback from a variety of people.
- Good instruction is good instruction.
Cooking Competitions and Classroom Observations
I love watching cooking competition shows! Cutthroat Kitchen, MasterChef Junior, MasterChef, Kitchen Nightmares, Hell’s Kitchen, Next Level Chef, 24 Hours to Hell and Back, Chopped, Is It Cake?, Beat Bobby Flay, Guy’s Grocery Games, The Great British Baking Show, etc. If there is competition and it involves baking, grilling, frying, plating, or anything else related to creating amazing dishes, I will watch them, sometimes for hours on end.
I also enjoy cooking and baking, but I don’t possess the same level of expertise as the amateur and professional cooks, chefs, and bakers who participate in these shows. Put me in the MasterChef Kitchen with the MC Junior contestants and I will be the first one eliminated. No doubt about it. My cooking skills are, in the words of Joe Bastianich, pedestrian at best.
That doesn’t stop me from passing judgment as I watch these shows. I can almost always identify which contestants will be sent home based on what they do. Soggy bottoms? That’s an elimination-worthy crime against pies. Undercooked poultry or pork? You’re going home. Sloppy plating? That’s just not worthy of a monetary award, trophy, and recipe book deal!
I Can Tell Who Is Rising to the Top
I can watch an amateur cook prepare an extremely complicated dish involving a host of techniques that I could never replicate myself and say, “Oh, yeah, she’s definitely winning this round! That was phenomenal!” I know when a dish makes sense, tells a story, and is presented in a way that makes the judge say, “Yes, this looks good and it tastes good!”
Even though I myself am not able to compete at this level, I know good cooking, good baking, and good recipes when I see them.
While watching a recent episode of one of these shows, my wife and I started talking about how silly it seemed that we would make comments about a contestant’s abilities without being able to do it ourselves.
Around the same time, someone in a social media group I am in shared this quote from Brene Brown:
“If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgment at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you’re criticizing from a place where you’re not also putting yourself on the line, I’m not interested in your feedback.”
This echoes a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I agree with both Ms. Brown and Pres. Roosevelt. And yet I also believe it is okay to make commentary on what we see others doing, even if we ourselves cannot do it. How is this so?
Negative Criticism Versus Feedback for Growth
It is one thing to make harsh, biting, or negative comments about the work others are doing when we ourselves are unwilling to do it. It is quite another to provide feedback for growth and improvement. This is something that we should do because we ourselves expect it. As a leader, I have always said that I will never ask someone to do something that I myself am not willing to do. For example, if I am going to ask staff to allow me to give them feedback on their work, I should be ready to ask them to give me feedback on my work, too!
So, back to the cooking competition shows. Do I know how to make a beurre blanc, an aioli sauce, a perfectly cooked beef Wellington, or expertly pan-seared scallops? No, not really. I could try. But because I’ve never done it before, they would probably be far below the standards of a diner at a Michelin-star restaurant. At the same time, I can look at one of these items and tell if the sauce has split or the meat is either under- or over-cooked.
Likewise, I may not be able to teach high school calculus or middle school science or kindergarten phonemic awareness as well as someone who has been doing it for years. But I can still observe someone teaching and provide feedback for growth and reflection.
- “I noticed that you said…”
- “Can you help me understand what students were doing when…?”
- “I haven’t taught _____ before. Can you explain what the rationale was?”
You Don’t Have to Be an Expert to Recognise Expertise
You also don’t have to be an expert to recognise areas for growth or to acknowledge expertise. Just as I can watch a cooking competition and observe that someone is going to be eliminated because serving raw chicken is simply an inexcusable mistake or that a contestant is going to move on to the next round of competition because the flavours were absolutely stunning, I can watch a teacher in their classroom and know if I am seeing someone who needs some additional guidance to take their teaching to the next level. Or if I am seeing a teacher who has taken their craft to the next level and needs encouragement to keep on going.
At the end of the day, the most important thing to remember is something I once heard Dr. Latoya Dixon observe on her podcast: “Good instruction is good instruction, in every class and in every grade!”
About Alex T. Valencic
Alex Valencic is an educator, former small business owner, Boy Scout, volunteer drug prevention specialist, unrepentant bibliophile, and a geek of all things. He worked as a substitute teacher for three years before achieving his lifelong dream of teaching fourth grade, which he did for seven years in Urbana, Illinois, before accepting his current position as the Curriculum Coordinator for 21st Century Teaching and Learning in Freeport, Illinois, where he not only supports innovative educational practices in the classroom but also oversees social studies, science, and nearly all of the elective courses in the district.
