The Cows Come Home. A Farm Kid Milks Her Experiences for All They're Worth

• Published in: Teacher magazine Vol. 16; no. 5; pp. 42 - 44
• Main Author: Panciera, Carla
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Editorial Projects in Education, Inc 2005
• Subjects: Agricultural Occupations; Class Activities; Literary Genres; Rural Farm Residents; Secondary School Teachers; Teaching Experience
• ISSN: 1046-6193

Carla Panciera, is a farmer's daughter who grew up on a hundred acres of corn, pasture with a herd of dairy cows. As a child she learned that cows have 4 stomachs, the average gestation period of a calf, how to back the manure spreader into the shed, and the art of clipping, and bathing cows on show day. Her father eventually sold the farm and moved into town, and she went of to college and a teaching career, wondering what she could ever do with all she had learned on the farm. About half way through her 10th year of teaching English, she over heard a conversation among her students who were sharing tales of their latest conquest at the local "all you can eat" restaurant. Panciera had shared with her class that she was a vegetarian, and had been raised on a farm. One student asked her if she drank milk, and said "Well, I think it's pretty hypocritical, I mean, they had to kill the cow to get the milk, anyway." At that point, the author, knew she had been presented with one of those impromptu teachable moments that she had learned about in graduate school. When kids need to know something critical, her professors told her, let it happen. This article describes how she postphoned the lesson she had planned for that day, and seized the moment to answer questions, about life on the farm, diagrammed a milking parlor, and taught the class to milk an imaginary cow. For the rest of the class students who had not raised their hands the entire year, were enthisiastically asking one question after another as they learned how beef, milk, and dairy products are produced. How much milk do cows give? Did you drive a tractor? Did you have horses, chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, llamas? What?s a cow weigh, anyway? Are bulls the ones with horns?