Summer is the time for
the students to relax and have fun but it is also time for some students to
work on their project. For my daughter, she is to interview a farmer about “the
change in farming system” for her geography project. Ever since her exams are
over, she has been frantically looking for a farmer to interview for her
project but we can hardly see any farms nearby. The nearest farm is more 20 kms
away and I have promised her a trip to a neighbouring farm for her group after
the LG election.
My daughter and her
group are eagerly waiting for the LG election to be over so that they can visit
a farm and complete their project but at the same time pestering me about their
bad luck for being in the town school where they cannot see the real farms
everyday like students in the rural school. Their talks make me wonder, where
our farms have disappeared within a short span of time.
As a student, in the 80’s
and 90’s, I remember visiting the farms to help farmers during the paddy
cultivation and harvesting seasons. We would eagerly wait for the captains and
the teachers to group us during the weekends so that we could visit the farms
and help the farmers. It was more of an outing than a work because the farmers
used to share us their meal for the little help we rendered and most of the
time, we were a hindrance rather than help but they always invited us every
season and we learned a few lessons as the year progressed. I always had some
incidence to share with my parents and siblings on what we did and my father
would ask “would you prefer to work on the farms when you grow up?” I would
always say; “No way! I would rather work in the office like you than toil on
the farm”.
Now more about two
decades later, the mad rush for the urbanization had led to the disappearance
of many farms and forests around the vicinity of the town. There are hardly any
farms nearby. The lessons that the students have to learn on the practical
observation are taught through conceptual strategies due to the unavailability of
resources which confuses the students further which makes me further wonder
whether what we are doing is right or not…
A thoughtful article! Enjoyed reading it la. By the way, I am not sure as to where you reside. May be somewhere in Thimphu or other big towns. It is true in those areas that we can't find farmers or to say they have decreased in number over the years more correctly. I don't know if their disappearance is more of an advantage or the other way round but I can say the farmers in rural areas to suffer a lot barring the source of practical observation and study for students. Like you said, we had plenty of farmers in our school days or rightly to say we didn't even have to do any practical study as we were very much part of such a life. So, do you feel the disappearance of farms is more of a curse or a blessing? Whatever, everything has two sides - good and bad - about it, right? I feel the same here. Wish you and your daughter all the success and a safe trip to the nearby farm after the LG elections. :)
ReplyDelete@ Langa..thanks for the valuable comment.. sometimes I can help feeling devastated when I see the disappearance of our green gold (flora and fauna)and the thought of global warming...I may be being paranoid but sometimes the fast pace of modernization and westernization scares me ...
ReplyDeleteThe disappearance of farms is more of a curse than a boon for me because I am fed up surviving on the imported inorganic farm products from the neighbouring state of Assam and West Bengal...