By Paris Marshall Smith
One area of focus for Fields Forward this spring was on education, extension and training. Three workshops were offered in April: Agri-Food Business Training, Food Education with Michael Becker and Soils Training with Bill Chapman.
These diverse weekend offerings appealed to a broad range of both large and small scale primary and value added producers. In all cases we had strong representation from Creston and District as well as drawing people from around the Kootenays and as far away as Calgary and Summerland. This mix of experience provided learning opportunities from each other by sharing information about practices that are effective or not.
The Agri-Food Business Training created sufficient enthusiasm to prompt the development of a second mod-ule of training so that producers can continue their learning. This course would be offered next spring by Sylvia Chong and Greg McLaren. The Soils Workshop with Bill Chapman was a very generous weekend that provided a basis for continued support from Bill to our region as he begins his retirement in the Castlegar area.
Melissa Flint was the catalyst and lead for bringing Michael Becker to Creston. She says, “This idea started in August of 2016 at the Bullock’s Homestead during an Advanced Permaculture Design Course. I was talking with a some of the other participants about my work with school gardens and trying to figure out how to take this work to the next level. The answer of course, was to invite Michael Becker up to lead a workshop targeted at school teachers!” (read Melissa’s full blog post: http://gardenloveaffair.blogspot.ca/2017/04/michael-becker-workshop-in-creston.html)
The Food Education training on April 8 & 9 with Michael Becker was a full, rich 2-days of learning. Michael Becker is a middle school teacher in Hood River, Oregon. He is a dynamic educator who uses permaculture principles as a way to engage students in their own learning and lives. Operating from the core principles of care for the earth and care for people, Becker encourages people to start small (how can we break down the ‘whole’ into digestible bits?), obtain a yield (what is some measure of success or gain?), celebrate (With what can we feel successful and how do we share that success with others?) and then get back to work and start again. The workshop was held on the Lower Kootenay Band land and participants were grateful to be able to learn at the Yaqan Nukiy Elementary School and eat locally sourced meals in the community hall.
Here is some of the feedback from Michael Becker’s workshop:
One action you are going to take:
•Work on having an indoor composting system that the students can be in charge of.
•Give students greater ownership at their school.
•Integrate inquiry-based local learning and be a model for the region, the country, the world.
•Talk with teachers I work with about how to integrate more environmental education/gardening/indigenous education into our project based learning.
•Connect with people in the workshop, collaborate and be supportive.
•Ask the school students for feedback, input and design ideas for our wetland restoration project.
•Develop plans for the school’s courtyard with my grade 11/12 sustainability class. Create a permaculture space.
The Best of the Weekend:
•Feeling inspired and energized by Michael’s success and energy. Ready to share my excitement and get started.
•Advice to start simple.
•Getting practical ideas and scaffolding on how to start and build support and resources.
•Actually going through actionable processes and getting concrete teaching tools, a framework, and a network to grow/work from.
•Inspiration! Realization that this is what is needed. There really is no resistance. Someone just needs to start it. I don’t need to think of myself as small. I just need to think of myself as the person who is willing to try.
•Meeting so many inspiring people who all have the same goals - feeling like part of a larger movement.
Suggestions/Comments:
•Thank you for organizing such an amazing and inspiring event!
•Holy doodle what an experience: well facilitated, amazing speaker, delicious lunch! Leaving this work-shop with a renewed energy and enthusiasm for ecological education.
•Food was great! Very informative! Learned way too much!!
•Thank you for bringing Michael to Creston - it was VERY inspiring! Next time rent a school bus and take a bunch of us down to his school for a week/weekend?
•OMG what an inspiring 2-day workshop. I am ready to change the world with my littles.
•Honestly, thank you so much for putting this on. In 2 days I felt more empowered to do tangible things than in the 2 years of my education degree. And the food! Yum!
•Wow, just speechless. The best pro-d/workshop I have ever attended! Please bring him back next year!
In closing, some questions from Melissa - What are you doing next week, next month, a year to make your life, your community and your environment more diverse, more productive, more interesting? How can we build models in our communities that support diversity and adaptability to better engage in our environment?