Our blog writers are embarking on a quest to interview nutrition educators working for Cornell Cooperative Extension across New York State.
Each educator has a unique perspective on their work, and how their work has influenced their own life choices. Healthy eating and living is a shared goal of the blog, our writers, these educators, and the nutrition programs they represent. It is our hope that these interviews will inspire, motivate, and celebrate the benefits of healthy choices.
The educator spotlight interviews will appear roughly once a month. Enjoy reading!
Alexandra Larisa (Ali) is a Nutrition and Life Skills educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension at Jefferson County. She teaches both breastfeeding information to mothers and general nutrition classes. She started on the job just before the pandemic and has been working for a little over a year.
How did Ali end up working for CCE?
Ali’s husband is in the military and they were moving. She was looking for jobs and saw CCE’s advertisement for the position as a breastfeeding nutrition educator. She was a certified lactation counselor and breastfed her own son, so she was interested in helping breastfeeding moms. She says that breastfeeding can be difficult, and there are not a lot of resources and support available for it. She wants to get the correct information to people and help them to be successful at breastfeeding.
How does Ali conduct her lessons?
At the time of writing, she is mostly doing virtual lessons, but more in-person lessons are becoming a possibility. She was able to observe her colleague’s in-person lessons before the pandemic, but she wasn’t able to do any herself. To maintain the connection with the participants, she tries to send recipes or other information by text or email that might seem interesting to the participants.
Depending on the person she is working with, Ali tries to change her delivery approach and adapt to their personalities. Sometimes she is more serious, and at other times she jokes around or shares stories about her own son.
What does Ali think of virtual teaching?
She likes face-to-face communication more than a computer screen, because she feels that it builds relationships, and information can get across easier. Ali says that virtual lessons can be hard, especially for breastfeeding classes, as it would be clearer to observe moms and their babies in person.
However, she realizes that virtual teaching can fit into people’s schedules easier. It also saves her the time from driving from one agency to another, so she can schedule people closer. Ali also mentioned that it might be difficult for her to transition back to in-person lessons, for it has been so long since she had seen anyone conduct an in-person lesson.
What was Ali's biggest challenge in teaching during the pandemic?
Food-related engagements are difficult to do, so there are not as many demonstrations and tastings for the general nutrition classes. Ali encourages participants to make the recipe with her while she does online demos, and she wonders how much information she is getting across if they are not making the recipes together.
Apart from adjusting to the methods of online-teaching, she says that the biggest challenge is trying to reach new participants. Usually, she reaches out to nurses on the maternity floor and try to connect to moms through them. Sometimes reach out to residence housing managers to offer classes, but these are difficult to do during the pandemic.
What are Ali's hobbies outside of work?
Ali likes to read, watch TV, and spend time with her son, who is two years old.
“ In order to establish genuine connections and communicate effectively, we should pay attention to what people are interested in and what they want to walk away with.” -Alexandra Larisa
