Professional Reflections
Many professional and personal insights have come in creating and implementing this Work Study Program. The first professional learning that came to me this year is the importance for me to hold the students firmly accountable to the agreements we make about work and about their projects. This generates a high level of respect for both me as a manager as well as for the program itself and its academic quality. In addition to simply generating respect, it shows the students that I care about the success of both the program as a whole as well as their individual projects. There have been times when I have let a student’s project slip from my consciousness for a while and any time that happens, it inevitably becomes less important to the student and their dedication decreases. On the contrary, when I check in regularly with students, ask them about the progress that they are making, and even offer my assistance to help them break through to the next phase of their work, there is an increase in inspiration, motivation, and their dedication increases.
Many of the students I am mentoring/advising are young activists seeking to make a difference in the world. When I am able to provide them with the opportunities to witness their own impact in the world through their work in the fields and their independent study projects, they feel a sense of purpose and their desire to influence society is satisfied. If this desire to influence society is not satisfied or channeled into a generative project, I find that their activist nature slips out in ways that might not be so generative or directed toward things that they can’t really change. Their energy may become directed toward challenging authority, criticizing the system or structure to which they have signed onto, or pointing out/gossiping about the things they don’t like in the community.
This is a common condition for young activists and for humans in general. If we don’t focus our passionate energy into positive, impactful projects, we feel dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction leaks out in our world in the form of complaints, judgments, and other degenerative attitudes toward the people and opportunities that come before us. As I come to understand this concept more fully, the importance of my role as an academic advisor and mentor to the students that come through our program is amplified in my consciousness.
One tangible step to implement for next year is to have regular check ins after their independent study project shift. This year, the time I gave the students to work independently on their projects was Friday afternoons. For the first month or so when their projects were fresh in their minds, they worked diligently; but as time went on, because I wasn’t checking in with students and holding them accountable to the projects they were supposed to be working on, they began to do other unrelated things on Friday afternoons. Next year, I can arrange to meet with all the students before and after their ISP shift to hear what their intentions are for the shift, and follow up with what kind of progress they all made.
Another important reason for holding participants “firmly accountable” to their agreements is because it sets a tone for our work pattern. This year I had to learn this lesson the hard way. As the exciting phase of spring planting came and went, the gratifying hard work of summer rolled on by, and the novelty of harvest began to wear off, I found myself, mid-September, struggling to find ways to keep our team inspired and motivated. As a result, people began showing up to work late and their spirits were dampened. This was a crucial point in the season where I would say I did not take the most effective course of action. I thought that if I acted compassionately toward the team, it would raise their spirits and bring their work ethic back on track. So I lightened up the work load and pushed back our starting time from 6:30am 7:15am. Unfortunately, people still seemed unenthused and were not arriving to work on time—things seemed worse than before and now we were even less productive. Desperate to bring the team back together, I attempted to bring more firmness. I set up a policy in which being late to a work shift entailed an early morning work obligation on their day off. Well, the week I implemented the policy, every person except one had accrued a Saturday morning work shift. Now things were really starting to get ugly. Not only was my policy ineffective at motivating people to show up on time, I now had a somewhat disgruntled team having to do work on their day off and of course I had to show up too on my day off to make sure everyone else was there. After all it was a lack of accountability in the first place that got me into this mess so I had better be there to uphold accountability on this day. I did my best to reverse the energetic flow by having everyone paint a structure that is central to our “zone o” space, hoping that the fresh look would re-inspire people. This was actually quite successful, and from that day on many things improved. However, one student chose not to come at all that morning and long story short, resulted in him leaving the program.
This was by far the most challenging situation I had ever found myself in as a leader but the experience has been elemental in my personal growth. I explored my authority; I learned about what it means to “draw a line” for someone, and I learned about my own capacity to enforce that line when it is crossed.
The second professional learning has been the importance of developing a solid curriculum that is complete prior to the start of the season. This will give me something to reference throughout the season, it will allow me to better plan each week within the greater context of the season, and will be something I can direct students to when they have questions about what they missed, or what to expect for the following weeks. This could be a valuable topic for my next output package.
Complete OP4 Self Review
Review of my OP4 by Valerie
Personal Reflections
One personal insight has come from working with my partner Stephanie. We have many complementary skills that have the potential to enhance our work together and great things have been generated from our partnership. She has played a critical role in administering this Work Study Program and is helping to bring it up to a higher standard and more professional level. However, because of the stress that bleeds over from our work life into our home life, I have realized that some clearer distinctions are needed in our work life so that we do not feel so inclined to have work related discussions so frequently and have more time and energy available for the lovey-dovey kind of interactions that are so important to us both in our relationship. This insight will likely be the most challenging of all my learnings to implement because of the complexity of co-creating a dream and a family with her. She is very much invested in this project so navigating a delineation of our work responsibilities is going to require a keen sensitivity.
Another critical, personal insight is the importance of staying spiritually centered and oriented. When “Earthly” matters consume 100 percent of my time and energy, I do not feel whole and complete and I feel less capable of perceiving important energetic shifts among the team, in the garden, or in my home life. Ultimately the work that I am doing is of a spiritual significance and when I forget that, things do not run as smoothly. The most effective way for me to remember my greater purpose in all of this work, is to simply sit quietly and breathe deeply for a period of time in the mornings or before engaging with my work. This allows me to re-center and to ask the Great Spirit how I can be of the greatest service to my world.
Conclusion
The most important thing I learned from this year’s work study program does not pertain to the understanding of my own authority, or the need for a solid curriculum, or even managing my time effectively. Rather, it has to do with understanding the source of a person’s inspiration. Love must be balanced with truth. I learned this when compassion alone was still ineffective at motivating the team. Just like a child will feel more secure and confident when their parents uphold firm boundaries, within which the child can be creative and expressive; a student will feel more encompassed when their teacher holds them accountable to agreements that they make together. Ultimately, inspiration must come from within the child, student, or employee, but there are things I can do as a teacher/manager/advisor/mentor to create an environment in which inspiration can thrive abundantly for all who enter into this sacred atmosphere. It includes: providing challenging and meaningful work, upholding a high standard of work ethic, holding students firmly accountable to the work and academic agreements that we make, keeping the students on track with their Independent Study Project, and balancing these elements of truth with love. I can listen compassionately to the needs and requests of my students/employees; I can engage the students with my own passion for what we are creating together, and lastly I can see each relationship as sacred and honor it from a place of true personal centeredness.
With regards to my original intentions set forth in my “Learning Intentions and Pathway Design” (op1b) I am right on track for creating my dream institute!!
Process Reflection
The process of creating this output package has been more fluid than any other op yet. Many things came together for me to be able to produce this output in less time than any other. For one, it is in large part a reflection upon something that has already taken place. Rather than creating something new from scratch, like I did for my op 3, this op was more about gathering existing documentation and reflecting upon the past season. I also included less media than I have in previous output packages which was a big time saver.
Two important organizational skills were gained while producing this output package and they both have to do with creating collections. The first was learning how to create a collection on Google Drive. This was particularly useful because I finally had an opportunity to pull together all the projects that have been submitted to me and organize them by the students name and the program in which they participated. This skill will be carried into future years because for now it is the best place I know to compile student’s projects in a way that is viewable to people who I give permission to. In addition to being useful professionally, this new skill of utilizing Google Drive, specifically creating collections, is a great way to link documents that are too large to be uploaded directly on to Mahara to my output packages as I did in the case of Devon and Diane’s PowerPoint presentations.
The second useful organizational skill that I gained while doing this output package was creating a collection directly in Mahara in a way that allows me to organize the content of my op into tabs. I had seen other associates doing this but had never figured it out until now. Previously I had been putting all of my op content onto one page.
We will see how my idea of using this op as a marketing tool pans out. I think that I have organized the content in such a way that I could direct prospective participants toward relevant material without revealing my personal reflections or Gaia specific content but I won’t know until I try it. The great thing about the way this op is organized is that if it is an effective marketing tool, I will be able to add to the content to include the Permaculture Design Course that we offer in conjunction with the work study programs as well as the orientation week that happens between the design course and the first day of work for the participants. Both of these are relevant to students wanting to learn more about our program and both could be included as another tab on this op.
I feel quite satisfied with this op because I have successfully stacked important functions that will contribute to various facets of the program’s development.
Digiphon
In addition to the Gaia U and Mahara sites, I also used Microsoft Word to format and edit my writings, as well as to back up my content just in case anything happened to the content that I had saved on Mahara. I used PowerPoint to create and Google Drive to store students presentations. I also used Dropbox to save my work so that I could access it from different computers. I used an HP TouchSmart computer with Windows 7 as my primary machine and a Sony digital camera to take most of my photos.
Annotated Resource Review
Harris, Marjorie. Four Season Gardening. Toronto: Random House, 1993. Print. Used by Devon in her greenhouse project
Harrison, John, and Val Harrison. How to Store Your Home-grown Produce: Canning, Pickling, Jamming, and so Much More. New York, NY: Skyhorse Pub., 2010. Print. Used by Curt in his independent Study project
Hemenway, Toby. Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub., 2009. Print. Used in the development of the work study program.
Jeavons, John. How to Grow More Vegetables: (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land than You Can Imagine. Berkeley: Ten Speed, 2012. Print. This book was also used and referenced during our work study program
Mollison, B. C. Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. Tyalgum, Australia: Tagari Publications, 1988. Print. Used as a reference in teaching the work study courses
Morrow, Rosemary, and Rob Allsop. Earth User's Guide to Permaculture. Pymble, N.S.W.: Kangaroo, 2006. Print. Used in the development of the work study program
Morrow, Rosemary, and Rosemary Morrow. Earth User's Guide to Permaculture: Teacher's Notes. Kenthurst, N.S.W.: Kangaroo, 1997. Print. Used in the development of the work study program
Stamets, Paul. Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help save the World. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed, 2005. Print. Used by Daniel in his independent study project
Sunrise Ranch was the host of the works study program.