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My name's Lee Fan I'm the
program coordinator. I oversee the culinary assistant
program at Portland Community College.
This program is very unique, in fact this is the only program
of it's kind in the whole state of Oregon, at this level.
And also this program, we only
take in students with special needs.
The program, we need to train students so that
they can able to get a job, and able to have a good life.
So our training, you know divided into
two parts. Part A is classroom
instructions, Part B will be on the job training.
In the class, actually we only spend about
15% of the time, but I require my students to be
in the class from 8 to 9 o'clock, every day Monday through Friday, and
we, in the class we talk about 3 main things. First of all
is what we call by job success skills,
like attitude, work ethic,
work behavior and professionalism.
The second thing about is the work-related
knowledge. Like for safety,
on the job safety, team work,
work place culture and following directions.
The third one, but probably the most important one
is about like,
life management we call it, and basically
it's like, talking about
critical thinking, self reflection,
self control and cultural
awareness. For the
85% of the time that my students actually have to
work in the food, food service with the food service
staff and they will have the hands-on training
and to learn how to work with food in the food
establishments and that one's really talking
about food related skills like food
preparation, cutting vegetables, you know preparing
salad and even how to clean up
and stock up.
When they come to look into this
program I told them, the first thing, I
believe in is everyone can learn.
Disregard what they have happened before because
like walking, eating, we can
learn this. So we can learn but the thing is that they have to be
really determined to learn and improve and change
and another thing is that I want the student to
able to focus on their ability, not their disability
and that way they can able to show their strength
that will be required by
the management or employer in the future.
There's 5 words that shows our spirit of the program.
The first one is unique, the second one is
inclusive, the third one is acces-, accessible.
The fourth one is enabling.
The fifth one, the most important one, is empowering.
I feel that I will
go very far on the outside of
as I leave the program and be very successful.
Making a better committment in
my future.
If you really want to
have a better future, you got, you got to stay
mind focused more. Self control for yourself, be
who you are, do what you do best.
My greatest reward has to be
when my students call me and they say "Hey Mr. Fan
I got a good job, I enjoy it, I like it
and also I have a good life.
It makes you feel good and delicious.