Over the past few weeks, Chef Educator Sarah has been cooking alongside students in the Life Skills Program at Albany High School, working with 17–21-year-old extended learners in the school’s Special Education Department.
From the very first class, students approached the kitchen with curiosity, focus, and a healthy pinch of humor. Together, they’ve explored taste and flavor through yogurt parfaits, made breakfast burritos packed with eggs, beans, spinach, avocado, and cilantro lime yogurt, cooked plantain curry with rice while discussing soups and stews, and experimented with zucchini through both fritters and muffins.
Learning Through Doing
Like all Sylvia Center programs, the goal is about more than making a meal. Every recipe creates opportunities for students to practice new skills, work together, and discover what they’re capable of. One recent class provided a perfect example.
While preparing zucchini muffins, a student who had spent much of the program reluctant to participate found his stride while grating zucchini. His physical strength made him an MVP of the task, and the confidence he gained carried right into slicing scallions. What had often been met with a polite “no thank you” became something he approached with enthusiasm—and even turned into a bit of a game.
Moments like these don’t always arrive all at once. Confidence is often built through small successes, repeated over time. A student tries a new task, they discover they’re good at it, then they’re willing to try the next thing.
A New Favorite
The zucchini muffins offered another lesson. When students first heard they would be putting vegetables into baked goods, they were skeptical. But after the muffins came out of the oven, opinions quickly changed. The class enjoyed them so much that even after making nearly a dozen extra, there weren’t any leftovers.
It’s a familiar story in Sylvia Center classes. Students don’t always know they’ll like something until they have the opportunity to make it, taste it, and experience it for themselves.
Across every class at Albany High School, students are building practical cooking skills while learning to approach new foods with curiosity and an open mind. Week by week, they’re becoming more comfortable in the kitchen, more confident in their abilities, and more willing to try something new.
And sometimes, all it takes is a vegetable muffin!
