Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Zachary Domike <zdomike@yahoo.com>]

Retreat for Farm-Based Educators whose work is inspired by biodynamic 
agriculture, Waldorf education, or anthroposophy.

Co-convened by 'A Week on the Farm' and the 'Biodynamic Farming and Gardening 
Association'
In partnership with: Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, Angelic Organics, 
Angelic Organics Learning Center, Philadelphia Community Farm, and Wellspring 
Retreat Center
Begins Wednesday evening, November 11th, ends Friday midday, November 13th, 
2009
Robin Hill House, W2811 Friemoth Rd., East Troy, Wisconsin

Registration Fee (includes meals) $100
Travel Assistance Available
In America today, farm-based educational facilities and educators are 
springing up everywhere. This is reflected in the formation of organizations 
like FBEA (Farm-Based Education Association). Society seems to be responding 
to a sense of crisis stemming from the lack of the modern person’s connection 
with nature, natural processes, and our food sources. ‘Nature Deficit 
Disorder’ is now a recognized phenomenon. The books—The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 
by Michael Pollan, Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, and Animal, 
Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, as well as movies like Food, Inc., 
and Supersize Me—have all found receptive audiences. Farm-based education 
seems to be an important step in addressing our modern state of disconnection 
from nature.

Though mainstream interest in this topic has mushroomed in recent years, 
Waldorf educators and biodynamic farmers have long recognized how essential 
it is to have work and nature as an integral part of education and human 
development. Through recognizing the threefold nature of man as a willing, 
feeling, and thinking creature, Waldorf curricula incorporate will activity 
in the early educational years and even have farm education as an essential 
tenet of the third-grade curriculum. A connection to nature and to the food 
source is fostered throughout the educational process. Waldorf teachers may 
have been the first farm-based educators! Despite this, there are presently 
no collegial organizations for farm-based educators whose work is inspired by 
biodynamic agriculture, Waldorf education, or anthroposophy.

What is meeting us in the children and youth of today as farm-based 
educators? The average person has much more connection to iPods, MP3 players, 
Facebook, Twitter, virtual ‘life’ video games, shopping malls, etc., than 
they do to land, ‘poop,’ nature, real food, or manual WORK. What is the state 
of the will and of the adult ego coming to us today in 2009? How can we best 
address it? Steiner’s view of man as a spiritual being has much depth with 
which to inform and nourish the work of farm-based educators. By hosting a 
retreat, we wish to create a collegial, supportive network for farm-based 
educators working with a spiritual view of the human being. Theory U Case 
Clinic and other techniques will be used to foster connections, share 
problem-solving practices, and explore the deeper meaning behind what we do 
with the children, youth, and adults who are coming to meet us.

If you are a Farm-Based Educator, working from the point of view of 
Anthroposophy, Waldorf Education, or Biodynamic Farming . . . We invite you 
to join us!

For more information and registration, contact Dana Burns: (262) 495-4247, 
dlburns@clear.net.nz.