24¢ per hour

beans-2731 — Picking green beans at the Heifer International Ranch.

We worked in the fields this afternoon: picking beans and planting garlic. Clear skies with a cool, early October breeze; warm, but not hot.

It was enjoyable work. The fields were small and there were a lot of us. Lots of conversation.

We picked somewhere close to 64 lbs of green beans, which, according to our guide, sells for somewhere around six dollars per pound (organic beans). Three hundred and eighty four dollars. Took us about an hour.

Earlier in the morning, we’d had a discussion about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Heifer ranch is a CSA. People from the surrounding towns buy shares in the annual crop, and the ranch brings them a basket of produce every week for the season. CSA’s are great: fresh local produce, for about the same price as in the store. You tend to get a broad enough variety that it helps expand your cooking repertoire. And you avoid all the externailties from long distance transportation and factory farming.

change — Finding out how much workers make in CSAs vs industrial agriculture.

They (our guides) had compared CSAs to the “typical” industrial agricultural system. Students read out notecards as they went through the all the jobs of the people who get your tomatoes to you. One student, who represented the energy going into the system, had to do a lot of jumping-jacks and pushups – situps too. There are eleven different jobs in the industrial system, with the people actually picking the crops – migrant workers – getting one cent for every dollar you pay at the store. They are three jobs within the CSA, and the farmer gets 80% of the sale price.

The presentation was a little problematic, unfortunately. Heifer is a CSA after all. Trouble started with our facilitator’s terminal question, “So which one do you think is better?” The first response was, “Well with the economy these days, won’t you loose a lot of jobs with the CSA?”

Fair point. But it might be argued that the industrial system might take one big farm and 11 jobs to bring 1200 tomatoes to market, it might take 4 CSAs, and about the same number of jobs (12), to do the same. Although the each person in the CSA system gets a little less, the money is more equitably distributed.

The second question, cut to the crux of the problem, “But what are the notecards leaving out?” Cynical? Perhaps. However, I’d like to think of it as healthy skepticism.

So now our guide was stuck. How could she, an obvious advocate for CSAs, convince the skeptical? Not easy, perhaps not even possible. By being too strong of an advocate for her side, she’d have a hard time convincing even the impartial.

It’s not easy making an argument that you’re passionate about. Not at all.

beans-DSCF4500 — Snapping green beans. Students agree that beans you pick yourself taste better.

I made sure I had a small discussion with the more skeptical students, to make sure they realized that even if you distrust the credibility of someone, you can often learn something useful. In fact, that’s why you should always look for multiple sources of information. Also, while CSAs are great for some things, local farms in Arkansas or Missouri aren’t going to be producing a lot of tomatoes in January.

That’s why I’m glad we picked the beans later in the day. And it was important that we did the accounting.

It took sixteen of us one hour to pick $384 worth of beans. That works out to 24 bucks per person per hour. Since the migrant workers only make 1% of the final cost, we would have made about 24¢.

24¢ for an enjoyable hour of gardening on a pleasant day. But what do you do when you’re hot and miserable in the middle of the summer, and hour after hour after hour of the same work is what you need to feed your family. And you’re missing school to do it.

I’m not sure that students will intuit the difference between what we did and what migrant farm workers do; neither the time we put in, nor the effort we expended were anywhere near equivalent.

I think making that distinction is important. Recognizing what migrant workers do, many who are the same age as my students, might make the point of what organizations like Heifer and Human Rights Watch are trying to do better than just talking about it, or simulating it, in the classroom.

I think it might make a big difference to hear the voices of these workers.

So I’ll show the HRW video advocating for the CARE Act to reduce child labor among teen migrant workers, and see if it has an impact.

Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing

One of the first things we learned at Heifer was the process of group formation. It was also one of the last things they talked about so it must have been pretty important.

The four steps are:

balance-3370 — Forming: Students are quite polite to each other when they first get on the balance board.

Forming: When the group first gets together, people tend to be cautious with one another. But because they’re so careful with what they say and what they do, newly forming groups don’t usually get much done.
Storming: Now the barriers start to break down as individual personalities manifest themselves. People start speaking up. A lot. They become less polite. Conflicts arise. People become accusatory. There’s lots of energy, but because of all the conflict, they still aren’t able to get much done.

balance-3373 — Storming: Vociferous disagreement breaks out.

Norming: The conflict begins to settle down as the group starts to work out its kinks, as all the individuals begin to adapt to one another. Groups may need guidance to get there because everyone has to stop fighting, but as it usually helps that the group will start to see successes because of successful co-operation.
Performing: A well-functioning group can get a lot done. They’re able to communicate effectively, and take action effectively. Their productivity kicks into high gear and they can accomplish much together.

balance-3374 — Norming: The group begins to organize itself. Rules of order are put in place.

Not all groups get through all four steps, and every time the group changes, such as when a new member (like a new student) is introduced the groups will need to go through some version of the four steps as they learn to accommodate the newcomer.

A well established culture will help groups adapt to change. This is yet another benefit of multi-aged classrooms, because a healthy classroom culture eases the transition as older students leave and new students come in.

balance-3378 — Performing: Roles are assigned. Balance is achieved (from 2, to 5, to 57 seconds).

Even so, awareness of the four steps is extremely useful because it helps everyone anticipate that there will likely be some conflict, but that conflict is part of the group forming process and will likely diminish with time.

So you should expect, every year, to have to spend some time group building. Two weeks dedicated to orientation and teamwork is what Betsy Coe’s Montessori Middle School program uses. It’s a fair chunk of time to take out of the year, but because good groups can get so much more done, it’s well worth it to build a good classroom community.

Butterflies in the Herb Garden

butterfly-flower-2493b — A spicebush swallowtail butterfly (Papilio troilus) in the herb garden.

At the Heifer International ranch. Time spent weeding the herb garden. Not much weeding done (by me at least), but much photography. Pretty. A word designed for butterflies.

butterfly-flower-2498 — A variegated fritillary butterfly (Euptoieta claudia) in the herb garden.

butterfly-flower-2495 — An eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus; officially documented by Linnaeus in 1758).

butterfly-flower-2510 — A skipper (family Hesperiidae) extracts nectar from a flower in the herb garden.

Butterflies are classified as:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera

References

Maggie Eisenberger, personal communication.

Opler, Paul A., Kelly Lotts, and Thomas Naberhaus, coordinators. 2011. Butterflies and Moths of North America. Bozeman, MT: Big Sky Institute. http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/ (Version 10/08/2011).

Flynn, J., 2007. Georgia Butterflies, Bibb Co. GA. http://www.shrike.net/butterflies/0-regions/bibb.htm (Accessed 10/08/2011).

Resorting to Poetry

We’re off to the Heifer International farm near Little Rock for a week. I have not been there before, but I suspect I’ll be disconnected, loosing contact with the part of my brain that has all the details.

I could program during some of my downtime, but all the reference documentation is online. I could do some reading about pedagogy – I’ve been meaning to get to the book about homework – but I suspect it would be extremely frustrating to not be able to look up the references and follow thoughts with some online research. And I can’t really blog.

I’m not even sure I’ll have phone service.

So instead I’ve brought a book of poetry. It’s the same one I used to take on long trips before I was so fully committed to the internet. I’ve read it through a number of times, but there’s always something new to discover.

And it should provide the time I need to finish memorizing a few favorites. At one point I could recall the first three parts of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, but I think I’m back down to one now.

At any rate, there might be some slow blogging for the next week. I’ve scheduled a few posts but not enough to cover the time I’m gone, so this might be the first significant break for a couple years. We’ll see how it goes.