Summer quarter at GRuB! How has it changed? What has stayed the same? Last quarter I was spending about 25 hours a week at GRuB working on the farm and this quarter I’m there about 16 hours a week (only ten of which are for academic credit).
The youth crew has doubled in size to support students who are taking summer credit. There are a handful of crew members who have returned from the school year program and in the first two weeks that they’ve been back, it has been a great experience watching them take on more of a leadership role as they’ve been helping other students learn about GRuB. In general, my experience with high school aged folks hasn’t been kind, however the students that come to school at GRuB are all generally very compassionate with each other and funny in a way that only high school kids can be.
I’ve been finding that my energy drains pretty quickly whenever I am leading the youth team. The enthusiasm that they bring to the farm changes the atmosphere in a positive way, however at the same time, it is only the end of their second week on the farm and the learning curve is still steep. The farm is also at a critical state right now. With the lack of students for three weeks, and the intern team condensing from six to two people, the weeds have reached the height of many of the adolescent vegetables. And given that most students are new to gardening and farming, we’ve ended up with many-a-beet mistaken for weeds.
The most challenging part of this summer at GRuB has been the difficult moments with the youth when I’ve had to request some kind of change in behavior. In general, I’m still learning how to give feedback that is mutually beneficial to all involved.
In most situations, when a crewmember has created some kind of distraction or is using insensitive language, there has been an issue underlying the moment or they have brought in residual feelings from something that happened away from GRuB. It doesn’t make having to ask for the behavior change any easier. However throughout trainings that I have attended over the last few months, one of the top takeaways each time is to approach situations assuming the best intentions and considering the possibility of those residual feelings from outside GRuB.
Along with leading youth through farm tasks such as weeding, thinning, and setting up irrigation systems, on Tuesday mornings I lead a smaller group in harvesting for market. The effort that I put in to these mornings, as opposed to heavier work days, is about the same, however Tuesdays are much easier because the students are much more agreeable to harvesting (…raspberries) than pulling out bindweed.