Page 9 - FIS World

Ingredients for Success
Twin sisters Jenna and Kelsey bake their way through the IB
At the heart of the IB Diploma Programme is the IB Learner Pro le, a set of ten attributes that students strive to display throughout their IB journey and beyond. Jenna and Kelsey outline their unique approach to integrating aspects of the IB Learner Pro le into their lives.
Balanced
Jenna and Kelsey started baking at an early age. “We used to sit in the kitchen and watch our mother cook,” says Jenna. “We started baking using box mixes, but later Mum let us go through her recipe books. From then on we were given free reign in the kitchen and baking really developed our creativity.” Nowadays, as IB students in their nal year at FIS, baking has become a way to relax. “The repetitiveness of forming the dough is calming and therapeutic,” explains Kelsey. “Making cookies is how we unwind after a busy day of school.”
Caring
Baking also allows Jenna and Kelsey to contribute to the wider community. Most recently, they donated baked goods to the Kalahari Education Experience Project. Jenna describes why it was important to her to help this cause: “We are South African and even though I am not going on the trip, I wanted to feel part of it and contribute through something that I love - baking.”The money raised is used to buy resources for local schools in the Kalahari Desert.
Open-minded
At just 15, Jenna and Kelsey were asked to regularly bake for a vegan-vegetarian cafe in Bad Homburg, Apfelkern und Kolibri. Jenna tells how making vegan cakes has in uenced her own diet: “People always ask me, ‘How do you bake without eggs?’ It is challenging at times to gure out all the required substitutions, and vegan cakes take much longer to bake in the oven, but I have really enjoyed learning about a di erent way of living. Nowadays, about half of
my own diet is vegan.”
Risk-takers
Their biggest baking challenge to date was a three-tiered baby shower cake with fondant roses and a dark to light pink color-gradient. Kelsey recounts how they felt when they received the commission: “We were completely daunted. We had never made a cake so big before and there were many techniques that were completely new to us.” Rather than risking disaster, they boldly faced the problem head on, contacting the customer to ask if they could put their own individual spin on the cake, using methods with which they were more familiar. The result was a huge success.
Re ective
As the girls look back on their IB journey so far, they believe that the IB Learner Pro le has helped them to shape their life. “Juggling our baking commitments with the IB has taught us to manage our time well. We have lots of responsibilities and don’t like to disappoint, but we have had to think carefully about what is most important to us,” says Kelsey. Jenna adds, “The IB Learner Pro le helps guide our priorities. As well as doing well academically, we want to contribute, share, relax, and develop as people. Baking helps us to do this.”
Not all of FIS’s IB students will develop the attributes of the IB Learner Pro le by stirring, sifting and icing. But as Jenna and Kelsey have proven beautifully, by turning skills into actions, one can certainly embody the IB Learner Pro le.
Leila Holmyard
FIS World Sta Writer
February 2017 FIS World 7