Agggggh! Expo
Apr. 9th, 2008 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoSo I was asked to go to an event called "Ag Expo" at the county fairgrounds, to sit in a booth and demonstrate hand spinning. Fine, no problem.
This is a deal where they bring in samples and examples of farm products and agricultural activities, set them up in booths, and then truck schoolchildren past literally by the thousands. The object, as far as I can tell, is to make suburb-dwellers aware of the importance of agriculture to their lives. In other words, that farms are neither irrelevant, nor nuisances, nor a waste of land that could best be turned into strip malls and subdivisions to get more tax money, but rather a necessity without which they might starve to death or have to go naked and freeze.
Yes, the situation has grown that desperate. Farm land is on the endangered species list in northern Illinois, and people are so ignorant about the nature and purpose of agriculture that they literally believe eggs come out of a factory and chickens are born in plastic bags.
Unfortunately, this event is not going to change any of that. Picture the setting first:
Take two pavilions (read, unheated pole buildings) on the county fairgrounds. Divide them up into booths ten feet deep and twenty feet wide. Into each one, put a farm spokesperson and some kind of exhibit, like maybe a cow, or a ewe with a lamb, or a beehive, or a basket full of apples. You get the picture, I'm sure.
Now bring on hundreds of busloads of hyperactive, bored, inattentive schoolchildren who are further inspired by being out of school and out of control. Let them in the door one busload at a time, plop them down in front of the first booth, and every FIVE(!) minutes sound an airhorn to tell them to move to the next booth, after which the next group comes in and sits at the first booth in the row.
Obvious recipe for chaos, no? It certainly is. How much useful information is conveyed in five minutes? Well, you can pack a lot into a five minute demo, actually, but if the first two minutes have to be spent getting the kids settled enough so you can talk to them after the air horn blast has activated them into hyperactivity again... So you get about three minutes. You ask what school they're from and what grade they are. Then you ask how many of them have ever seen a sheep before. Maybe two or three. Then you tell them that they are going to learn about food, where it comes from, but also about their clothing, because clothing is largely an agricultural product as well. A couple of the boys shout "No way!" You ignore them and continue, pointing out that the blue jeans most of them are wearing are made from cotton, and that cotton grows on farms. You get through sheep and wool and how wool is made into cloth, though half of them are already craning their necks to see what's going on in the other booths. Near the end of your time, you try to mention dyeing as a part of the cloth making process.
"Have you ever seen a pink sheep?" you ask. The ones who are still paying attention, or seem to be, nod their heads and mumble "Uh huh." And at that point, you realize that everything you've said has floated right past them. They are thinking about lunch or what's on television tonight or god knows what, but by tomorrow they still will have not the least idea why agriculture is important to them or to society in general.
And I watched all this happen about 24 times this morning between 10 am and noon. Then I had to bow out and come to work. I was ready. The noise and chaos was too much for me. If it was too much for me, it was certainly totally defeating to any hope that learning was taking place in that setting. Don't think that they will go back to the classroom and discuss what they saw, or write about it, or draw pictures of it, either. No time for that. They have to study so they can pass the standardized test to prove they memorized the answers that have been drilled into them for the last seven months. I'm sure that test doesn't ask them where wool comes from or where cotton is grown.
Additional note for the organizers, if we allow them that name: Put the guy with the sheep before the people who are to explain how wool gets turned into clothing, not after. That way the kids will at least have seen a sheep and the wool on its back (many of them for the first time) before they are expected to understand the processing.
This is a deal where they bring in samples and examples of farm products and agricultural activities, set them up in booths, and then truck schoolchildren past literally by the thousands. The object, as far as I can tell, is to make suburb-dwellers aware of the importance of agriculture to their lives. In other words, that farms are neither irrelevant, nor nuisances, nor a waste of land that could best be turned into strip malls and subdivisions to get more tax money, but rather a necessity without which they might starve to death or have to go naked and freeze.
Yes, the situation has grown that desperate. Farm land is on the endangered species list in northern Illinois, and people are so ignorant about the nature and purpose of agriculture that they literally believe eggs come out of a factory and chickens are born in plastic bags.
Unfortunately, this event is not going to change any of that. Picture the setting first:
Take two pavilions (read, unheated pole buildings) on the county fairgrounds. Divide them up into booths ten feet deep and twenty feet wide. Into each one, put a farm spokesperson and some kind of exhibit, like maybe a cow, or a ewe with a lamb, or a beehive, or a basket full of apples. You get the picture, I'm sure.
Now bring on hundreds of busloads of hyperactive, bored, inattentive schoolchildren who are further inspired by being out of school and out of control. Let them in the door one busload at a time, plop them down in front of the first booth, and every FIVE(!) minutes sound an airhorn to tell them to move to the next booth, after which the next group comes in and sits at the first booth in the row.
Obvious recipe for chaos, no? It certainly is. How much useful information is conveyed in five minutes? Well, you can pack a lot into a five minute demo, actually, but if the first two minutes have to be spent getting the kids settled enough so you can talk to them after the air horn blast has activated them into hyperactivity again... So you get about three minutes. You ask what school they're from and what grade they are. Then you ask how many of them have ever seen a sheep before. Maybe two or three. Then you tell them that they are going to learn about food, where it comes from, but also about their clothing, because clothing is largely an agricultural product as well. A couple of the boys shout "No way!" You ignore them and continue, pointing out that the blue jeans most of them are wearing are made from cotton, and that cotton grows on farms. You get through sheep and wool and how wool is made into cloth, though half of them are already craning their necks to see what's going on in the other booths. Near the end of your time, you try to mention dyeing as a part of the cloth making process.
"Have you ever seen a pink sheep?" you ask. The ones who are still paying attention, or seem to be, nod their heads and mumble "Uh huh." And at that point, you realize that everything you've said has floated right past them. They are thinking about lunch or what's on television tonight or god knows what, but by tomorrow they still will have not the least idea why agriculture is important to them or to society in general.
And I watched all this happen about 24 times this morning between 10 am and noon. Then I had to bow out and come to work. I was ready. The noise and chaos was too much for me. If it was too much for me, it was certainly totally defeating to any hope that learning was taking place in that setting. Don't think that they will go back to the classroom and discuss what they saw, or write about it, or draw pictures of it, either. No time for that. They have to study so they can pass the standardized test to prove they memorized the answers that have been drilled into them for the last seven months. I'm sure that test doesn't ask them where wool comes from or where cotton is grown.
Additional note for the organizers, if we allow them that name: Put the guy with the sheep before the people who are to explain how wool gets turned into clothing, not after. That way the kids will at least have seen a sheep and the wool on its back (many of them for the first time) before they are expected to understand the processing.
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Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 10:05 pm (UTC)Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 10:12 pm (UTC)We went around and counted after we started to catch on. A fair number of boys had drawn pictures of tractors. A fair number of girls had drawn pictures of animals, usually horses. But the majority of both sexes drew pictures of McDonald's. Yes, the fast food chain, or some feature of it. Why? Because they had been given Happy Meals for lunch, courtesy of McDonald's. So that was their impression of the day: "We got to run wild and make a lot of noise, didn't have to sit in class, and they gave us McDonald's for lunch."
Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 10:17 pm (UTC)Seriously, small kids and farms don't mix. Clowns are worse, but farms are no good....
Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 10:52 pm (UTC)A 4th-grade teacher friend of mine has called it "No Child Left Standing." I don't think she's quite a fan.
No child left with a brain
Date: 2008-04-09 11:29 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, the teachers are living up to my grandmother's impression of them as well. (My grandfather worked for the public schools from about 1925 until he retired in 1960, and Granny always referred to the school board members as "pig's asses" and the teachers as "morons." She was a farm girl, and didn't pull her punches.) Two of those teachers (both women, no less) pointed to my spinning wheel and said to the kids "See the sewing machine?"
Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 10:14 pm (UTC)Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 10:18 pm (UTC)Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 10:25 pm (UTC)Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-09 11:33 pm (UTC)*scribbles* Cheap... pickup lines.... for furries... Rams.... ^_^
Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-10 03:14 am (UTC)I haven't yet seen more than one or two sheep fursuits. the ones I have seen were actually mountain sheep, and didn't need to show their balls because they were loaded with weaponry: guns, knives, and swords. Rather a strange prospect, I thought.
Re: Learning schmearning! That's for city folks.
Date: 2008-04-12 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 12:22 am (UTC)I giggle at them.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 02:55 am (UTC)And I really don't expect many people to grasp the significance or mechanism of spinning or weaving. There's really no reason they need to. But I do expect them to understand that clothing doesn't just appear on the shelves at Walmart or Target by magic. Someone has to make it. And they have to make it from raw materials somewhere along the line. And those raw materials come from somewhere. I believe everyone should be aware of that much, and unfortunately, more and more people have no idea at all. (And if they knew eggs and chicken shit come out of the same hole they'd want to outlaw eggs, probably, and would never eat one again for the rest of their lives. Might make some chickens happier I guess.)
Consequently, they blithefully buy cheap stuff that was made by child sweatshop labor in Asia without even batting an eye, though if the same were happening in this country they'd be out demonstrating on the streets and blowing up politicians' offices.
In the context of today's event, and of more immediate significance, they don't understand that bulldozing all the farms means the food they buy at the grocery has to travel from somewhere farther away, at ever increasing transportation costs, and that the price of food is going to rise just the way fuel prices are rising today unless we preserve and develop local sources. That's an immediate effect that is already observable on the price of groceries.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 08:29 am (UTC)Well, ssssome of ussss know how a ssssteam engine workssss. Hell I knew by age five, well mostly, and would pour over cutaways of locomotives and was always glued to books on them.
But I was the one kid who actually wanted to learn everything and would have been frustrated at the farm exhibits because of having to move along every five minutes and that few of the adults would even notice my needs.
Would have marvelled at the balls tho. Grin.
Steed
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 11:54 am (UTC)There's a dragon inside the metal can. Everyone knows that. ;p
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 11:57 am (UTC)From what I've seen, home schooling is often a concentrated effort to prevent kids from learning to think. It's intended to filter their exposure to knowledge, rather than to improve it over the paltry offerings of the public schools.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 05:31 pm (UTC)And I'm also going to guess that I don't know everything about homeschooling in general. Certainly, I doubt that every homeschooler had a "principal" (a.k.a. Dad) who was as insistent on teaching his kids critical thinking. I hated Bible course not so much because of the material, but because I was always being pushed to not regurgitate answers. That simply wasn't acceptable. What was being tested for was the ability to take a pronouncement of fact, break it down, study it, and then draw conclusions to move to a completely different point that hadn't been discussed at all. Bible was just the subject that was used to further critical thinking. Given that Dad has his Master in Theology and was intent on prepping us for university.
Oh, and one of our most-often taken field trips when we were really young (under 7 for me) was the London Regional Children's Museum. Lord, how much fun I used to have there! Four floors of interactive displays on everything from dinosaurs to electricity to hydrodynamics to astronomy to anatomy to geology to magnetism to photography and everything in between! I could spend an entire day there, and I'd only be halfway through the third floor. It always drove me bonkers, because every time I came back, I'd have to start at floor 1 again. There was so much that I could never drink all of it in. The thought of that place is still almost magical to me.
Never mind Storybook Gardens (which was forbidden anyways), the Museum was where it was at!
Still, the subject of homeschooling has come up on occasion with my program advisor at UCFV. She and the department head have often remarked that homeschoolers generally seem more mature and better equipped to handle the rigors of university studies and life than the public highschoolers are. Mind, Abby is an agricultural area, so those kids who do homeschool are also more likely to be out and about outside, or the ones helping out in the fields and the barns, which can't do any harm for their development, I'm thinking.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 07:28 pm (UTC)Almost invariably, the environment in which homeschooling goes on seems to consist of a hyper-religious household, a resistance to any kind of science education that might contradict biblical accounts or doctrine, and rigid notions of sex-role behavior. So girls aren't expected to be good at math and are discouraged from interests in even innocuous but "masculine" occupations. Boys are pushed likewise in the opposite direction. Granted, this may partly be due to the economically depressed area in which I work, and there may be home schooling going on in wealthier suburbs like Barrington that would meet my standards of excellence. That I can't say.
What I do see are kids whose lives are subject to constant scrutiny and censorship, 24 hours a day and everywhere they go. To me this seems dismally inappropriate and worthless.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 08:19 am (UTC)We had time and so I spent some time with them in the Farm exhibit, it turned out. #3 son spent quite a bit of time learning how fields are planted. And we talked about all kinds of things. I'm sure they learned more than at the Expo.
I like doing that kind of thing. Taking the kids somewhere and explaining something to them. The world's a wonderful place, outside of video games even.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 11:59 am (UTC)These facts are ignored by educational boards and parents alike
Date: 2008-04-10 09:00 am (UTC)Re: These facts are ignored by educational boards and parents alike
Date: 2008-04-10 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 04:19 pm (UTC)I'd've liked to see you demonstrate spinning, despite the klaxons and children. :P
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 04:42 pm (UTC)To me the absolute proof came when, just after that awful horn sounded, a fourth grade boy who had just sat through the entire explanation ran up to me and asked "What are you doing, anyway?" In spite of just having been told in great detail.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 08:55 pm (UTC)That always wows 'em.
^.~
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 09:50 pm (UTC)I'm not sure anything would have held those kids' attention. Even if you had nailed their feet down to boards, their attention would have been elsewhere, assuming they even have such a thing as an attention span. The really depressing part is that some of them were 8th or 9th graders. I declined to repeat the masochism today, since I'm apparently catching a cold anyway and that building was frigid.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 10:59 pm (UTC)it too in a Doom 3 way.
Then, after lunch, tell them they ate the
demon guy that shot fireballs at them.
*the kids go YAY! and rub their tummies*
*facepaws*
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 01:16 pm (UTC)Australia has such a huge history in wool that most kids here learn about sheep shearing etc.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 09:32 pm (UTC)You might like to read this it goes into the alternatives in more detail :)
http://www.wool.com.au/mediaLibrary/attachments/Publications/insight_Blowfly_211106.pdf
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 09:38 pm (UTC)There are also good fly control methods available. In the US the occurrence of screwflies and blowflies has been greatly reduced by the use of pheromone traps and the release of sterile males who mate with the females who then lay infertile eggs.
New Zealand phased out the mulesing practice completely. It never caught on here at all. I'm glad Australia has finally acted on it, but it took too long really.