Hot Topics: AP Says Hello!

Greetings!
I’m excited and honored to be a hot topic blogger for AAI!! I’m Amanda “AP” Pietraszewski from New York City, where I am a NYC Public High School Teacher, Clinical Nutrition Graduate Student at NYU, and currently, during my free nights and weekends... I’m a dedicated to the Dietetic Internship Application process... it’s almost over, most of the packets are organized... but once they are out of sight the interviews begin!

When I was applying for teaching position in New York City three years ago, I hit professional gold, The James Baldwin School, or JBS (www.thejamesbaldwinschool.org).  JBS and I got along right from the start because I was willing to teach under the condition that I was qualified to teach Algebra 2 (I’m certified to teach mathematics based on my undergraduate degree) and a science course (Nutrition since I was enrolled in the Graduate Clinical Nutrition Program at NYU).   It was a dream come true, I couldn’t believe that I found a setting where I could develop my two passions, well... three passions... mathematics.... nutrition... and education.  This might not sound sane, but, the best part was that there are no nutrition textbooks... I was permitted to create my own original nutrition curriculum for High School Students.  With help from Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, Nutrition Health Action Newsletter, Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and In the Defense of Food, many of my college-level textbooks, eatright.org, and welcomed but rare nutrition lessons handed over by other teachers, I managed to pull together a rather cohesive half-year nutrition curriculum.  This worked well, until JBS received a regents wavier, which means students no longer needed to pass 5 regents exams to graduate from high school, but instead they must complete 4 PBATs (Performance Based Assessment Tools) in order to graduate.  I immediately readjusted the class so that my students would be able to complete a science PBAT requirement by creating a science experiments using foods.

By teaching teenagers in New York City, I have heard first hand accounts of the social, economic, and environmental obstacles that prohibit healthy eating among an urban teenage population.  With these serious discussions also comes the daily inquires surrounding new food trends, current events, and even nutritional myth.  They have so many questions about nutrition at the beginning of the course, that I set up daily google searches to find credible articles about the topics, to then share the articles with the class.  Some of my favorite questions thus far are...
“Do you get nightmares if you eat a full meal right before bed?”
“What is the best food to eat EVER?”
“What foods lower your sperm count?”

My classroom experience will be the source for many of the “urban hot topics” and general “hot topics” discussed  in this blog, but I also look forward to suggestions from readers!  So thank you now for reading, and thank you in advance for your support and input in future posts!