Smith Elementary's "Fruit Lady"
Contributed by Smith Elementary School
Austin, Texas
 If you go wandering through the halls at Smith Elementary on a Friday you’ll most likely encounter Ms. Becky Rabel and her pile of special fruits. Ms. Rabel, the campus Dyslexia Teacher, has certainly gone the extra mile to share new fruits with students. What began in her classroom a year ago and eventually expanded to her hallway, has now become a campus-wide tasting event known as "Favorite Fruit Friday."
Last school year, Ms. Rabel, also referred to as the "Fruit Lady," started the tradition of sharing fruit on Fridays as a way to incorporate CATCH into her dyslexia classes. Part of the curriculum for the dyslexia program is to describe objects and compare them to other things by using higher order thinking skills. Ms. Rabel would bring in oranges or bananas and her students would have to compare and contrast them. She soon started bringing exotic fruits, mainly from Thailand, since she had visited there before. Even though the fruits seemed totally weird, most of the children were willing to taste them.
News traveled fast and the students went home, telling their parents and friends about the "new" fruits that they were sampling. Some parents even bought new fruits to try at home. Since Ms. Rabel’s class is located in the 4th grade hall, and she was doing map skills with the 4th graders, she decided to start sharing the fruits with all of the 4th graders in the morning. "The Fruit Lady" soon had students lined up at her door to try all of her amazing fruits!
Once her dyslexia students saw that Ms. Rabel was sharing with the 4th graders, they would ask if they could take some fruit back to share with their classes too. She then started sending fruit to various grade levels. At the beginning of this school year, the "Fruit Lady" branched out and decided to make "Favorite Fruit Friday" a school-wide event. Ms. Rabel started sharing her fruit while she did morning hall duty. "It can look very chaotic but it usually goes quickly as long as everything is prepared," Ms. Rabel explains." There are also times when her fellow teachers jump in to help.
Students have been privileged to sample unique fruits they normally wouldn’t try, such as pomegranates, pumpkins, blood oranges, plantains and longans (a translucent sweet fruit meaning Dragon’s Eye); to more traditional ones like pineapple, cherries, cranberries, mango, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapefruits, and avocados. One fruit that was difficult to swallow was durian, most of the students wished she hadn’t shared. (It has a very strong odor and tastes like banana, custard, garlic and onion according to the kids.) Ms. Rabel even brought in durian ice cream to show that people really do like this fruit!
PE Coach and CATCH Champion Leigh Ann Sedam describes Ms. Rabel’s commitment, "Favorite Fruit Friday was her idea, but she will tell you this is just her contribution to CATCH and she is just doing her part."
When asked about her weekly tradition, the "Fruit Lady" most humbly replies, "My goal is to get the children to try new foods!"
So, if you ever stop by Smith Elementary on a Friday morning, be sure to visit Ms. Becky Rabel, a CATCH Champion and the resident "Fruit Lady." You never know what delicious fruit she will be featuring that day!
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