Agreeing to . . .Agree

      At one time, early in my tenure as an ag writer, there was actual contempt  between conventional and organic farmers. 
     
     There was an "enemy" mentality which didn't do anybody any good. 

                                             Strawberry season at Donaldson Farm in Mansfield, NJ.
      Today, most farmers recognize they are all in the same boat. Small and medium independent farmers are all doing their best.

     The farmers we have in the NorthEast aren't monster corporate farms. They practice integrated pest management rather than dump pesticides willy-nilly. For both the conventional farmer who uses chemicals and the organic farmer who uses biologics, the bottom line matters. They have families to support, equipment to buy and maintain, probably a lot of loans to pay off. 

     At a recent organic farming conference, New Jersey Agriculture Secretary Doug Fisher cautioned organic and sustainable farmers not to regard conventional farmers as the enemy. That caution went over well with most people present, although a few people were not happy with Fisher for saying it. 

   The keynote speaker at the conference, Mark Smallwood of the Rodale Institute, the place where the term organic farming was coined, pointed out the real enemies are the chemical companies who create situations where more and more of their product must be used. The enemies are the big, corporate farms where massive amounts of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and rodenticides (there is not such thing as a "pesticide," poison is poison) are applied to the fields. 

  I don't know why these corporations don't realize if they poison the planet they will die, too. But they don't. Or they think money can buy immortality -- the money they give to conservative politicians. And what are these politicians thinking? Some of them have children. And grandchildren. 

    Family farmers, regardless of whether they practice organic or conventional methods, have a lot more in common than they may think. They need to stick together. 

 

Oh Look! A Chicken!

     There's a t-shirt in some of those tacky catalogs that reads: I really don't have ADD. . .Oh, look, a Chicken!

     I don't know about you, but I do that. Not frequently, but I do it. Everybody gets distracted. It's not a disease. Not a disorder, it's simply life.

     A veteran teacher of my acquaintance said he's convinced about 10% of the kids he sees who are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder actually have some sort of problem. The other 90% just haven't been taught to focus.

     I don't find that hard to believe at all. There were kids in my kids' classes who were taking drugs for ADD or ADHD. They certainly didn't focus. They didn't want to do their homework. They acted out. They were what we used to call spoiled brats.

     And, when we met their parents, we saw why. Some of them seemed in charge. They weren't disciplined consistently. The parents gave in when they whined  or screamed. Allowed the kids to be disrespectful to them (so of course they were disrespectful to their teachers.) The parents made excuses. They blamed teachers for working the kids too hard or asking too much of them.

     Sometimes the kids were ok with one parent; the parent who expected them to behave and wouldn't take anything from them. Sometimes they behaved for babysitters because they knew they couldn't get away with anything. Sometimes they are fine with a teacher they like, but the chances of them liking or respecting a teacher are slim because they have one or two parents who don't respect them.

    At any rate, these kids have a really hard time in the real world. Nobody in college or the workplace is going to let them get away with whining and complaining. They are going to have to grow up and do it all at once because they haven't done the growing up their peers had to do.

    They haven't even learned the socialization skills other kids learned because other kids don't want to hang with them. They aren't fun if they are too self-centered. Perhaps the lack of social skills isn't entirely a bad thing because you wouldn't want them to have kids of their own and continue the problem.

     And, it is a problem because the kids who really want to learn. Who like the teachers to work them hard. Who have goals and ambitions, suffer because of the disruptive, bratty kids. And taxpayers are paying to "assist" these kids. Imagine the better ways to spend our resources.

Going Teach!

     I can't go to a party or any sort of gathering these days without hearing teachers talk about how onerous their jobs have become in recent years. 

     For one thing, they are sick of being told they work six hours a day. They know how many hours they work and it's not six per day. They have lesson plans to prepare, papers to grade, supplies to order and sort, conference to prepare for and participate in, kids to formally or informally counsel, in-service training even after they get the mandatory masters. Yes, they have summers "off," free for another job, or childcare responsibilities.

     Now, since the advent of lunatic federal regulations, they have added work: filling out meaningless evaluations that serve to kill trees but not evaluate anyone in a meaningful way. On top of they, they have less time to teach actual subject matter because they have to prepare the kids for standardized tests that measure how well they do on standardized tests. And the idiots in power want teachers to be evaluated by these tests. 

     As if this wasn't enough, there has been a slow but perceptible decline in parenting. 

     I'm not sure it it's the result of lack of skill or if parents just don't want to bother.

     Some experts trace the problem with parents back to a couple of lawsuits filed after kids got hurt on the playground. Really. As if kids didn't get hurt on the playground all the time. But apparently, the kids were badly hurt and the parents got sleazy lawyers and filed suit. So, playground were made "safer," but not as much fun. And parents started getting paranoid about kids getting hurt. As if they forgot that taking risks is a learning experience. 

     Others say the disappearance of a little kid walking to school in NYC in the early 1970s and the subsequent tsunami of publicity did the most damage. It started the myth that stranger abductions were common and increase the paranoia coefficient in parents. 

      So parents start overprotecting their kids, keeping them inside, not trusting them to go places on their own. And kids don't develop self-assurance and confidence. And they get fat. Kids need to be outside, climbing trees, getting dirty, exploring, playing non-structured games with no rules and no winners and losers. Not sitting inside staring at a screen. 

     And all of the above idiocy apparently led to the phenomenon of helicopter parenting. Parents interfering with their kids' lives on every imaginable level. 

      Part of that is parents not telling their kids they have to treat their teachers with respect. How stupid are these parents? If kids aren't taught to respect teachers, how can teachers teach?

     Which brings me to the title/headline of this blog post. Going Teach.  An acquaintace of mine speculates that a combination of meaningless paperwork and lack of respect will send teachers off the deep end, like postal workers.

    Let's hope not, but, nobody could blame them.

 

Searching for Sasquatch in Sussex

New Jersey is home to many large mammals.

Mules are also large New Jersey mammals.

Is the muckland Sasquatch habitat?

Ruins in Warren County, near Sasquatch territory??

     According to the Sasquatch hunters on TVs Animal Planet, New Jersey is the best place on the East Coast for a Sasquatch sighting.

     They claim it's because there is excellent habitat for large mammals. Not so much the pastures for the large prey animals, above, but for large predatory mammals like black bear. Since, according to them, Sasquatch is a large predator, he is likely to live in the same type of habitat.

     That's the claim of the Sasquatch hunters. 

     People with a firmer grip on reality believe New Jersey not only provides an excellent habitat for bears, it provides an excellent habitat for sarcasm. New Jerseyans are experts at deflecting snarky commentary. We get the "Sopranos" references, the "Jersey Shore" cracks, the "what Exit?" jokes. Think about what a treat it is to dish it to somebody else. To have these "Sasquatch hunters" come into the state looking for stories of sightings is like a gift from above. 

     You would think they would have had a clue from the fact the only professional sports team in the state has as its mascot a mythological creature. But, apparently not. They are, after all, Sasquatch hunters.

     So, the Animal Planet Bigfoot Patrol appeared in Sussex County, at a bar in Fredon Township called The Fountain House. A historic building with a liquor license. Perfect. Especially the part about the liquor license. 

    They got the requisite number of Sasquatch stories, including one from "Aunt Ida" who saw one while coon hunting with her paw many years ago. And some guys who said they saw one in broad daylight near a condo complex, walking that typical Sasquatch walk, long strides, swinging its gorilla-like arms, turning its head just once to check out the observers. Apparently, that's the only way a drunk in a Sasquatch suit can walk.

     We can only hope the Sasquatch hunters put a little money into the Sussex County economy while they were here. They didn't cause any problems. We don't embarrass easily and do just love to pull one over on out-of-staters. We used to tell the city kids chocolate milk came from Brown Swiss cows. This is just more of the same thing. 

   So, thanks for coming, fellas. We'll call again when we need a laugh.