High School Cullinary Arts Program Please help

Well I'm inn Highschool and I take a culinary arts class,and its a disappointment.  The kitchen isnt a commercial like kitchen its just a home Ec room with a bunch of small kitchens in it. The whole year we hvae bee learning about US regions New England Midwest and such,but alls we do is find a recipe and make it.  The kids in my Class have no knife skills and act like idiots in class they dont even know what a mirepox is and the teacher didnt even know the difference between rosemary and sage.  They dont know how to dice an onion properly yet alone cut at all.  We are now working with international Cuisine and every student (5) has to choose a Country and I have France.  We have to make dishes from that country and we also have to type an essay about it.   Some of the essay Questions are

•        Describe the schooling the country has
• Describe the religious Beliefs
• Describe the countries house hold practices

 That pissed me off what does that have to do with food??   we have 3 different teachers and ones a student teacher ad she says we have to do the same thing in College.  I think this is BS  I asked if I could make a liver Pate since thats popular in France and she said no they wouldnt want to eat that.

I told her its not about what they want to eat its about the experience and about the region.  I told her if A CHEF WERE TO HIRE ME I DONT THINK THEY WOULD ASK ME IF I KNEW WHICH STATES WERE IN THE MIDWEST.    She has some points but we arnt learning how to be better cooks

I'm 17 and work at a hotel as a cook please correct me if I'm wrong,but I dont think learning about the countries background a beliefs has anything todo with Culinary arts.

If there are any High school Culinary Teachers here please tell me your Curriculum

Yes I understand where your both coming from,but the teachers are really just Consumer science teachers so they know how to bake cookies well. I ended up with an A- but 2 other kids got A's I dont know why,but I know I didnt do so well on a test we took that was based on States and the settlers and such,but it had nothing to do with food at all,but It seems that they dont grade us based on our kitchen skills.  One project we did have to make menus and I had the best one because I used a real Menu casing from my job and I had realistic prices and such and all the other kids menus were made out of construction paper which is pretty sad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katherine Ful 

Culinary Arts is a course of study designed to provide students with the opportunity to reach competency in major areas of food preparation. Students will be expected to work in all areas of the culinary arts field such as dinning room operations, cooking, bakeshop and pastry making. They will be expected to work individually, in groups and in a professional kitchen brigade to experience a wide range of learning experiences in keeping with industry expectations. From here http://www.thedegreeexperts.com/dg-culinary-arts-97.aspx you may get more information on culinary arts programs.

Well We do none these.  I'm glade I have a job in the industry because if I didnt I wouldnt be learning anything.