Mrs. Wilma Stephenson has taught in the Philadelphia public school system for over forty years. She currently serves as a culinary arts teacher, a cheerleading coach, and the director of the yearbook committee at Philadelphia’s Frankford High School. Despite the fact that very few conversations about education incorporate a broad understanding of literacy and education that includes practical arts such as cooking, we believe such practices model spaces where institutional knowledge can meet community knowledge in valuable ways.
Wilma Stephenson and her students are the subject of Pressure Cooker, a documentary about a group of Philadelphia high school students learning the ins and outs of the culinary arts.