Recipe For Success Day
Recipe For Success Day is one of if not our most successful days in class. Zig Ziglar provides a page in his materials that is fashioned after Grandma's recipe card. Students choose from ingredients form the shelf which include loyalty, love, determination, perseverance, etc. in the amounts they think contribute to success and then they formulate directions on how to combine and "bake" them to produce success.
In searching for a way to bring the lesson into clear focus for the students, we developed Recipe For Success Day. My wife has this brownie recipe which people absolutely rave about. Double Trouble Brownies are famous around these parts. I am not much of a chocolate fan myself (she does have the absolute best fresh raspberry pie recipe, however, but that's another story) so it is hard for me to comprehend all the excitement sometimes. Anyway, she cooks up the brownies and we begin the lesson talking about recipes. Several years ago, daughter Lindsay called to get some of our traditional family recipes for Thanksgiving dinner. Her in-laws were spending Thanksgiving at her home for the first time and she was going all out to have things just so. The theory goes, if you get the proper recipes, that have the proper ingredients, follow the directions in the correct order, you can successfully produce dishes that pass the muster of the in-laws . . . which she did. It is the scientific method in the kitchen. After all, if you have the opportunity to see Lindsay in the kitchen you would know it is an adventure. Anyway, in the science lab at school, the chem students get the proper chemicals, in the right amounts, follow directions and repeat the experiment, observe the results and write a report. At Thanksgiving the process is repeated, we sit around the table and discuss the results.
We have observed over the years that this process is fading in our society. I still can remember those days without a television set in our house. We did not get one until I was entering the fifth grade in the mid 50s. Mom would be in the kitchen, where the radio was located, cooking up a storm. I would be there and she would pass on her principles of cooking. These days, too often, it is go to the freezer, tear open the package, zap it in the microwave and get back before the commercial is over. That's cook'in in the 90s. Mom is off working in the office, the kids are at day-care; and we no longer sit around the supper table discussing the day's events - what happened in school today? How much (not do you have any) homework tonight? Can we help?
People have a difficult time following directions these days because they are not taught at a young age about how valuable following directions is - following directions produces successful Thanksgiving dishes to entertain the in-laws. Cooking, especially cooking from scratch for like Aunt Sharon's lemon meringue pie, just does not happen that often. Girls are not learning the valuable lessons about life that they used to in the kitchen, not only about directions, ingredients, and food but also about life, relationships and love in the side talk.
We stress that the materials we have handed out to the class each day, the materials they have in their Championship Training, S.E.T. Class Notebooks constitute a recipe for success. If they follow and apply the principles of success contained in the notebook to their lives, they will experience more success. They will institute an upward hyperspiral of success in their lives.
We do this as the students eat their brownies. Of course, the brownies are extremely delicious. I emphasize to them that if you follow the directions of the recipe, you too can successfully produce your own Double Trouble Brownies just like if you apply the success principles, you will be ever more successful . . . small amounts of success at first with larger and larger amounts to follow. Students need to understand (especially the struggling ones) that it has taken them 16 years to get where they are. And if that is not a really desirable place . . . they are not going to reverse the past overnight. For example, one of our players has had a reversal of attitude this year, however, he has gone on vacation the last 4-5 years in math class. His math skills are meager at best. What to do? His upcoming SAT scores will be quite low and while his verbal skills will be higher, they will not allow him the choices of higher education he would like. He has already made his plan of action. He met with the guidance department, mapped out a course plan for his Senior year which includes Algebra 1 for the third time (whatever it takes), he will go to Junior College (in another state because the Jucos around here have dropped football), established academic respectability and then transfer to finish elsewhere.
Make sure you also take some milk to class to go along with the brownies. Without milk it becomes the ultimate "Got Milk" commercial. This class time is one of our most successful. The kids really do get the point.
By the way, here is the recipe:
For about 30 small to average size brownies
Get 2 boxes of good brownie mix - Western Family is not going to do it here. My wife prefers Duncan Hines' best.
Stir up one brownies mix according to directions and place in 9 X 12 pan.
Then place Hershey's chocolate candy bars on top of the first brownie mix - it will take 6-8 bars depending on the size of your pan.
Stir up the other brownie mix and spread across the top of the candy bars.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven. At about 20 minutes, check and change the position of the pan. Cook until cone - around 35-45 minutes. Time depends upon the size of pan, your oven, altitude, all that stuff.
Let cool - cut into pieces - enjoy.
When the boys wrestled, my wife always liked to send brownies off to the state tournament with the team. One year we qualified a large number of kids. We all know how they like to pig out after their last match, so that particular year she sent two large pans for the team with the coach so there would be enough. Only one pan made it to the team. The wrestling coach is a bonafide choc-a-holic and ate a whole pan by himself. It is always the wrestling coach.
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