Community can help create ‘farm kid skills’

Small town diet

“Farm kid skills” became an important concept at the Building a 21st Century Workforce conference at NJPA in December.

At the manufacturing, robotics and transportation small group session, which was primarily shop teachers, other educators, mixed in with manufacturing and administrative people, they were all working on similar issues.

Many of them kept talking about the problem of students who don’t have the “soft skills” needed to become a productive employee. Those soft skills include simply showing up to work, getting along with co-workers, working as a team and not pulling out their cell phone every few minutes.

 One educator noted at the conference that studies show every time a student makes a big change in their life, it’s because of exposure to something in their ‘real life’. It’s not on a cell phone, but in real life.

Some of the educators grew up on a farm and said that’s where they learned their work ethic and getting jobs done.

It reminded me of a story I did a few years ago on the Mertens farm north of Staples. The parents gave young kids simple responsibilities, like taking care of calves, to let the kids figure out how to do it with no instructions, just using their imaginations. The kids came up with different concepts and of course the parents were nearby to make sure no harm was done.

Now imagine, doing something like that every day from an early age. The basis of “farm kid skills” is simply observing real things, in the real world, every day, and making a plan to improve what you see. 

The second part of “farm kid skills” is developing a sense of responsibility. On a farm, if one person doesn’t do something that needs to be done, there aren’t many other people who can help, so the responsiblity is there every day.

A third generator of “farm kid skills” is the sense of ownership that develops, which often extends beyond the farm to the schools and community as the farm kid realizes how the world depends on farms and how farms depend on the community. Just like they would fix a broken fence on the farm, if someone who has “farm kid skills” sees a park bench tipped over in town, they might be more likely to put it back up, just because it’s something that needs to be done.

So look back at the problem voiced by the educators: a lack of “farm kid skills” in the workforce. How does a community that needs workers help develop these skills? It isn’t possible to throw every student onto a farm environment every day, but it’s possible for a community to create a culture in which there’re things to do that can develop a sense of responsibility and a sense of ownership.

The schools are doing a great job of exposing students to such things - in Staples and Motley they have Connections High School and Tech Mobile doing just that. The rest of the community can also play a role, such as with the CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities) program.

But every student has a different passion and we need more places where they can develop their skills.

When Central Lakes College underwent their remodeling this past summer, one of the early plans was to open a “fab lab” in which anyone in the community could come in and build whatever part, product or artwork they could imagine. It was advertised to be like a library for building things.

That’s just one example how students and community members can come together to do real things in the real world every day, learn responsibility and develop a sense of ownership. If we work on those goals, we could get our “community skills” to go beyond “farm kid skills.”

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Mailing Address: P.O. Box 100 Staples, MN 56479 Telephone: (218) 894-1112 - Fax: (218) 894-3570 Toll Free: 1-888-894-1112 E Mail: office@staplesworld.com; editor@staplesworld.com

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