The Importance of the Farm - By Sherry and Molly

An exciting part of our curriculum at Abintra is the Farm. During the time of puberty (beginning around 9 or 10) and adolescence, children reach a new plane of development. This is a foundational time for the development of skills in the larger world. We know that they need opportunities for challenging work, risk-taking, and novelty. They seek social engagement at a new level and display an impressive capacity for creative, out-of-the-box, thinking.

Extending the classroom to the farm follows the Montessori principle referred to as erdkinder (“children of the earth”) and continues the development of the skills necessary for academic advancement in a way that remaining entirely in the classroom does not. It fosters independence, interdependence, and an ability to meet challenges. The farm is, by nature, project-based work. Students in the later elementary and middle school years need activities that involve building and understanding connections. They need to feel that what they are learning is relevant to their lives and that there is purpose in their work.

Both Montessori and current scientific research demonstrate that physical experience in combination with text and lessons teaches far stronger academics than text or lessons do alone. At the farm, golden bead work becomes 500 pounds of sweet potatoes in the back of a truck – along with the work that went into growing and gathering them. The bank game of early childhood lessons becomes a farmer’s market where produce the students have produced themselves is sold for the purpose of feeding families. Measuring items and areas in a classroom become ensuring that the correct amount of fencing is used to safeguard the animals that the students care for and about. Nothing on a page can teach how much value is involved in the planting, tending, and harvesting of food as well as the actual process does.

This work on the farm helps create a future with business people who have a much clearer understanding of the value of the labor and time that goes into creating products, teachers who understand children and the need for connection to nature and growing things, and researchers who can think about systems with a hands-on approach. Above all else, the farm supports Abintra’s work of helping to create young people who are contributing members of society, who respect and care for themselves and others, and who see the larger nature of the world.