2/8/22
HATCH & Lasagna
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by Marianne Picha
I love to cook. And a family favorite is lasagna so I make it fairly frequently. Because who doesn’t love lasagna?
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Me.
I always feel like it’s a very heavy, gut bomb of a dish. But I’m a curious cook, so I wanted to discover a better lasagna that had all the richness of the traditional kind, but better. And that’s what The Hatch School is doing for girls' education too.
Change the Game, Not the Girl
I didn’t want to abandon lasagna altogether, I wanted to change the game. So I found a lighter bechamel sauce that had lots of richness, flavor, and zest, instead of the gluey-ness of the old-fashioned white sauce. At Hatch, we teach girls to claim their own voices to define success on their own terms and add zest and richness to their educations.
Dismantle Traditional, False Dichotomies
I grew up on lasagna that had a ton of mozzarella cheese baked onto stiff noodles. I thought that defined lasagna for a long time and I didn’t like it. And then I started paying more attention to creating really good tomato sauce (always crush your own tomatoes, don’t buy them crushed) and rethinking the old idea of what lasagna could be. That led to a more interesting dish. At Hatch, rethinking traditional school by blending structure and flexibility in a new way - and being agile enough to really respond to what really works for girls - is a recipe for success.
In simple terms, girls are like lasagna - complex, multi-layered, spicy at times, and always wonderful. The recipe for their education is being reinvented by The Hatch School to allow for discovery and ultimately, a better outcome. Bon Appetit!
Marianne Picha has been a school administrator at Lakeside School, Seattle Country Day School, University Prep, and Hamlin Robinson School. She is currently a leadership consultant in Seattle.