Not Today, Sixth Graders

Late last week, two girls proposed making muffins for the class and planning a lesson based on the recipe for teacher of the day. 

"Can you make them gluten-free?" asked one of their classmates.

"I think so," answered one of them.

"No!" groaned another student. "They will taste awful!"

"Why don't you guys make two batches, one gluten free and one regular, and let us do a taste test?" I suggested.

"Yes!" said the other partner. "We can make them guess which is which!"

Today was the day they taught their lesson, starting with an informative slide show about gluten and gluten-free baking, which included both recipes for the chocolate chocolate chip muffins they had prepared for us.

I love a taste test, and I eagerly sampled the first muffin. It was delicious-- dense and moist and very fudgy. The second muffin had good flavor and a fine crumb, but it was a little dry. I re-examined the recipes. The gluten-free were baked with almond flour and coconut oil, the regular had eggs and vegetable oil. I knew the first one was the gluten-free version, and it was frankly a much better muffin.

The students asked each of us to make our guesses as they tallied our predictions on the chalkboard. I went first. "I think the muffin on the left was gluten free," I said. "It was also delicious!"

"No way!" another kid said. "That one was definitely regular." His classmates nodded.

I could tell by the tickled smiles on the bakers' faces that I was right and that they were enjoying fooling their friends. "I think they just like to disagree with you," one of them said to me, and we laughed because all year long, they were a very contrary group who never had a problem taking me on. 

Even though they had never won a debate with me, the class doubled down on this one, and all but one voted the opposite way.

When it came time for the big reveal, the class moaned in defeat. "She's a former chef!" said the student who voted with me. "And she never loses an argument!"