Education for Such a Time As This

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E.A. Sutherland Education Association

Agriculture in Education

John Dysinger

Re-Learning Our ABCs

Okay, so I am going to just spend a few minutes giving you a little of my background so you understand where I'm coming from.

But first of all, how many of you are involved with a school?

I know there's a few homeschoolers here, but this is definitely geared more for schools, although I think homeschoolers could learn from it as well.

But I just want to help you to see I'm 1 of you.

I am blessed to have a family with a rich background in self-supporting work.

My grandfather was a treasurer at Madison.

My father went to high school at Madison.

In fact, a story I love is my grandma's brother, so I guess that's my great uncle, Is that right?

The story is that he grew a field of watermelons out in Chico, California with the goal of raising enough money to go to Madison.

And he sold enough watermelons to pay for his trip across country.

And he arrived at Madison with $5 in his pocket or something.

He knocked on the door, basically, and said, I'm here to get an education.

If you were willing to work, they'd take you in.

And he went through Madison and went on to start a number of self-supporting institutions.

Another 1 of his brothers, Ralph Martin, also went to Madison and went on to start self-supporting institutions.

So I have a very deep interest and background in self-supporting work.

I went to Little Creek Academy, which is no more.

But at the time, it was a wonderful place to go, a self-supporting school, a satellite, a daughter institution of Madison.

I sometimes wonder where I would be if it wasn't for my 4 years at Little Creek.

Went on to Southern, got a degree in education.

And my wife and I were privileged after graduation from Southern to go to Kenya as a teacher at Maxwell Adventist Academy for 6 years.

It was a school set up for missionaries' children, missionaries of our children of the missionaries from all over Africa.

So that was a unique and growing experience working in a boarding academy setting for 6 years.

Came back, got a master's in education from Andrews, and then taught in a one-room elementary school for 2 years.

And then, it's too long a story to tell now, but we felt the Lord was calling me to come home, to be more home-based, and so I quit my job and the Lord led us into agriculture.

And we've been farming for the last 20 years at Bountiful Blessings Farm, just about 3 and a half hours from here in Middle Tennessee.

And so I'm going to say some things that I hope are going to challenge you.

But I don't want you in any way to think that I'm looking down or condemning or anything like that, because I'm 1 of you.

So I want to challenge you, challenge me.

So again, for those who came in a little later, we've got 2 parts this afternoon.

The first 1 is entitled, as you see, Relearning Our ABCs, the challenges and solutions of implementing agriculture in our schools and and again, I'm I'm Sharing my observations and what I think are solutions.

I'm not in any way claiming that I have all the solutions to the challenges.

And then the second part is going to be agriculture in our schools, making it work, where I'm going to try to get a little more down to earth, show you some methods, some techniques, some tools that I believe can make any of your schools help them have a successful agriculture program.

And then we're gonna end with Alyssa from Heritage Academy sharing.

I had the privilege of working with them this year to try to implement some of these ideas at Heritage.

And it has had a few bumps in the road, but overall, I feel positive about the first year's experience there.

So we'll have a real life case study of what can be done.

Hopefully, we can end in time for some questions.

I like for audio versus sake to save questions as much as possible to the end because it really messes up the recording otherwise.

Relearning our ABC's, challenges and solutions.

This is a, how many of you know this quote?

Working the soil, this is from sixth volume of the testimonies, page 179.

Working the soil is 1 of the best kinds of employment.

Calling the muscles into action and resting the mind.

Study in agricultural lines should be the A, B, and C of the education given in our schools.

This is a very important work that should be entered upon.

No, it says this is the very first work that should be entered upon.

So I want to have a little bit of discussion here.

It doesn't necessarily say priority, but it does say it is 1 of the first things, whether it's first in priority or first in attack or first in what the students do every day.

I mean, in other words, you could read into it from different angles.

But if something is the A, B, and C, what does that get across to you?

So I feel like we can at least take that much from it.

There's more to true education than agriculture, right?

So we're not trying to say agriculture is the solution.

But as I read it, it's supposed to be foundational to our education.

Again, I want to be sensitive because I know that there are huge challenges to implementing this and so that's what we're going to look at here.

Well, I'll just ask you and you can answer in your own mind.

Is agriculture the A, B and C of the education at your school?

Okay, so I'm going to look at 15 challenges to agriculture in our institutions.

And this First 1, notice there's a couple and ors.

I'm suggesting we really don't believe the inspired counsel and or we are making decisions based on circumstances and not principle and or we don't know how to implement the council.

Now, I don't believe any of you here fit into the first category, at least I hope not, Because I think this is pretty much all self-supporting schools, right?

And I know you wouldn't be into it, you wouldn't be there if you didn't believe in this inspired counsel.

So I really don't think it's the first 1.

Although I do know how life can start running you instead of you running life.

But I hope we're not making decisions based on circumstances and not principle because that never really brings satisfaction.

Agriculture in Our Schools: Making It Work

Dear Heavenly Father, I just pray that whatever is said in this presentation could be to your honor and glory.

I pray that you would speak through me, that you would guide my mind, that I would not say things that I shouldn't, that I will say those things you want me to.

So we thank you for doing this and for being with us here today.

Okay, so we wanna really dive into this because this is going to be more practical and as I said, you can only get so practical in an hour, but I think it will hopefully leave you with some tools to take with you.

So first of all, I feel it's really, really important to study for yourself, to come under your own conviction on this.

I think the worst reason to get into agriculture, well not the worst reason, but in my mind, 1 reason that I hear a lot of Adventists getting into it is because, well the time's coming when we can't buy or sell and we need to be able to grow our own food.

I mean, that's a very valid point, but it's kind of a fear-based motive.

And I don't think God ideally works on a fear-based motive.

The reason I believe you need to have a garden is because that's where God created us to live and work.

And that is where he is most easily able to walk and talk with us.

So, read what the Bible has to say about it.

Did that change when sin came into the world?

I mean it got harder, but God sent forth Adam from the garden to do what?

He didn't say, well, you're off the hook.

You don't have to be a farmer or gardener anymore.

Read what the Spirit of Prophecy has to say about agriculture.

Again, I would just encourage you, Study.

And the reason why I say this at the beginning is because you're gonna have lots of challenges, I can promise you that.

You wanna move forward by conviction and principle.

You know, I also have, well, I guess I did bring it down.

I don't promote this as much because it feels like self-promotion, but the Lord led us a few years ago, really led my wife.

I just helped with editing and stuff, but led us to write down our testimony of God leading us into farming.

And it was so hard at the beginning that my wife had people tell her, I don't know why you're still doing this.

If I were you, I would have quit long ago.

But my wife said, would you really if you knew God had told you to do this?

How can you quit when we know God led us to agriculture?

If we didn't have that conviction, we would have quit long ago because man, it's hard.

And this is the key here and it seems so obvious but it took me years to figure this out.

You know 1 of 1 night I was out wrestling with the Lord saying, Lord why is this so hard?

You called us to do this, but it seems like everything we do looks like failure.

Just really wrestling with the Lord, And then it was like this light bulb moment.

Because this is God's original plan for man.

The devil is going to do everything he can to keep you out of the garden.

So, There will be days when you will be out there by faith and sheer willpower because you don't wanna be out there because it's discouraging.

But by faith, you press forward knowing that God has lessons to teach you from it.

Without this, Chances are you're not gonna stick with it.

So now on to the really nuts and bolts here.

I want to encourage you to start with the soil.

That is a very big subject that I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of.

And you need a really good chemistry mind to be able to understand it.

You know, there's 3 main sciences to soil.

You know, there's the chemistry side of it, there's the biology side, there's literally Millions of little microbes and stuff in the soil that should be working for you.

And then there's the physics side of it, and that's the 1 that I feel like is really hardly understood.

The whole energy, electricity in the soil, That almost sounds new age or something, but it's true.

Very complicated, But what I'm gonna tell you right now is rather than being hung up by trying to understand it all, just go get a soil test.

And if you don't know how to take a soil sample, it's as simple, if you don't have a probe, a soil sampling probe, just take a shovel and kind of make a V in the ground about 6 inches deep and then you take your shovel and slice off a piece of the side.

So you're getting kind of a cross section from the side of that V.

And you put it in a clean bucket, make sure it's not like galvanized or something that's gonna mess up the sample.

Take, depending on the size of your area, take 8, 10 different samples from random, you know, picture of it.

Mix them together mix them together and then send them to Kinsey Labs with $36.

Now, we've got to somehow on this, because my stuff is usually too fresh to get on a flash drive.

You know, they asked for this 2 weeks ago and it's like, I want to make sure it's fresh.

Anyway, I have it on this flash drive, so if you have a way to get it from here, or I will also, well they have a copy, but I've even changed some things since yesterday.

I don't, you know, I don't ever preach the same thing or teach the same thing twice.

Because I want to make sure I'm doing what the Lord wants me to.

I was hoping somebody with more knowledge than I.

You know that's 1 thing I like to say about farming.

1 of the best things about it is you don't have to be a techie person.

So what I'm suggesting now, there are many places you can send your soil samples off, but Kinsey Lab follows the methods of William Albrecht.

And William Albrecht, from many Adventists who've studied his material, they feel like he was a true scientist.

And so, yeah, I don't want to spend too much time on this.

So anyway, I just say for now, send it to him.

But on the material you'll get 1 way or other is a sheet that you just print off.

And you'll notice it says to Whitmar McConnell.

And you'll be thinking, wait a minute, Why am I sending this to Whitmar McConnell?

The point is Whitmar McConnell is an Adventist agronomist who studied Albrecht and Kinsey, Neil Kinsey, who was kind of a disciple of William Albrecht.

He studied the method and knows it really, really well.

And because it's so complicated, I just have him interpret all my soil samples.

They will do the actual soil testing and then they will send the results to Whitmar McConnell.

The results to Whitmar McConnell and he, and you'll need to communicate with him and I guess that's what I didn't do is give his contact, no it's on that sheet So yeah, you'll have his contact information.

He will send you recommendations, and then you have to pay him $25 for the recommendations.

So it ends up costing $61, which if it's a little home garden, that might sound like a lot, but it's really not.

My experience is anything I've ever invested in the soil, I feel like I have gotten back plus more.

What kind of turnaround time do you usually get?

Now you can just send it to Kinsey Labs and they will send back recommendations, but that can take a long time, a month or more, and usually you're wanting it the next day kind of thing.

I would say you should definitely have it within a couple weeks.

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Agriculture in Education

Agriculture in Our Schools: Making It Work

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Re-Learning Our ABCs

1h 36m

Agriculture in Our Schools: Making It Work

1h 8m

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