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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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.