Teaching sewing and cooking doesn't faze Apex Middle School teacher Ricky Frankoff. In fact, the Family and Consumer Science teacher says he enjoys helping middle-school students learn about themselves.

After teaching In-School Suspension for 25 years at Apex, Frankoff was asked last spring if he wanted to take on the Lifeskills class. Frankoff studied, took tests to get certified and spent the summer making lesson plans and meeting with peers.

Now, with one and a half semesters under his belt, he is enjoying tweaking the lesson plan and working with the same students each day.

Q: How much of a shift did it require for you to go from ISS to Lifeskills?

It is totally different. With ISS, I would facilitate a student's day, collecting assignments from all of their teachers and making sure their work got completed. Now, instead of teaching what other people are initiating, it is up to me.

I met with other Family and Consumer Science teachers in the area to help me get set up, and there's a lot of on-the-job training. Obviously, I have made some adjustments along the way. There's not only one way to teach the material, and I try to present it in a way the students will be interested in.

Q: Students learn not only skills, but about themselves in your class. What advice do you give to them?

Yes, they learn about children as they grow and mature; hand sewing; foods and nutrition; and learning about (themselves). That's why I like working with middle-school students: they are figuring out who they are and who they want to be. I try to teach them to be true to themselves.

My own kids are older now - a college graduate and a senior and junior in college. I know that you love them through everything. I try to tell my students about things from their parents' perspectives. There are people around them who care about them.

Q: Was the sewing or the cooking challenging for you?

When we did machine sewing at the end of the semester, I did have some volunteers come in to help supervise the students. There are things about sewing that I don't know.

But while my wife is a wonderful cook, she allows me to cook at home. Both of my parents were excellent cooks, and my dad was a cook in the Navy.

Q: What is an exciting part of your curriculum that you are enjoying most?

In the last 10 minutes of class on Friday, I ask the students to bring in a children's storybook that their parents read to them as young children. The former Family and Consumer Science teacher here at Apex asked the students to write a children's book as part of the class, and I think that's a great idea.

My students sit in the rocking chair and present their books to the class. Their faces light up with big smiles when we talk about who read the book to them and why they liked it. Hopefully, they will see the importance of reading to their own kids.

We talk about which ideas they can use with their own books, and at the end of the semester, they have four to five class periods to complete a storybook. There were two or three books last semester that, with a little tweaking, could be published..