Paint and Pages

The University of Northern Iowa’s Literacy Initiative provided another sweet opportunity: Chocolate Collaboration!

Anyone who knows Kathy Feltes can’t help but love her. She’s unstoppable. She’s well-read and energetic. She’s outspoken and hilarious. She has equal parts fun and equal parts impressive interests like Disney, running marathons, reading, and of course, chocolate.

Kathy was born in Fort Madison, Iowa into a large Catholic family. Kathy’s family moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where Kathy spent most of her childhood. As the third of four children, Kathy no doubt likely stood out as a young child.

After becoming a teacher, Kathy spent 28 years and counting in education. She has taught in both Iowa and Minnesota, private and public schools, in rural and urban settings. She has taught grade levels as young as kindergarten and as old as 6th grade. Kathy has done it all.

And she does it well. The marathons she runs parallel the teaching marathon of a career she’s had thus far. Kathy has read a marathon of books and it’s hard to find titles she hasn’t read. Every time I see Kathy, I leave with several solid book recommendations.

On the day that I met Kathy through the University of Northern Iowa’s Literacy Initiative, we were instructed to interview strangers in downtown Waterloo about literacy. For extroverted gems like Kathy, this was a walk in the park. For introverts like myself, this was torture. Still, we made the most of it and enjoyed touring Waterloo. One of the stores we walked by was a chocolate shop. “We have to go in here!” Exclaimed Kathy. She then told us she was obsessed with chocolate and has learned a great deal about chocolate.

And so she did! She knows how it’s made, its vast history, and has strong feelings about why white chocolate is not actually chocolate. She was delighted when I brought her chocolate from the local chocolate shop in my hometown.

So when I chose to read Mara Price’s, “Grandma’s Chocolate” or “El Chocolate De Abuelita” to my students, I knew I had to involve Kathy in some way.

Students loved this story as it represents their families and culture. One student excitedly shared that her grandma had a molinillo for making hot chocolate. Students especially enjoyed hearing the story read aloud in Spanish. Students also enjoyed the videos we found online that showed the long process of how chocolate is made.

Ruth, a paraprofessional, shared a Spanish song, “Chocolate” with our class. We loved the drum beat so we got out our rhythm sticks to drum the beat and sing the song.

We also sang one of our favorite songs, Stephanie Leavell’s, “Hot Chocolate”. Such a catchy tune!

After learning about chocolate, we of course had to try chocolate! I bought some Hershey Kisses at the store: milk chocolate and dark chocolate. Students enjoyed tasting the chocolate and then voting on their favorite. We then counted the votes and were surprised that milk chocolate was the winner!

The next day, Nawlahhserpaw brought white chocolate for students to taste. It was delicious, even though Kathy is right, it is not chocolate. We also brainstormed some questions we had about chocolate and listed them for our interview with a “chocolate expert” a.k.a my University of Northern Iowa Literacy Initiative colleague, Kathy Feltes.

Kathy teaches in Dubuque, Iowa; over five hours in a car if we wanted to visit her in person. Fortunately, technology can help us make that journey in mere seconds. So we arranged for a Zoom session, put Kathy on our Newline Board, and let her answer our questions.

We learned a lot! Not only did she answer all our questions (yes, chocolate can be colored yellow and shaped in molds to make Pikachus), she also had many of the items I wished my students could see! A molonillo. A cacao pod. Cacao beans. A nonfiction illustrated book on chocolate. I love that Kathy had all of these items in her workplace!

The students enjoyed the chance to learn from a real-life chocolate expert. My colleagues were happy to have another culturally responsive book to share with their students. I found myself reflecting on what a sweet chocolate collaboration Kathy and I shared thanks to the University of Northern Iowa’s Literacy Initiative.