NRHEG’s new FACS teacher is former military
QUEEN OF THE KITCHEN - Kelly Delacruz, former US military airplane mechanic, is NRHEG’s new FACS teacher. Star Eagle photo by Melanie Piltingsrud
By MELANIE PILTINGSRUD
Staff Writer
Kelly Delacruz started out in the military as an airplane mechanic. Now, she’s the new Family and Consumer Science teacher at NRHEG, and she has a lot of life experience to bring to the table.
After Delacruz’s stint in the military, she and her husband lived in Japan for three years. Delacruz did some family childcare before they left, but in Japan: “There was a lot of downtime, because I was a dependent wife at the time,” she says. Delacruz didn’t know what to do with herself, so she taught herself how to cook. “I started sewing, and there were just things that I love to do.”
Delacruz said it was frustrating to see so many in the military, especially the younger airmen, who didn’t know how to take care of themselves. “They couldn’t cook a meal, because they eat at the chow hall,” she says, “so then when they move on their own – and if they didn’t learn it at home – they were eating junk.” Every holiday, Delacruz invited all the young airmen over for a meal. “We would make turkey and things like that, and they always said, ‘Oh, I love coming over!’ and it was like a big spread for them. It was one of the things they enjoyed.”
Delacruz came to the conclusion that someone needed to teach them how to cook. She says when she asks people what is one thing they wished they had learned, “They always talk about certain things in the FACS program: ‘I wish I would have learned to do my own laundry. I wish I would have learned to cook a decent meal. I wish I would have learned what credit was or to balance a checkbook. And those are all classes that we teach, and it’s all stuff that I like.” Delacruz says that these things are hobbies for her. “I have five kids at home, and so it’s just life. And the classes that I teach are everything I live. I teach child development. I teach relationships. I teach international foods.”
When the Delacruz family moved to Minnesota, she decided to use the GI Bill and go to school.
“I’ve been around the world, and I’ve met lots of people from all other countries,” Delacruz says. “So teaching is a hobby. It’s something I love. I love being around kids. I love seeing that lightbulb moment when they get it. I would never talk badly about any other area, but I get to teach them how to live life successfully. When you leave here, these are skills you need. That’s why we call them ‘life skills.’ That’s the fun thing for me.”
Delacruz continues, “What I really love is when kids will go home, after we have cooked a recipe, and they’ll go home on Saturday morning, and they’ll make their parents crepes or something like that, and they’ll take a picture and they’re like, “My mom didn’t know I could make crepes!’ It’s neat seeing them come back and be excited about it.”
Delacruz says she’s looking forward to the day when students come back and say, “I’m still using this!” or “I learned this from you.”
One of the classes Delacruz will be teaching this year is an international foods class. “It’s kind of like a world tour,” she says. The students start off touring the cuisines of Europe, taking a hypothetical trip around the world before returning to the United States. “And the reason why we do that is because then the students learn about all the other countries, and then when we get back to the United States, they can see – because the U.S. is like a melting pot of all the different countries – how these have influenced what we eat on a daily basis.” For every country they “tour,” students learn about what foods are prepared there and the manner of preparation, the country’s geography, topography, what grows there, customs and courtesies. Delacruz says the students learn about the religions of various places, too, because many of the things we cook and bake are connected with religious holidays. “And then when they come back at the very end, they each pick a region of the United States and a group will do a project based on that, and then present it to the class.” The group projects involve either choosing or creating a recipe, and shopping for the ingredients. “And then we do an Iron Chef competition.”
Another of Delacruz’s five classes this year will be 8th grade FACS, which covers Foods and Nutrition. “That’s where they dip their feet in the water,” says Delacruz. In this class students learn things how to use a microwave, a stove and an oven.
Next year, Delacruz will be teaching Culinary Arts, which picks up where the 8th grade class leaves off. Students learn what different breads are, how to bake a cake, how to fry meat and knife skills. Delacruz says, “I just recently became certified, so I can do Food Handler’s Training, so the students will receive a certificate after they’re done with [the class] that says that they are Food Handler Certified, so they can take that certificate into a job and say, ‘I’ve already been trained on this.’ And usually it can get them a higher pay because they’ve already done that.” The Culinary Arts class ends with a cupcake bake-off. “So they get to take all the stuff that they learned and make a big to-do.” Delacruz laughs, saying, “And I’m sure the teachers will love it, because there’ll be lots of extra food.”
The next couple of years sounds like a lot of fun in the NRHEG FACS classes. We wish Delacruz and her students much success as they explore life skills and the culinary world.