Jacob_Kidd by Freestyle Academy

goats are great

a documentary

jacob kidd

Dedication

to katherine, because goats.

acknowledgements First of all, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to acknowledge Ms. Leslie Parkinson, Mr. Jason Greco, and all of Freestyle Academy for giving me this invaluable opportunity of creating something of my own. For all of their wonderful support day by day, I would like to thank my dad and my mama, Jeff and Robin Kidd, as well as my little brother, Jared. A special thanks to Katherine Higgins and the Higgins family for introducing me to the 4-H community.

table of contents FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 CHAPTER 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 CHAPTER 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 CHAPTER 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 WORKS CITED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 6

Foreword We crawled along the weaving paths up wayward mountains, our feet as burnt as our breakfast, our fifty-pound packs gnawing at our backs, and our sun-colored faces cringing with each quiver of our knees. We knew in our hearts, however, it would all be worth it; we knew that glory was found at the end of the day. Philmont Scout Ranch, New Mexico, the summer of 2012. With a patrol of my fellow scouts from Troop 37, Los Altos, California, I hiked over one-hundred miles across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of the Rocky Mountain Range of Northern New Mexico. On the ninth day of our hike, we reached the top of Mount Baldy, at 12,441 feet above sea-level. It was an incredible, invaluable experience that challenged my patrol to understand the significance of leadership, teamwork, and persistence. So, when Katherine, a classmate and good friend of mine, presented to me her potential topic for our Documentary Project, I knew exactly what she was talking about. The topic she presented followed a Positive Youth Development Organization that’s part of the U.S. Cooperative Extension System called 4-H. As a member herself, Katherine explained that 4-H taught youth valuable “academic, leadership, and life skills.” Like Boy Scouts, 4-H involved camping activities in the outdoors, as well as project opportunities for its members. Unlike Boy Scouts, however, 4-H implicated an entirely projectbased curriculum, offering a myriad of activities and healthy pursuits to young individuals from ages five to eighteen. 9

At first, 4-H looked to me an agricultural club for youth in the community. Convinced that the modern world is in the midst of a rapid technological revolution and that the age of agricultural community in places like the U.S. was (if not already obsolete) quickly withering in the face of the agricultural industry, I wondered how 4-H could even be possible in our day and age. Then Katherine took me to the 4-H Rolling Hills Club at McClellan Ranch Park, where all the magic happens. She introduced me to a bunch of her fellow members, a few of the adult leaders, and her four dairy goats, Ysabel, Ariel, Chai, and Chili Pepper. She told me stories about how, through the 4-H Dairy Goat Project, she had raised her goats since they were kids. She described to me what it was like when Ysabel and Aerial had their first sets of kids, recounting the immense happiness and pride it brought her to have raised them herself. I quickly learned that 4-H was a lot more than an “agricultural club.” It was teaching youth values that would immensely shape their lives and their futures. As an outsider, I immediately turned to how my own life experience compared to hers. While I found certain experiences, such as my participation in Boy Scouts, gave me particularly unique insights about life, I discovered an aspect to a fundamental flaw in our society today—that those insights were, inherently, unique. While some teenagers, such as myself, are gaining academic, leadership, and life skills, in programs like 4-H and Boy Scouts, a strong majority, on the other hand, are not. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, as it turns out, it has a lot less to do with the lack of experience that the strong majority is getting—and a lot more to do with the industrial age we’re living in. 10

Introduction According to ancient Greek mythology, the moniker “Golden Age” (Chryson Genos) means an “everlasting Spring”, or immense prosperity and peace. The time that ensues would be referred to as the “Silver Age,” followed by the “Bronze” one, and then the “Heroic.” Today, we live in the hellenic era deemed the “Iron Age,” defined by the Greeks to be a dwindling state of deterioration. You are probably already familiar with at least one or two of these terms and may have heard them being used to describe the success of a company, organization, government, or country. The organization I will be enlightening you of in the following investigation is one called 4-H. Ideas for a youth agricultural program like 4-H actually first emerged in the 1800s. A study was done that alluded that, unlike adults, youth were highly open-minded and resilient in relation to new industrial technology used in the agricultural field. Adults, however, tended to resist contemporary innovations (4-H Youth Development Organization). With this ideology in mind, A. B. Graham started the “Corn Growing Club” in Clark County, Ohio, in 1902. Soon after, another such club appeared in Douglas County, Minnesota. In 1910, Jesse Field Shambaugh developed the trademark clover pin–putting an “H” on each leaf of the clover. By 1912 they were called “4-H Clubs.” In 1914, the U.S. passed the Smith-Lever Act and created the Cooperative Extension System at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which made 4-H a nationally recognized organization. The establishment of the International Farm Youth Exchange (IFYE) in 1948 contributed greatly to the practice of 4-H programs in over eighty countries throughout the world (4-H Youth Development Organization). 13

So, as you can imagine, 4-H has not only been impacting the U.S. for over a century, but has had its influence reach out to a myriad of other places across the globe. But what is 4-H, exactly? How has it turned out as such an influential phenomenon? And what does this have to do with ancient Greek Mythology? 4-H is a program that directly benefits its teenaged members in multiple aspects of their lives. It’s had its great influence in the past, but with the upheaval of a phalanx (horde, if you will) of new technology in the modern era, is an agricultural program of its kind a thing of the past? Can one say it has reached its Iron Age? Perhaps. But wasn’t it the idea of adapting to new technology what 4-H was founded upon in the first place? In any case, this paper will attempt to seek out the answers to these issues by investigating first-hand the core values that effectively mechanize (only some irony intended) this unique and revolutionary agricultural organization–and whether or not its Golden Age has reached the last of its days.

In the midst of an age at the apex of anxiety, 4-H is teaching teenagers valuable academic, leadership, and life skills–however is unjustly overlooked as a noble solution to the plight of an ignoble age. 14

CHAPTER 1

IT U R F ’S T IS R U T U F A IS HOW 4-H The ramifications of the relatively recent Great Recession have taken their toll on countless families throughout the U.S. According to a study performed each year from 2007 to 2010 by the American Psychological Association on American families, “money” (76%), “work” (70%), and “the economy” (65%) are the most frequently cited reasons behind causes of stress in a majority of adults, followed by many other common reasons–namely “family responsibilities” (58%), “relationships” (55%), “personal health concerns” (52%), etc. (Anderson). So, we know the majority of adults are stressed out in their everyday lives, but what’s going on in the heads of American children these days? Well, according to that very same survey, over 85% of youth ages 8-17 in the U.S. are negatively affected by their parents’ anxiety in their home environment. Meanwhile, 69% of all parents report that “their stress has only a slight or no impact on their children” (Anderson). Although most kids probably aren’t worried about the things their parents are worried about (i.e. “money”, “work”, “the economy”), they’re still worried nonetheless because of their parents’ attitudes and actions. Instead, they’re simply worried about their future. That precious, delicate crystal ball slowly handed off by each parent to their child. Careful, don’t drop it–you don’t want to wind up a high-school dropout in your late twenties working a dead-end job at the local McDonald’s and living in your parent’s basement.

Through a series of studies on students attending Faircrest High School, the book Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, by Denise Clark Pope, illustrates the kind of stress kids experience on a day-today basis in the school environment. Pope conveys Faircrest, Wisconsin to be a place where “housing prices are well above the national norm, in part because people are willing to pay a premium for its distinguished public schools” (166). Eve Lin, a reputable straight-A student, describes her “life as a high school machine,” saying, “this school turns students into robots. I have been thinking about it a lot; I am a robot, just going page by page, doing the work, doing the routine” (37). She believes the school environment is truly a reflection of the Darwinian concept of “survival of the fittest.” Those who can “stay up and take as much stress as possible and still stay alive.. stay on top and survive.” According to Lin, the secret to success in school is to “beat each other and rise above” (37). Pope states that “the school system is constructed for only a few to ‘succeed.’ And many of us have become so used to this model that we can hardly see the problems inherent in it” (157). Interviewing several Faircrest third-graders, Pope says that even kids that young “speak in earnest of their hopes to attend Stanford or Harvard when they grow up.” The reasoning behind their feelings, Pope believes, is that “they learn to equate credentials from prestigious universities with status and wealth”. Her belief is reflected in one third-grader’s statement: “I want to be rich and drive a Lexus, so I need to get A’s” (167). Considering the enormous potential overlap between students stressed out in their school and home environments, the majority of today’s youth face a critically destructive amount of stress in their daily lives. Stress largely causes youth to resort to a variety of coping methods–namely, alcohol and substance abuse. 18

“The school system is constructed for only a few to ‘succeed.’ And many of us have become so used to this model that we can hardly see the problems inherent in it.” - Denise Pope, “Doing School”

The results of the National Institute on Drug Abuse 2012 “Monitoring the Future” survey show that nearly 64% of all 12th-graders have consumed alcohol in the past year and nearly half had abused illicit non-prescription drugs in their lifetimes. (“Monitoring the Future Study: Trends in Prevalence of Various Drugs”) So stress is the new Black Death. A recently reincarnated epidemic spreading across the American countryside–the impact of which has been indiscriminate in its path, the symptoms of which have been relentlessly impairing, and the weight of which has been felt by all. Assuming that no one is coming up with any immaculate, airtight solutions to the issues involving the Great Recession or the U.S. educational system, the American public isn’t likely to see a cure to this contemporary plague anytime soon–but that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope. Similarly to how parents fail to realize the effect of their stress on their children, they fail to realize the impact of their behavior on their needs. Handing down the “glass baton” can certainly seem like a frighteningly fragile operation to both parents and their children. Which is why parents need to delegate some of their responsibility of ensuring their child’s success and happiness to an external program. What about school? Is it teaching all students the values they need to be successful? Certainly not. If it were, all students would be getting straight-As, no question. What about extracurricular activities? Yes. In fact, participation in extracurricular activities has been proven to enable kids to get higher grades and have considerably more positive outlooks in their daily lives. The development of personal interests and values at a young age is critically advantageous to their ability to form academic and professional interests in the future. Such activities additionally encourages a healthy lifestyle and helps build self-esteem (Massoni). 20

So, extracurriculars are largely supportive in youth achievement of a fruitful lifestyle. They give kids of all ages a taste of what life’s all about–but is there any extracurricular activity or program that benefits kids the most? One that assures academic success while promoting positive values and teaching vital life skills? It turns out there is–it’s a program called 4-H, and, much like a fruit, it contains a trove of nutrients, a taste of the future, and the seeds of success.

CHAPTER 2

D N E I R F L A G N U HOW 4-H IS A F So, what exactly is 4-H? You’ve come to know it as an “agriculturally-based organization,” but what does an agricultural organization do? And what does it have to do with leadership and life skills? First off, let’s look at what 4-H stands for. The 4-H pledge goes as follows:

“I pledge my head to clearer thinking, My heart to greater loyalty, My hands to larger service, and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country, and my world.”

Head, heart, hands, and health–the four H’s of 4-H. So how does the skill set taught at 4-H reflect these values–and how does 4-H teach that skill set? Well, 4-H provides a variety of projects that cover a number of vast academic areas. Animal Studies, Environmental and Biological Sciences, Civic Engagement, and Technology/Engineering are just a handful of the projects that 4-H offers its youth members. By offering a vast hodgepodge of project opportunities for its members, 4-H covers a grand scope of potential interests–each with their own taste of the future (4-H Youth Development Organization).

4-H teaches its members by using “experiential learning,” which is essentially hands-on experience. Gloria Higgins, school teacher at Monta Loma Elementary in Mountain View, California and mother of two members of 4-H, states, “I think the 4-H program really helps children develop life skills because it’s very hands on. It’s a buzzword that we throw out there a lot, but in 4-H students are always practicing what they’re doing with the project leader’s supervision.” In the program, members are allowed to select their field they are interested in and pursue their interests in the form of project-based activities. “For example,” she says, “in the dairy goat project, students are taking care of the goats themselves. They’re learning everything from daily care for the goats to grooming the goats, even all the way to veterinary type skills where they’re giving injections to the goats for vaccinations or medications that the goats might need.” 4-H members are integrated into a highly independent and challenging environment that, while is fun and engaging because it’s based on each member’s interests, it also disciplines responsibility at a young age. 24

As for the development of leadership skills, Melissa Robell, 4-H member for nine years, county all-star, and Rolling Hills Club President, emphasizes how 4-H has made her the leader she is today: “I don’t think I would be the same person I am today without 4-H.. When I first started, I was really shy, and I couldn’t give a presentation in front of any audience. But now, I’m [Club] President, so it’s expected.” Robell explains that for her, “4-H is more outgoing and relaxed than school,” saying, “I really like the people in 4-H. They’re all really nice and helpful. The friendships I have in 4-H are a lot stronger than friendships you have other places.” One other 4-H member of six years and Clover Leader of the Executive Board at the Rolling Hills Club, Maya Higa, describes how her skills have carried over into her schoolwork: “Today we got a project in English. We have to give a three to five-minute speech, and we have to prepare it. Even two years ago I definitely would have been nervous about it. But now I’m actually doing my speech on 4-H, and the speaking skills I’ve gained in 4-H are really gonna help me with that. So I’m kind of excited, actually, which is really weird.” 26

4-H has a ranking system among its members that is primarily transcended by members’ scores on proficiencies admitted by project leaders. Analogous to tests in the school environment in several ways, proficiencies assure the understanding of members. In terms of the dairy goat project illustrated by Higgins, the Level 4 Goat proficiency contains as one of the requirements: “Describe the nutrient requirements and components (fats, carbohydrates, protein, minerals, vitamins, water) of a breeding, dairy, meat or fiber goat program. Include any diet considerations for the stages of development for your breed/project.” Additionally, they require participation in one’s community: “Prepare and present a presentation about goats to a group outside of your local 4-H Club.” Finally, they require members to make a meaningful impact on the project itself: “Design or improve some aspect related to the project (marketing, equipment, materials, etc.)” (Santa Clara County 4-H Youth Development Program Level IV Goat Proficiency 2007). 4-H is a program that challenges its youth members to develop a keen skill set and understanding of themselves, as well as the world around them–ultimately reflecting the core values affirmed in the 4-H pledge. However, teenage 4-H members are not the only ones challenged within the program. Children can join 4-H as early on as the age of five, as “clovers”. Their participation in animal projects before the age of nine is largely restricted to small animals such as guinea pigs and rabbits. Any other projects, however, are available to them freely (Rolling Hills of Cupertino 4-H club). So a number of projects are available to children even of a very young age. Yet, how is it that children as young as the age of five can possibly be taught to hold their head, heart, hands, and health in regard to 4-H values, to all the world? 27

When you wake up in the morning and immediately walk to the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker, do you do that by instinct? No. By the desire for caffeine, or the taste of hot morning coffee? Subconsciously, yes. But not actively. So why, exactly, do you do it? You do it by force of habit. It’s the same reason that you know how to tie a shoe, tie a bow, or tie a tie. It’s the same reason that, when you’re nervous, you bite your pencil, bite your nails, or bite your lip. Habits are exactly the reason why 4-H kids hold up their esteemed values in their daily lives. Habits are the invisible fifth H. So for countless young, aspiring 4-H members, pledging your heart to greater loyalty becomes tying your shoes. Sure, you probably struggled to remember all the complicated steps to tying one’s shoe when you were first taught how. However, you no longer need to be reminded of all those steps, because you know how to tie your shoes by heart.

Like a fungus, the values that 4-H teaches its members grow on them as they themselves grow older. Those values will remain an invisible, invaluable friend throughout their lifetimes. Why? Because every morning, before you march out the door into your community, your country, and your world, you first have to stop.

And tie your shoes. 29

CHAPTER 1

HOW 4-H IS A Flexible frog

In modern day, the age of agriculture seems to most a phantom of the once glorious, widespread run-of-the-mill blue-collar job. Now, it’s the agricultural industry that comprises the majority of Americans’ source of food and clothing. Farming in the U.S. of late has lost its independence, topicality, and influence. According to the USDA’s 2007 Census, there are about 2.2 million farms in the U.S., 60% of which make under $10,000 in sales per year. Only 1 million of the farmers reported farming as their primary line of work (“2007 Census of Agriculture”). Agricultural values and skill were once what kept people alive. They were held in high-esteem, and came before any other caliber of education. Now, skilled manual labor is not only unnecessary (machinery being the bulk of today’s workforce), but is valued only by a measly trifle of the once immense mass of American farmers. That’s one of the reason why 4-H isn’t currently attracting any kind of significant influx of membership rates. Since 1996, 4-H membership has been fluctuating at an average of 6.4 million members (“REEIS: 4-H Reports Page”). So the scale of 4-H membership has been relatively steady–but does that mean 4-H is not at risk of losing members in the future? 30

Well, considering that the repercussions of the dwindling agricultural workforce in the U.S. are not likely to lend any positive light on the merit of an agrarian skill set, one can imagine that an agriculturally-based organization would struggle to maintain its seasoned impetus in society. 31

On the other hand, is 4-H unconditionally just an agricultural organization? The answer is no. Recall the account of the study done in the 1800s on the adaption to new technological by adults versus that by kids. The results of the study suggested that kids can adapt to new ways of life, while adults often struggle to comprehend and accept things quite so easily. That was the basis 4-H was founded upon. And just as its members uphold 4-H values in their everyday lives, 4-H has actually kept that basis sound and sacred in its development so far. 4-H actually offers many different technological projects as well. Due to a partnership between the National 4-H Council and FIRST®, as well as donations made by the JCPenny Afterschool Fund, the organization has been able to provide a consistently-expanding myriad of Robotics Programs across the country. In addition, they provide an assortment of projects in Technology/ Engineering, Environmental Science and Alternative Energy, and Plant and Animal Science. 4-H even has a “4-H National Youth Science Day.” In the Science Day of 2012, 4-H youth members created their own “Eco-Bot” that would “perform a simulated environmental clean-up project” (4-H Youth Development Organization). The Rolling Hills 4-H Club in Mountain View, California, at McClellan Ranch Park, offers technological projects LEGO® Robotics and Stop-Motion Video-Making (Rolling Hills of Cupertino 4-H Club). So, 4-H is clearly not at risk of becoming obsolete anytime soon, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, the common understanding of 4-H that people have, if they are indeed aware of it, is that it is still, in fact, a purely agricultural organization. Regardless of the resilience and flexibility of the 4-H curriculum, the organization will not provide awareness of its modern nature to the generations of tomorrow. The majority of people will continue to envision 4-H simply as a remnant of a discontinued way of life, and nothing more. You see, 4-H is a frog.

To most people, the idea of hands-on agricultural work seems abhorrent and pointless; why should I do work that machines can do for me? I don’t need to farm my own food. And the idea of tilling soil all day sweating in the blistering heat doesn’t seem like it would be that fun to me. So, because of their misconceptions, people view 4-H as an unpleasant, putrid, slimy frog. Well, not all people. Occasionally, there comes along an innocent, hopeful, young princess with good intentions in her heart for the world. Now, when she stumbles upon this lonesome frog–this strangely charming frog–she can’t help but give it the kiss that would reveal a whole new bizarre and beautiful world. Just as all frogs do, that frog will continue to adapt amphibiously to its environment, treading onwards against the floods of the future. 4-H may continue to survive, but does that mean it will be successful in its endeavor to forever thrive? Furthermore, how can we make all people aware of the true beauty inside what looks to them a hideous frog? Well, according to Pope, there is one trait analogously belonging to all successful students– the ability to adapt. Labeling these successful students as “classroom chameleons”, Pope says “Like chameleons who use dramatic color changes to camouflage themselves in order to stay alive, the successful students at Faircrest exhibited vastly different behaviors from class to class in order to meet the diverse expectations of their teachers” (157). Pope anticipates that the school system will continue to turn students into “robots,” corrupting their minds with stressful convictions. In the process, the school is solely teaching them to adapt and isn’t necessarily providing the skill set they need to survive beyond high school (i.e. finding academic and professional interests, understanding the importance of good health, and actively seeking out the things that bring them happiness, not just financial success, etc.).

Considering that 4-H, on the other hand, contains both an adaptationist-based curriculum and a program thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s teaching essential values to its members and emphasizing positive youth developmentâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;is 4-H breeding a force of stress-impervious, skillfully-engaged, and substantially-prepared super-chameleons? If so, then we can say without a doubt that a program like this one urgently needs all the attention it can get.

CONCLUSION Despite the fact it lives in a technologically-advanced age, 4-H continues to teach kids the very values it was founded upon, and provide them numerous remarkable academic, leadership, and life skills through hands-on experience; despite the fact that it lives in an age of mass apprehension for the future, 4-H is overlooked as the ideal program to prepare youth for what’s ahead. Vastly based on their concern for the future, today’s youth are commonly burdened by stressinducing household and academic environments. The reality of the matter, as Pope points out, is that the school system is designed for only a few to succeed, or “survive”. The result? A structure that is effectively mass-producing robot-students with Darwinist mentalities–each one bent on sabotaging the success of their peers. Such corrosive convictions have grown out of hand, and people (in this case, parents) often overlook the real problem–that the school system is designed for “only a few to succeed” and for the majority to fail. Therefore, in order to effectively assist the success of their child, parents must actively seek out an extracurricular program analogous to 4-H in its fundamental values and teachings. You see, a good program is a fateful fruit, a fungal friend, and a flexible frog all at once. It gives youth the nutrients they need to grow, sticks by their side through thick and thin, and remains resilient in the face of any opposition.

So, perhaps 4-H is not at all entering an Iron Age. Perhaps 4-H is actually flourishing in as golden an age as ever. Instead, maybe it’s the school system that’s dawned upon the real darkness. That is to say, if all students are really aspiring to be these days is anxious robots, cloaked in the metallic shadows of their own fate–then it seems we should certainly be expecting a truly Iron Age, after all.

Works Cited Higa, Maya. Personal interview. 18 March 2013. Higgins, Gloria. Personal interview. 14 March 2013. Robell, Melissa. Personal interview. 24 February 2013. 4-H Youth Development Organization. National 4-H Council. Web. 12 February 2013. Anderson, Norman B., et al. Stress in America Findings. American Psychological Association, 9 November 2010. Web. 23 March 2013. Pope, Denise Clark. Doing School. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. “Monitoring the Future Study: Trends in Prevalence of Various Drugs.” National Institute on Drug Abuse: The Science of Drug Abuse and Addiction. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Web. 23 March 2013. Massoni, Erin. “Positive Effects of Extracurricular Activities on Students.” College Publications at Digital Commons, 1 April 2011. Web. 18 March 2013. Rolling Hills of Cupertino 4-H Club. Rolling Hills 4-H Club, 2009. Web. 12 February 2013. “2007 Census of Agriculture.” USDA - NASS Census of Agriculture. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 2007. Web. 15 March 2013. “REEIS: 4-H Reports Page.” REEIS: Research, Education, and Economics Information System. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Web. 15 March 2013.