9-12th Grade Mandarin World Language Teacher in Chicago, IL – Westinghouse College Prep
2023-24 Fellow: Qiong Chen is honored and excited to join this year’s Fellowship as a world language teacher! This will be her 10th year teaching, currently working in a Chicago Public high school. She has two naughty boys! Qiong immigrated to Chicago from China 12 years ago, and now calls the city her second home. She has taught Chinese from K-12th grades and ended up teaching at a high school. Qiong enjoys using Food Education in her language curriculum, and loves seeing students include various food cultures in class! She is excited to be part of Pilot Light for the first time and is happy to connect with other educators!
Favorite Food Education Standard: FES #1: Food Connects Us to Each Other.
This is the main goal of why students learning another language and culture. Food is a big part of culture representation. I also like FES #7: We can advocate for food choices and changes that impact ourselves, our communities and our world. We talked about food apartheid in Chicago in my class, and students have great reflections on solutions to make a change. I would like to keep the deep thinking and incorporate with language proficiency this year.
A Favorite Food Memory or Recipe:
I enjoyed students creating their own “food” with the cultural recipe they researched.
Why I Became a Fellow:
I would like to meet with people who are doing the same thing but diverse ways.
