Effective Professional Learning

 (Farming vs Education)

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                                                                                                                                                                                            By Jose Moreno      8/30/2020

         While reading the works done by Allison Gulamhussein and Bryan Goodwin. My mind traveled through childhood and adolescence connecting a series of dots in my life. Where there have been effective learning processes, as well as points where there has only been exposure to passive learning. Informal education from my point of view travels in parallel with the formal one. With a big difference; the first is more natural and depends largely on the circumstances of the family environment. While the formal one has been structured according to socioeconomic interests. With a lot of inconsistency through the processes of strategic changes. One of them is the lack of effective professional learning where it is intended to achieve results through passive learning. This has been emphasized by intellectuals like Jean Piaget and John Dewey for many years. Animals and farming activities give me many clear examples of effective learning; that are almost always ignored in the execution of formal education.

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            The effects of the 1940 civil war in Colombia, created by the state to seize the best land and seek cheap labor from the countryside in the urban area. My parents were displaced in 1968 with 7 children to that sad reality. I was only a few months old. It was very clear that not having college education and having 7 children would not be an easy life in the city. My parents struggled day and night, but what they earned and the savings were not enough, not even to pay for the elementary and middles school tuition of the older brothers. It was a nightmare that lasted 9 years. We returned again to the countryside, to an inhospitable jungle, without electricity, without roads, without utilities. It was the only way to survive.   

 

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        There we began our collaborative work and

effective learning with the construction of a little

house,  the planting of corn, banana, yucca and

raising chickens to have our food. Where we only

needed  to buy salt in town, because we had no

money.  We all worked as a team and my parents

modeled activities for us daily and accompanied

us until we were successful in the planting,

harvesting and  processing tasks. We all learned

from each other,  we analyzed mistakes and looked

for solutions so that they did not recur.

            My parents had very few books. The Bible;

a book on human anatomy; a book on Greek / Latin roots; and a fiction book titled "Thousand Nights and a Night" by Richard Francis Burton. Every day after dinner, they brought us together to take turns reading and analyzing a fictional story or a passage from the Bible. The older siblings who could read have the choice to read about anatomy or Greek and Latin roots at reading time. The little ones always asked for fiction stories and we liked to ask to read them again in the following nights, we always found something new and interesting. This continuous reading exercise was accompanied by messages from my parents about perseverance and dreams of studying at the university.

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            Every year there were new opportunities and challenges, as we went buying cows, mules, horses, pigs. Where we started a new process of continuous and specific learning about the behavior, management, reproduction and diseases of each species. We learned mathematics daily by counting the animals, measuring the land, weighing the crops and calculating the weight of the cows to know the sale or purchase price. We began to be economic solvent and we could buy books to learn about conditions and care for our animals. This motivated me to pursue an agricultural technical middle and high school degree and later on go to the university and obtain a degree as a Doctor Veterinary Medicine.

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            Life on a farm is a very clear example of the effectiveness of learning processes. Where you model, you work as a team, you do it actively. Where you need to be specific about decision making and where all processes are dynamic and many variables must be observed to be successful. I believe that if professional developments in education were put into practice on a poultry farm, all Chicks would die within in a short period of time. Basically, because the learning processes were passive and un-articulated.

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          I created an animation google slide with google pictures that I modified with the paint app and snipping tool.  Then I changed into a video presentation with Camtasia and I trimmed in pieces using iMovie.  Where I created the final video in a MacBook Pro computer. For the voice I used the voice memos app.

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References

El mundo del campo (2019, Jun 17) Cultivo de plátano festival Hartón de Oro Tame Arauca 1. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=napi0qsWV20

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Goodwin, B., (2015, Dec- 2016 Jan) Research says/Does teacher Collaboration Promote Teacher Growth? Education leadership. 73 (4), page 82 - 84. Retrieved from https://www.dropbox.com/s/hml95bj705dvkzw/Does%20Teacher%20Collaboration%20Promote%20Teacher%20Growth.pdf?dl=0

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Gulamhussein, A. (2013) Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development in an Era of High Stakes Accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from https://www.dropbox.com/s/j13c5mk092kmqv9/Teaching_Effective_Professional_Developmt.pdf?dl=0

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Torres. F., (2016, Dec 3) Trabajo del llano finca Santa Rosa Arauca mar. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9bnYGtkcNo

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