Educational Reflections

What does it mean to be educated?

After 12 years of public education and 3+ years of higher education, you would think I would have a good answer, but I still find that I do not. It's taking me that long, and being forced to learn in another language, to realize how I would probably have done my education differently... if it were possible.

Growing up, I had always been taught to do well in school - seems obvious, right? Success in academics often leads to career and life success. I respect my parents for challenging me to do my best and I recognize that a somewhat genuine work ethic has gotten me pretty far. I praise the Lord for how He has blessed me in academics. However, I feel like the "American Dream" mentality has sunk itself a little further into my educational life than I would have ever wanted. What is the "American Dream" mentality, you ask? It is this: that hard work and scaling yourself up the ladder produces economic success and personal fulfillment. In school, what does this equate to? Getting good grades. What do you have to do to earn this success? Study, work hard, and pass the test. Does that mean you are learning things that you will hold on to for a lifetime? While I agree that the psychological purpose of testing is to allow us to apply knowledge and record information mentally, the educational system is not so perfect in that we remember all that we've been tested on. This is obvious, in that I am already forgetting the concepts on a test that I took yesterday. The long-term memory only records fact with repetition, but for me, I believe that we can also learn and record fact with enthusiasm.

Example. I am going to soon give a group presentation in an economics class here (food systems and world economics) on the historic successes of U.S. in foreign relations. Funny how I am reading this book on U.S. history and re-learning what I learned in 2 years of social studies class back in elementary/middle school. When was the Revolutionary War? I found out via Wikipedia that it was from 1775 to 1783. Don't judge, I know that fact now because I WANTED to. Vocabulary is another example - both English and Spanish. I like using new words, but unless I have the motivation to learn them, I won't.
Words of the day in Spanish (shout out to 2 Corinthians 4:7):
Tesero = treasure
Vasija = vessel/vase/jar
Barro = clay
Words of (yesterday) in English (shout out to this reading about U.S. history):
Palpable = tangible, obvious, evident
Prudence = taking care/being wise in decisions/matters
Unilateralism = being one-sided, directed by one party/group

Okay, so I was motivated to learn these words, but if I do not use them or have an interest in keeping them with me, I will lose that knowledge. Does this have something to do with personal motivation or our educational system? I won't dig in too deep, but there is some culpability (word I didn't know in English but just made up due to the Spanish word for blame... turns out it is a word in English) in the "standardized school system." Take a look at this super cool TED Talk animation by Sir Ken Robinson - I always enjoyed this video as it makes us think about what we are really pursuing in the educational system - and if it is really necessary at all. Being here at EARTH makes me realize that the students are actually going to USE what they are learning - and how awesome is it that more than 50% of their "class" time is "lab/practical experience" time? While they still study to pass tests, there seems to be more of a desire to actually know the content for life's coming careers. I am not bashing my good old Penn State or any other educational system for that matter - we will all use something we gain from education in some aspect. But what more can we do to increase motivation to actually LEARN content and appreciation for knowledge when it is being given to us?

The answer lies in my "major" - agricultural and extension EDUCATION. Teachers hold so much power, they don't even realize it. My renewed passion to learn/appreciate what I am learning will hopefully be transformed into an enthusiasm for my future students' success in gaining knowledge. I also hope to instill the concept of critical thinking for whoever I come into contact with as a "teacher." Without adaptive and practically-oriented thought processes, self-improvement and success will be hard to come by in life. And without critical thinking, we will never allow our children/next generation to continue to solve the world's problems.

My (new) equation for an adequate education: 
(A motivation to learn (instilled by parents and teachers) + specificity to student needs/interests + a lot of critical thinking) x practical application = personal growth and life-long learning 

Do you have an exam coming up? Are you worried about the grade you will get in the class or are you trying to just "get" the material to spit it back out on the exam? Imagine how wonderful it would be to actually KNOW everything from a desire to learn it rather than a pressure to memorize it. Takes a lot of pressure out of the education system... and it just makes more sense. After all, aren't we in school to LEARN and not just to get good grades? When did this concept become so convoluted/competitive? Don't worry about the grade, worry about the knowledge that you have the potential to gain. God has the rest taken care of.

I have a very motivating friend here, another student studying abroad for the semester. She has already had 3 years of college education (like me) and an additional previous semester at EARTH. She can graduate next spring but says she isn't ready to stop learning. "There is so much more to learn, I feel like I don't know enough!" she tells me. Wow. What a motivation, not just to do well on those exams, but to learn, think about, and apply what we are being taught.

Time to take advantage of the wonderful education system and resources with I have been blessed. I am ready and motivated to learn. Are you? 

Que pasa?

What's up? Good question. Sorry for not posting in a while, time seems to be FLYING here! I can't believe that the 6th week of class is almost over... I'm only here for 9 more weeks!

Since Turrialba, I have been keeping busy with class and friends. This past weekend, I was studying for my first agriculturally-related exam in Spanish (animal production exam) and I think it went really well! Praise the Lord for peace of mind during the exam, I wasn't really nervous at all!! Other than that, let me update you with pictures... since I have to look at them to remember what I have been doing anyway (note: keep travel journal updated).

Photos below are of our most recent lab in my animal production class - we went out to do an analysis of forage content of a horse pasture. We took samples with 0.5 x 0.5 M square and used these samples as reference points (with their mass) to visually grade the pasture (randomly, 30 points) and determine the pasture content. May sound a little complicated, but it was cool - my calculations and visual observations conclude that the pasture was 95% grasses and 5% weeds. 

It was my friend, Vanesa's, birthday (she's in the middle) and we celebrated by surprising her with the guys at 2 AM! Vanesa is the only other study abroad student here, she is from Guatemala and studying at University of British Columbia! She has such a beautiful passion for her country and helping those who are less fortunate. Her and another friend, Angie, and I were working on a grant/prize program to fund a potential project in Guatemala that would bring local farmers out of poverty! 

Last weekend I also went on a hike with my friends, Gaby and Uziel. We walked around the banana plantation and took the little basket thingy over the river - a location I plan to return to as it is good for swimming! 

The organic banana plantation was super cool... but very well protected. See who buys the bananas? WHOLE FOODS! I bought some of these bananas last summer in Colorado! Just so I could say I bought them!

It is a SUPER cool application of Agroforestry (integration of various crops/plants to minimize land use and need for pesticides). Plus, I knew the scientific names of several of the integrated plants (the one on the left there is Cratylia argentea)

We went out while other students had work experience - these kids are applying skills from the tractor driving class they had last semester!

Uziel  is from Bolivia and Gaby is from Mexico! New places to visit in the world...

Last weekend, we had a pizza and movie night in one of the classrooms on campus - I had no problem enjoying "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" in Spanish. It was cool to realize the diversity in the room - 5 friends, 5 countries represented (Mexico, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Brazil). I love this place. 

Another cute puppy to end my blog post with - this little guy really does make my day when we go to work with our family in the community. I have named him Mundo ("world" in Spanish) since the family has yet to name him. He comes to me and is even starting to respond to the name! Now all that's left to do is convince them to let me have him/smuggle him back into the states... 

Home for the weekend

Nope, I did not fly back to PA for the weekend... but I did take a few bus rides to get to 

TURRIALBA! 

Last summer I came to Costa Rica with Penn State's Spanish for the Ag Sciences program (scroll back long enough in the blog and you'll find us). Along with a scholarship to do my undergrad thesis research in local schools with Ag Ed, I ended up staying in Turrialba, Cartago, for 6.5 weeks with a host family.

Since I am less than 40 miles from Turrialba while here at EARTH, you wouldn't expect me to not go back and visit my Costa Rican family every now and then??

On Friday afternoon, I took a bus from campus to Siquirres, then a bus from Siquirres over the mountain to Turrialba - totaling about 3 hours of travel... for less than 40 miles! Nonetheless, I got some good reading time in.

Arriving on Friday night, I found another gringa at my house (I had expected it) - Sarah is a student with THIS YEAR's PSU Spanish for Ag Sciences crew and they were planning to leave the next morning! Knowing some of the students in the group, I decided to keep my visit a secret! I really enjoyed seeing Cassidy's face the next morning, for example, when I walked by her on the way to the group's bus with Sarah! It was kind of strange to say goodbye to this year's gang when it feels like just yesterday my group was waltzing the streets of Turrialba.

This year's Spanish for the Ag Sciences crew with their advisers, Alex and Paige. Ready to go to Volcan Arenal before leaving the country!

Bye bye gringos ;) Turrialba is all mine for the weekend!

Saturday turned out to be a pretty relaxed day. I got some more reading in and went with my Mamatica (Marilyn) to the farmer's market for some goodies! Then, Saturday evening was spent with another one of my Costa Rican families! 

Martin and Maria (and their 6-year old, Mariana) are such a wonderful family. I met them during my time in Turrialba last summer, when I attended a Bible study (in Spanish, fyi) with my PSU classmate, Amy, at her host family's home. Martin and Maria were leading the study and we found out that Martin is a counselor for the agricultural technical high school that I was trying to get into! God works in such amazing ways! Needless to say, I was able to gather a bunch of information from the school where Martin works (thesis draft 1 is done!) and was able to get to know this young family pretty well. While I never lived with them, they always tell me I am welcome to : )  

Martin is on the left and Mariana is in the pink and blue PJs!

I met up with the family for an afternoon "coffee" - AKA an early dinner (coffee in Costa Rica NEVER is taken alone. It is always consumed with something else - a sandwich, cookie, pastry, etc. Personally, I prefer this way better...). Then we went to visit with Maria's parents - her whole family was there! 2 sisters, brother, his wife and children, and more. I really felt at home! Martin's birthday was Sunday, so they even had a little cake for him on Saturday night. Then, on the way to taking me home, we stopped at the park in Turrialba for a short bit (at like 9 PM - it was actually COLD out! well, cold in comparison to the humid tropics at EARTH) where we ran into some of Martin and Maria's friends and ended up talking for like an hour! It was so nice to just relax with some friends and enjoy the ability to communicate through quality time - and through another language!
On Sunday, I asked to help my Mamatica Marilyn cook her famous plate of Rice-and-Beans. The dish is actually called Rice-and-Beans in Spanish (rather than arroz y frijoles) because it is a Carribean influenced dish and the rice/beans are cooked in COCONUT MILK! It was lots of work, I got my hands dirty, but the ending meal was fantastic : ) I will certainly be practicing this meal back in the States! Too bad I won't have the same opportunity to HAND SHRED coconut for the milk! Oh well, gotta enjoy the opportunities when they come to you! Until next time friends, Pura Vida!

Rice-and-beans with fresh mango/fruit smoothie, plantains, and salad. A good reward to a morning of cooking!

First day with a machete...

There isn't too much of a use for a 3-foot long knife on our farms back home, but given the superfluous amount of vegetation and different lifestyle of the humid tropics, machetes are quite common...

First time chopping vegetation with a long-bladed machete

Today was my first official day of "community work experience." Normally, students go out to work in an assigned module (i.e. the dairy, crops, forestry) for 5 hours on both Wednesday and Saturday mornings. I selected "experiencia de trabajo comunitaria" which involves going to a local community of agriculturalists to help them with daily work and work alongside them to solve problems (using past experience and scientific knowledge learned at EARTH). With my teammates, Perejitei (from Nigeria) and Gaby (from Mexico), we were assigned to the family of Dionicia. She owns about 3 hectares (approx 7.5 acres) of land and mainly produces plantains and mangoes for sale at a market in San Jose - someone acts as a "middleman" to take the goods there since the family does not have a vehicle. This community we are working in is only 5-6 years old, as it was previously a bunch of land that the government purchased then divided between 23 families (3 hectares each). While it is still a relatively new and developing community, the families are trying to earn a sustainable income from their crops. Nonetheless, problems still exist - allowing for this experience to be truly applicable to issues that EARTH graduates would face in the future if they work with the rural poor in their communities. 

But let's get to today's events. I didn't plan on making this a long blog... just one with lots of pictures (note: all taken from my phone! I was pretty pleased with it, even if I didn't drag my Nikon out to this rural community).

We arrived at Dionicia's house around 8:30 and got to work clearing a plot of post-harvested corn. And right away, my machete hand was at work! (see photo above) We chopped down approx 1 acre of corn (by my very approximate approximation) and let the stalks lay between the mounded rows (new Spanish word for the day! row = surco/hilera). Then, after a short break and some lunch, we went out to burn the stalks in the field! Now, I am not that big of a fan of burning fields to clear them (it damages naturally beneficial microorganisms and obviously emits CO2) but seeing as this family doesn't have many other resources to till/clear the field, I took the activity to be a wonderful new experience. 

Much work involved- the fire wasn't really cooperating so we had to re-lite often.

"Slash and burn" but not really, because we didn't cut down a forest - just slashed corn stalks with machetes :)

After a short while of getting smoke in our faces, we realized that the stalks maybe weren't as dry as could be to initiate a productive burn, so we are going to save the rest of the field cleaning for next week. After a short break, we then headed to one of the plantain plots with Ricardo (Dionicia's husband) to decide what to do with it. There had been a large insect, called a picudo negro (which is only active at night) that eats through the herbaceous stem of the plantain plant (NOT A TREE) and severely damages the structure- the tunnels made by this huge bug allow for other pests/diseases to enter and inevitably lead to a failed crop. So, for the plot of about 250 plantain plants, we were assigned to bring them all down - a task that took a surprisingly short amount of time. Between the 3 young adults and experienced farmer, all equipped with machetes, we took down the (approx) 1-acre plot in less than 30 minutes.

You would think chopping down a 10-inch thick stalk would take more than 1 swing... but with the right angle, you can cut through plantain plant flesh pretty easily!

While the plantains that were already grown aren't bad, they won't mature to the level of marketability. So, Ricardo chucked them for the two cows that they have on their small farm. I have never seen a cow eat plantain... so that was a new experience. Ricardo says he will probably let them in to graze among the yummy plantain remains and leaves, as they are pretty appetizing to cows (who knew!). 

Needless to say, after a grand total of 3-4 hours with machete in hand, I definitely earned some battle scars. Three nice sized blisters now adorn my right hand... and while two of them had already been broken by the afternoon (while clearing the plantains), I think I am going to survive. 

What a day! I am thankful for the wonderful experiences I had and the time spent with some friends out in a community. I am also thankful for this cute little puppy that I got to play with... makes me miss my dogs. But I guess I have something to look forward to next week (in addition to using a machete again) : )

Didn't chop this plantain plant down without first carefully removing the "bunch" with its secret treasure...

La Feria EARTH Multicultural!

FEM is what they call it here, for short.

Spanish lesson for today: Feria = Fair. Multicultural = multicultural.

Thus, the event was the EARTH Multicultural Fair!

31 countries (and flags) were on display at the 2013 EARTH Multicultural Fair

THE FLAGS ARE UP! Ever since I arrived 5 weeks ago, I have been wanting to see the flags up on their flagpoles. There are about 35 flagpoles in the front of the library and they do not hold flags all year round - just for special events, like LA FERIA!

My neighbors working on decorations for their country stands

Tent set-up started 2 weeks ago, the craziness hit in the last 10 days. Students have been painting, preparing, meeting, organizing, and working really hard for this STUDENT-RUN event. The 4th years are the main leaders of the event, especially considering the majority of the funds raised are used to pay for PLANE TICKETS so that the 4th year students' parents can come to their graduation (considering they are coming from all over the world - hence multicultural fair). There are 8-9 committees that almost the whole student body disperses itself among. I was a member of the committee called "Manejo Integrado de Residuos" - integrated waste management. There were 30-some recycling stations placed around the fair and we were assigned to one for a few hours at a time to make sure the public is properly sorting their "deshechos."

Me by my assigned "classificador" - EARTH has a pretty good recycling program

The Brazilian meat was pretty popular...

So other than the different committees, students are busy working on their individual stands - decorating and preparing their signature dish to sell at the Feria. There were 15 stands representing the different world regions of the student body. Most all Central/South American countries had their own stand, and all of Africa shared one stand... but their food was pretty good. Actually, all of the food was awesome, especially considering it was made by a bunch of college students. I had 4 meals - Chifrijo (from Costa Rica), Falafel and hummus (Lebanon - there is 1 student from Lebanon and EARTH's president is Lebanese), Chicken/coconut rice (Africa), and Shucho (a hot dog type sandwhich with guac and lots of other goodies) from Guatemala. YUM. Seriously. The food makes this event happen... like I am getting hungry right now thinking about it.

My friends from Belize and the Dominican Republic, manning the grills!

Rice cooked in coconut milk and other salads... yum.

While there are absolutely no full-time students from the United States of America at EARTH, we still managed to have a stand. How you may ask? Well there are 8 or 9 women who work for the university from the States, one being a very dedicated woman named Hannah, who organized our SUPERB stand and food selection. Wondering what it is? No, we didn't make cheeseburgers, but people were asking for them...

PIES and BROWNIES (home made). I got to help make the brownies in the university kitchen. We may not have had all the exact ingredients that you could find at any given Weis in the States, but we made it work... for a grand total of 28 batches of brownies! Man did they fly. The other women helped make the pies, and they were pretty popular - apple, mango meringue, key lime, and lemon meringue. We sold out by the end of the day Sunday (and didn't even sell anything Saturday). It was a success. There are some other United States students here for short periods, but I am longest-term gringo here for the summer.

The water drop dude waiting for local students to get their "I am a water guardian" gear on. The theme of the Feria 2013 was"Water for Life" so the national agency for clean water was definitely in their prime!

Other things happening at the Feria - bike race and running competition, local and national vendors with crafts, educational booths from EARTH, a mini-farm, and national DANCES! While I didn't see nearly as many as I would have liked, I still got to see some Nigerian friends move around to a hip-hop/jazz type music in addition to some groups that came in to represent other countries/groups.

I am not sure what group these women represented, but I loved their outfits :) 

So there it is, La Feria EARTH Multicultural 2013. Mind you, I have 300 more photos and lots more stories to tell, but this blog is just a quick summary. While the craziness of the event doesn't quite compare to a home football weekend in State College, the university population multiplied by at least 10 this weekend. The majority of the masses came Sunday and I think there was over 10,000 total attendees, but I still don't have the final count! TBA... stay tuned! 

I hope you enjoyed my account of FEM 2013!! Be sure to come next year ;)