Testing the Fence

I'm a hobby farmer.  Lord knows I'm not good enough at it to make a living, but my wife enjoys her chickens (I enjoy the eggs); she enjoys her cows (I enjoy the beef); and she enjoys her miniature horses (I enjoy...well, I'm still working on that one).

The cattle, in particular, have been an exercise in "experiential education" or "project-based learning."  From designing a feeder the bull won't tip over to figuring out how to catch them for vet work, every time we need to do something new with the cattle my mind is tested.  I suppose it's this intellectual (and sometimes physical) challenge that I appreciate the most.  I've learned a lot.

Calves are the most challenging of all, because with them it's all about boundaries.  When they're born in the summer and learn to walk--usually when they're about 15 minutes old--the first thing their mamas do is set up boundaries.  We can get up close, and we can handle the calves, and we can even pick them up and carry them around.  But once we reach that invisible boundary their mama has established and walk TOO far away, we hear about it!  She comes running and grunting, and we put that calf down in a hurry.

And once the calves get about a day old, they start sneaking through the fence.  Like, all the time.  Like, every couple of hours.  So, out we go in search of a baby calf, usually curled up in the tall grass and sunlight, just on the other side of the boundary WE established--the fence.

The most challenging time, however, is when they enter the equivalent of their teenage years; then they're constantly testing the fence.  And once it's off--either because of a downed branch laying across it, or because the snow is so high the electricity runs into the ground instead of along the wire--they're out.  But now they aren't content to wait on just the other side of the fence, but they're off exploring the machine shed, the grove, the neighbor's grove; you name it.

So what does a challenged farmer do?  Shoo 'em back in and hope they won't find their way out again?  This is clearly ineffective, because the calf has learned that if he can get out once he can get out again.  Do I give up?  No, I can't give up because I have too much invested in his development.

The only solution is to come up with other solutions to the challenge.  I can confine him to another pen.  I can build more fence.  I can beef up the voltage.  I can re-string it to avoid the snow banks.  I can lower the wires so there's less room to sneak through.  Whatever it takes to accomplish my goal with that calf, I need to try and try until I find the solution that works.

Thing is, I know that in a couple of weeks, that calf will have found a new way through the fence, and my new solution no longer works.  The cycle starts over again.

The analogy I'm trying to make with educating students and raising kids should be clear:  adjust, change, refine, evaluate your teaching/parenting methods until you find something that works.  With a much more diverse body of students coming to our schools, the factory model of education no longer works for as many as it used to.  We're much better off if we provide multiple avenues for students to engage with the content in our classrooms.

But there's another lesson in this story that I don't want teachers to miss, if any are reading:  I need YOU to be the one pushing fences, exploring new areas of education, learning about what the world outside your classroom has to offer.  Worksheets, study guides, chapter tests alone will simply not cut it.  And with every student using a laptop to learn, the world of educational opportunities has grown for us at N-K exponentially.  Climb your way through the fence, explore project-based learning in your classes, for example.  "Traditional education" is a boundary you should be testing and pushing against, every single day.