Choosing a farming course and teacher

• from nature
• from other farmers
• from their own mistakes
• from reflecting on what IS there
• from reflecting on what IS NOT there
• from magazines and newspapers
• from field days and farm walks
• from radio and TV broadcasts
• from the internet
• from books
• and from courses.

• biology
• animal husbandry
• grazing management
• crop and pasture management
• business management
• mechanics
• financial management
• marketing
• and more.

What this means

Why learn? Technology will save the day If those lists don't convince you and you think technology will save the day, there is more about the limitations of technology in farm management further on in this webpage. You can skip there with this link: Why it is important to learn how to farm better.

• observation and identification of species
• biology
• animal husbandry including
  • animal nutrition
  • veterinary care and animal health
  • stock handling and
  • animal welfare
• grazing management
• crop and pasture management
• genetics
• business management
• mechanics, including hydraulics and many other subsections
• employee management
• financial management
• marketing
• self education
• and of course it doesn't stop there.

Using this

A good place to start is with your needs and wants

• Do you know what you want?
• Do you know what you don't know and would like to know?
• more importantly, do you know what you don't understand and would like to understand?
• do you know why you may need to learn how to farm better?
• do you have any special needs in learning - such as if:
  • your school education was limited (as it was for many farmers in the past)
  • your school education was unpleasant (as it was for many people)
  • you have never been taught how to learn. This is very common but these days there are people, books and places to help us learn how to learn more successfully
  • you have never been taught how to solve problems in a logical way. Again, this is very common and again there are lots of resources around today.

Looking at the course

Content

Does the course cover what you want/need?

Method

Is it based on teaching or learning?

• A course based on teaching usually sets out to cover a particular amount of material, without necessarily having a commitment to ensuring that you will gain the ability to do it or understand it as appropriate.
• A course based on learning should be committed to getting you to the point where you can do it or understand it as appropriate. Learning outcomes is a buzzword for today's educator. However, learning outcomes are very useful and it is worth getting a handle on them A learning outcome is what you will achieve if the course is taught well and you participate fully. Further down this web page are sample learning outcomes from a course I wrote and used to teach - not the full set, just enough to give you the idea.

Processes

Processes are not as important when you are deciding on whether to do the course, the outcomes will tell you more about the course.
This is because you may do a particular process and achieve little if the process is run poorly or if you do not participate well because it does not suit your learning style or you are not in a good state for learning on that particular day. You can do something about your end of that, but little about their end of that. However, they can do something about their end of it if you ask them to do so.
The learning outcomes will tell you what you should get from the course. The course provider should be able to tell you whether you personally will be likely to achieve them and what you will need to put in to do so.

Knowing or understanding?

Some people set out to learn about farming by learning the 300 facts, tools or other pieces of knowledge that they think it involves. Unfortunately it isn't that simple:

• There are more than 300, nobody would even know how many "facts" a farmer needs
• nobody can predict which ones any particular farmer will need at any time and
• it is no use knowing a whole bunch of things if you lack the understanding to make them work together effectively.

This linear view of farming might work except that a farm is a biological system in the middle of

• many other biological systems plus
• climatic systems
• financial systems
• and social systems.

All of these are relatively unpredictable. Understanding is about the only way to tackle farming. If you gain even a small understanding of how each of these systems interacts with your farm's biological and financial systems, you have some chance to adapt to changes outside the farm. Otherwise, you are doomed to be confused, out of business or worse.

Assessment

How were other people assessed who have done the course? If the assessment is thorough, the people who complete the course satisfactorily will be capable of doing what the course supposedly teaches. If not, who can tell whether they are capable or not? So unless they are assessed well, the claims made for what you will learn are hollow.
Sometimes the easiest way to assess a course is to work alongside one of the graduates. First assess whether they are a suitable learner to compare yourself with. If they are, the results they got should guide you in what you might get.

A good mix of practical and theory?

All of the skills, attitudes, understanding and knowledge a good farmer needs can be taught. Then comes the fun part, putting it into action. Unless the course is part time or you do practical work in the course, there will not be enough trying it out in reality to provide good support for your theory learning. Practical without theory or vice versa adds up to much less than half of both. Trying it out is one of the most important steps in learning better farming.

Variety

Does it take you to a variety of farms with a variety of farmers who do things differently from what you are taught in class as well as to some who do things just as the teacher says it? There is no one true path to good farming and if anyone thinks they've found one, please don't tell me. I like the open-minded approach and the lack of dogma that comes from a variety of people doing a variety of things and getting a variety of results, all of them working.

Your modes of learning and learning style?

Will you learn how to learn (or how to do it better if you are already a good learner)? Do you already know how you best learn? Will they help you to explore this key area?

Structure and format

Will the class/group structure work for you? Can you do it externally on the web, by mail or in a local group that meets frequently plus a central summer school or similar so that you can connect with the source and get the cross-fertilization of ideas that happens in such a meeting of minds?

Location, resources etc

Is the location suitable for you? Can you get there, are the resources OK? A good library, other resources, supports etc that work for you can make a big difference.

The teacher

One of my favorites He taught woodwork to children by day and to adults by night. We adults queued for his courses. I think of Les Miller every time I hold a handsaw and flow with it the way he taught me. One evening I asked him how he became such a good teacher. Les replied: "I had been teaching for 15 years and one school holidays I put all my teaching resources in the incinerator and set fire to them and started from scratch." It was a brave move that highlights a key point: Good teachers keep what is good, get rid of what is not. Every now and then they take a broad fresh view of their teaching rather than such a close perspective.

• Have they done it? Have they farmed organically or farmed well or whatever it is that you want to learn?
• Have they been certified? This only matters if you are looking at an organic farming course.
• Did they make a living from it?
• What have they learned from their farming? This brings up the idea that some of the best teachers are inspectors (such as organic farming inspectors) or itinerant teachers. They are exposed to many different situations and tend to come to the view that there is more than one way to achieve a good result.
• Have they farmed or grown what you want to grow? If not: What can they tell you about how to do it? One of the most common answers years ago when people were seeking ways to farm something commercially and organically was: "You can't do that organically." Even though people were and even though many others have since learned how to do it organically and make a living from it.
• Do they answer your questions satisfactorily? The best teachers will show you how to ask your own questions and then how to answer them for yourself. After all, they won't be beside you in the field when a really curly question pops up.

Look for the key Es that lead to good learning

1. Enthusiasm: Are they fired up with life, with teaching, with the subject? Do they care?
2. Expertise: Do they know what they are doing, do they know how to farm well or farm organically or whatever you want to learn?
3. Engagement: Do they connect with you in a way that makes you want to do the course? This isn't charm, nor is it sales technique. Rather it is the sort of connection that will value you as a person and a learner, regardless of how good or bad you are at learning, at the subject or at anything else. You will be valued as an individual rather than as another object to educate or another means to a pay packet. This sort of engagement with you plus your own enthusiasm will engage you to do the course
4. Empathy: Are they able to understand and have a feeling for you and your needs. Do they understand where you are coming from? One very successful teacher summed it up: "Learners don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
5. Enterprising: are they prepared to learn, take risks, change? Do they look beyond their own experience?

Not a patient teacher? But not necessarily a bad one. The legendary golfer, Sam Snead, supposedly told one pupil: "Lay off for three weeks... "Then quit for good." It may have saved the pupil a lot of hassle and time and allowed them to divert their energies into something that was worthy of their efforts.

6. Extension: Can they communicate with you clearly? Do they deliver the course such that learning is effective, though not necessarily easy? Teachers often need to push learners a bit to get a shift. Don't be put off if this is what you need. Education should be a challenge, should light your fire rather than fill your mind with facts. There is often a need for a major mind shift when moving to an integrated form of farming. This is particularly so for organic farming where there are few effective fallbacks in the form of chemicals to use if things aren't going as you would like.

Sample learning outcomes

1. Learners will be able to describe the major methods of organic farming. ("Describe" in this case is fairly unimportant and a bit limp, but the importance of this learning outcome is as a base for others that come later.)
2. Learners will be able to describe the relationships between plants, soil micro-organisms and animals. (Note that the learner is now describing something that the learner has observed first hand on their own or someone else's farm, rather than read in a book or heard in a lecture.)
3. Learners will be able to create mature compost of a high quality. (Ah, now we are doing something - some real farming work and we are ensuring that it really works by assessing the quality of the result the learner gets rather than what they say they can or will do. No longer just head work.)
4. Learners will be able to record information relevant to problem solving in a form that ensures that the information will be usable by them 6-24 months later. (Here the learner has to take the observation a step further and start planning for the unseen future. Skills learnt earlier in the course are being extended.)
5. Learners will be able to develop paddock sequences (rotations) that provide maximum advantage for following crops. (The learner is using one mental tool - a set of rotation development techniques to create a real-life tool - a weed-free bed or a bed high in nutrients for the next crop of vegetables etc.)
6. Learners will be able to integrate the management of plants and animals to the advantage of desired plants and animals. (A more complex tool used with a more complex set of enterprises.)
7. Learners will be able to identify ways of extending their understanding and knowledge to improve their management of the farm. (At this point we have turned inward to the ultimate area, growing our ability to grow ourselves. This is using humankind's best tool, the brain, to improve itself and that is the aim of any decent course, in my opinion.)

Taking this further

Why learn how to farm better?

Related info:

• biology
• animal husbandry
• grazing management
• crop management
• pasture management
• business management
• mechanics
• financial management
• marketing
• And more.