Jordan Shapiro in a Forbes article titled "This is What Today's Online Learning Content Tells Us About the Future of School" compares the future of school to cooking. As an expert chef he had to learn not only recipes and cooking techniques that can be downloaded, but just as importantly what could not be downloaded which is how to think about food.
"I learned that from a teacher—the master chef who stood next to me and taught me to listen to the oil as it crackles in the pan. He taught me how to smell when bacon is perfectly cooked. He showed me that recipes can’t be trusted because variables like atmospheric moisture are always in flux. Learning to think about food prepares a cook to be comfortable with uncertainty and to adjust the recipe on-the-fly. Cooks need to recognize that taste and flavor are not just chemical, but also emotional—grounded in cultural, historic, and geographical meaning systems. Real culinary skills combine research, observation and hands-on experiences in a way that’s firmly anchored in socio-cultural history and gastronomic theory."
Shapiro in the article draws the analogy that schools and specifically teachers should be teaching students the thinking skills in working with content the way chefs teach rising apprentices the cooking skills in working with food and recipes.
