Youth In Schools, Youth In The Business Of Growing

MANILA: Tuesday, 07 February 2017, because of the persistence of Ms Dizon Rea in her postings on Facebook, a new interest has been triggered in old me. Here is the exchange of Facebook posts and comments between her and me:

Rea: Sapangbato National High School is the 7th school I visited today to give vegetable seeds to be used for the Gulayan sa Paaralan Project! Thank you very much to DA Region 3 HVCDP for their support and collaborative effort in making this project possible. (FAH: The HVCDP is the High Value Crop Development Program of the Department of Agriculture, or DA.)
Frank: Visited 7 schools in 1 day, that's a tireless lady!
Rea: Yes Sir, 7 schools. Tiring but fulfilling.

Rea: With me the students and teachers from Tacondo Elementary School receiving their vegetable seeds for the Gulayan sa Paaralan Project! Thank you very much to DA Region 3 HVCDP for their support and collaborative effort in making this project possible. (FAH: The image above is of this group. Rea is the lady behind the girl. Extra comment: The photograph has an excellent composition, in that you can imagine 3 lines all pointing to the lady at the back!)
Frank: Gulayan sa Paaralan, must be a good project. Keep up the good work!
Rea: Thank you very much, Sir Frank, for always motivating me to do the best that I can do!

Rea: The students and teacher from Don Pepe Henson Elementary School were happy in receiving their vegetable seeds to be used for the Gulayan sa Paaralan Project.
Frank: That's it. You should enjoy teaching the young ones.
Rea: Yes, Sir, I want to encourage the young ones of today who will become farmers of tomorrow.

Rea: And for the 4th school beneficiary to receive vegetable seeds for the Gulayan sa Paaralan Project, the Pampang Elementary School!
Frank: Let's see which school will have the best vegetable garden after this.
Rea: Yes, Sir Frank. Exciting, right!

Rea: The 3rd school beneficiary I visited to receive vegetable seeds to be used for Gulayan sa Paaralan is Sitio Pader Elementary School!
Frank: Keep a diary, Rea, on every school garden.
Rea: Yes, Sir Frank. Thank you for reminding me. Very much appreciated.

Rea: Another school beneficiary for vegetable seeds distribution for the Gulayan sa Paaralan Project is Enrica Sandico Elementary School!
Frank: Let's see the gardening next time.
Rea: Yes Sir, a bountiful vegetable garden that students will love and will make them interested to be engaged in farming.

Rea: Visiting FG Nepomuceno High School today, to distribute different kinds of vegetable seeds to be used for the Gulayan sa Paaralan Project. With me the school principal, teachers and coordinators for the said project!
Frank: I hope it's organic gardening.
Rea: Yes, Sir Frank. This project promotes organic urban gardening program here in Angeles City. to produce healthy and safe food.
Frank: Very good!

Rea: Northville Integrated School was the 2nd to last school I visited today. With me the Gulayan sa Paaralan coordinator and her co-teachers!
Frank: I'm doing something about the Gulayan sa Paaralan Project – surprise! You will see early tomorrow.

That tomorrow is today, Wednesday, day of blogging this essay. (Actually, Rea visited also Epza Elem School and Sapalibutad Elem School and JP Dizon Elem School and Cutud Elem School – 13 schools in all in one day. Whew!)

On my part, now I would like to encourage school garden projects like Gulayan sa Paaralan, or GSP, because GSP is working with the young ones in elementary and high school, where they are very receptive to good teaching. In GSP, I can see that the young boys and girls will:

√ grow up in knowledge about plants grown for food – if they also read about those vegetables in the Internet, they will learn more interesting things about them.
√ grow up as individuals learning to cooperate in a common project – instead of competition, GSP will encourage collaboration. Learning is more fun with a group.
√ grow up with some awareness of costs & returns, a good start for entrepreneurship – I'm thinking of young business-minded farmers who will take over the old farmers we have in the field.

Rea is an Agriculturist at the City Agriculture Office of Angeles. The provider of those vegetable seeds is the High Value Crops Development Program, or HVCDP, an initiative of the Department of Agriculture, or DA, to whom Rea does not forget to give her thanks in her individual posts. Working with seeds from the HVCDP of the DA, with different high value seeds, I hope those students in those schools will learn to enjoy what they are doing, watching with their own eyes Mother Nature at work on the seedlings as they come out and grow.

Suggestion: Vegetable gardening can be more exciting if the boys and girls make side-by-side comparisons between two gardens, one garden receiving only chemical fertilizer and the other garden receiving only compost or vermicast. One is chemical gardening, the other organic gardening. Then they compare the yields, and compare the tastes of the vegetables coming from those gardens, and ask people which ones they prefer. This experiment should be credited to the students, that is, entered in their grades.

When the students learn while they are doing it, they will love it, and so they will learn more. And they will love learning even more.

How do I know that? I am a teacher, although retired. I graduated in 1965 from the UP College of Agriculture when it was still UPCA and not yet the University of the Philippines Los Baños. My degree is BS in Agriculture with major in Ag Ed. As a teacher, I have a Civil Service Eligibility, Professional, obtained in 1964, the year before I graduated. And I love teaching the young ones.

Gulayan sa Paaralan, or GSP. In English, you can translate that to GSP, Gardening School Project, but I will go on and extract more from those 3 letters:

GSP also means Gardening as a Special Place for Learning – In the distant past, when I was a boy, our school gardens were treated as production places for vegetables such as cabbage, pechay, eggplant and tomato, nothing more. In GSP, I hope the garden becomes a special place where you can visibly see day by day how Mother Nature works and how you can help her beginning with the bare soil, so that she will work for you the more and give you more fruitful harvests.

GSP also means Gardening with a School Purpose – The school purpose is to educate the young ones how to grow food in a garden in a cooperative manner. You cannot teach cooperation if not in actual practice.

GSP also means Gardening with a Scientific Purpose – The scientific purpose is to be able to produce higher harvests, which also means more and cleaner food, with organic fertilizer, and healthier, with little or no pesticide residues.

GSP also means Gardening with Savings Promoted – Savings is promoted with inputs such as careful placement of fertilizers, avoidance of pesticides, as well as processing for new food products instead of buying. Even marketing may be promoted in bulk, to save on costs.

GSP also means Gardening with Special Partners – Partners from the public, private, scientific, religious, business and civic sectors may be encouraged to get involved and even contribute financially so that the GSP initiative can be wider and more significant, with more schools and more young boys and girls involved more deeply in the project. This is of course a dream, but we can dream, can't we?

Having said all that, I'm encouraged to go back to school. I mean, someday I'd like to visit all those school gardens in Angeles City for a day or two, take photographs, and tell their story. @

08 February 2017. Essay word count, excluding this line. 1314