Parents may have a hard time getting their teenagers to pick up their rooms at home, but students at Roeper can’t wait to cook and clean at school. “There are always more students signed up for the Life Skills class than it can hold,” says instructor Linda Pence. Pence, a middle school Science teacher at Roeper, designed the class to teach skills that will be needed and used throughout life. The students explore the cooking process and techniques, meal planning, comparative shopping and cost analysis, checkbook and credit card use, woodworking, basic auto care/maintenance, basic wiring and safety, sewing, first aid and more.

“The thing I like the most about this class is that we get to choose the skills we want to learn,” seventh grader Dylan Bennett says. “My favorite thing was learning how to cook pizza!”

“I have seen the smiles on the faces of the Middle School students when they finish a project or get to eat something they just cooked. It’s not just about finishing the project, it’s about having done it themselves and learning how to do it themselves,” says senior C.J. Walker who co-taught a class with Linda Pence.

A new Life Skills Kitchen, made possible by life-long Roeper staff member Mariann Hoag, was installed in August 2008 and has all of the needed fixtures including a stove, oven, sink, dishwasher, refrigerator, washer and dryer and is fully stocked with anything the kids might need, like bowls, pots and pans, cooking utensils and even cookbooks. “The hands-on, life experiences classroom is a great addition to the Health curriculum and teaches skills the students will use today and tomorrow,” says Hoag.

The Roeper School is a co-educational independent day school serving gifted children from over 60 communities in southeast Michigan, Pre-kindergarten through Grade 12 and is an equal opportunity institution.

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