Apprentices are everywhere

I now know that coming down from the shear high of the apprenticeship program is already, and is going continue to be, rough. But while my heart is aching, and my head distracted by still palpable memories of the farm, reality has sunk in, and I am moving on.

Thankfully, the fall has been padded by apprentices of the past. I am currently teaching in what will be the new Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems major at UC Davis. (Though the major has not yet been passed, it seems to be well on its way.) The class that I'm the TA for, CRD 20: Food Systems-- was co-created by Damian Parr, a past apprentice. And today, I took my lab section on a field trip to Soil Born Farms, an urban farm and educational project in Sacramento which was created by two past apprentices.

So even though at noon today I was in my windowless reality, mourning the loss of my former life, by four pm I was touring a farm that reminded me very much of home. With me I had 15 undergraduates, all experiencing the agro-foodsystem. Little did they know it, but their experience was facilitated by 4 UCSC apprentices. One who designed the course, two who created the farm for them to visit, and me, the facilitator who got them there.

That's powerful learning. When you learn something and are so impassioned, that you have to keep reproducing it, and you are driven to rope others into learning, and growing with you. Again and again, UCSC.