Education for the Masses?

While I sit comfortably in my TA office, debating whether or not to pick up cookies for my students this class, the UC Regents are passing and unprecedented increase in student tuition. Student tuition UC wide have just been increased 32%- The largest jump in student fees since the beginning of the institution.

My great grand parents would be outraged-- as my father once said- "Your great grandfather moved to California to get an education!" Now what dad?! Now that UC tuition will out-price all but the upper middle class kids. What are we waiting for? Do I actually expect Arnold is going to increase public education funding- flying in in the face of his great republican forefathers?! No.

I encourage my readers who are voters in this great state of California to write Arnold. Join with the chorus of students who protested today at Berkeley, and the faculty who held classes off campus. Say no to the increasing public disinvestment of public education.

Here is an article detailing the fee increases:

http://www.sacbee.com/education/story/2332774.html?mi_rss=Education

Here is a website you can log onto to send a letter to our state legislature, nothing too radical- it's even endorsed by the president of the UC Regents!!!:

http://www.ucforcalifornia.org/uc4ca/home/

All together. Now. Save one of our nations last public education systems!

Education in Flight

Sitting in my new kitchen making breakfast for a new friend.

He is another former farm & garden apprentice, also on a quest for knowledge. We mainly discuss what it's like to search for meaningful educational experiences in a world dominated by positivist paradigms and bubble test quantifications of knowledge.

There is much to know in this world, so much to learn. My new question- 'how do we access that information, in a joyful, meaningful, lasting way?' is now prevalent, having transitioned so quickly from the apprenticeship world to Davis.

I'm positive now that humans are social creatures with a drive to work, and as such, one of the most productive and positive learning environments is in a situation that encourages both. A social working environment, where people with common interests come together to accomplish some task. The learning is therefore on several levels; first in the doing of the task where the learning is a product of the social negotiation that takes place. Secondly learning occurs within the social interaction itself (read experience and skill sharing) and happens as the work is done. Add to the experience the shear joy and excitement that happens when you're surrounded by an enthusiastic, smart, charismatic group of people- and you've got the perfect environment for learning. Peer to peer education, building the plane while flying it, in it for the love of it.

As I wind my way around the bowls of UCD, I'm looking to replicate that experience. Finding a cohort, support, inspiration, real learning. And again, I repeat, it's hard.

The Winds of Change

It's blowing hard in Davis.

Central Valley winds, coming down from the North. Bringing leaves, and school, and fall. As it gets darker I'm finding myself inside more often- reading for classes, and correcting papers.

Graduate School, thus far, is satisfying. I enjoying the matrix of complex theory, stacks of new literature, and academic writing, but most of all, I'm liking teaching. A TA for the new Food Systems course on campus, I get to apply what I've learned over the last decade, and indeed over the last few years specifically. Sharing my own life experiences and creating new ones with a group of 15 undergraduates. It's inspiring to see them interact with food and agriculture, subjects which to many of them had been previously foreign. A whole new world.

Wondering now if that might be one of the most satisfying things to experience, finding something you love, and having the capacity and the courage to share it with others.

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.

Heartache I suppose

I'm sitting in my new space. New lab room. A windowless fluorescent reality.

Reading emails from farmies who are too experiencing the loss. A pain behind my t-shirt feels like heartburn, but I know it's not.

One email described the wreckage left in the wake of the apprentice exodus like a grungy christmas. A mass indeed. Massive departure of farmies that is.
Now, I sit massively missing the religious experience of community,
of communing on the land,
now that I've landed somewhere new and foreign.

And in my windowless glowbox,
Just experiencing heartache I suppose.

It's over

It's over.

Finally done. My season at the UCSC Farm and Garden is Finished. Finito. Finality.

To paraphrase Orin Martin, who paraphrased someone writing about baseball- a poem for the end...

It's about waking up to the sunrise over the Monterey Bay,

It's about walking in to fresh cooked breakfast, groggy eyed farmers, hot tea,

It's about biking up the big hill to the Chadwick garden, past the students, overlooking the sea,

It's about double digging, and weeding, pruning, and propagation,

It's about farming,

It's about gardening,

It's about the field, and production, about feeding people,

It's about classes taught outside, under trees, in the dirt,

It's about learning,

It's about people come together, from far flung corners, to share,

It's about sharing space, and stories, and seeds,

It's about friendship,

It's about more than any pamphlet or extension credit, or letter home could tell,

It's about six months of magic and synergy,

It's about more than blog posts will explain,

and in the rallying cry of Orin--

Terra Pretta! Terra Pretta! Terra Pretta! Earth First! Earth First! Earth First!

(and we with that- we beat their swords to plowshares)

Rocking to an end

Last night, while the wind blew at the farm center windows, and the wood fire heated up the main room,

The realization set in.

It's almost over

Six month later, this group of 4o some odd folks is now a family. Coming together in perfect time just to split back apart. Splinting back to our corners of the world.

As the storm set in, our rabble rousing musicians blew in from somewhere, set to make music on one of their last nights together. Raucous as usual but with a tinge of sadness, they sang our favorites. Musically thumping and bumping and whooping- the diligent cooks, crafters, and computer laden apprentices put down our knives, wreaths, and screens to lend our voice to the chorus.

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel

Rock me mama anyway you feel

Hey mama rock me

Rock me mama like the wind and the rain

Rock me mama like a southbound train

Hey mama rock me

Rocking us into the night, and into the storm. By singing along I was attempting to forget that this is my last week as an apprentice, and the last week in one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

Prom fit for Royalty

One of the other apprentices and I threw a Prom friday night. Full on dinner and dancing, ball gowns and boutonnieres. Folks showed up regally decorated in insect theme, and we practically brought the barn down with laughter and dancing.

Farmy Olympics

For one day only, the farm olympics came to CatFace Farm yesterday. Dressed in spandex and wigs, sunglasses and knee socks, the apprentices duked it out for metals made out of oversized zucchini strung onto necklaces of combined red twist ties.

The english fork toss, an irrigation relay, apple bobbing, hose coiling, and of course- 'whats up?!'-- we laughed till our sides ached. Mad chaos of competition and squealing devolving into the all-too predictable rotten tomato war.

It's good to remember to have fun as a farmer. Sometimes we get too serious and self important about food production, and saving the world, and whatever, that we miss how important laughter, and spandex, and rotten tomatoes really are.

Farm Art Show

One of my favorite yearly events, the Free Wheelin' Farm Art Show has come 'round again. Double click to examine flyer and come out to support bike powered young organic farmers!