More work pictures

[urbpan]

It so happens that the wildlife sanctuary where I work includes a traditional New England working farm. (Well, it's really a demonstration farm: we make money with it, but it's supported by the Sanctuary Society. Its purpose is to show how a small scale farm can operate without a negative impact on the environment.)



This was the first day that Emma, the new calf, arrived at the farm purchased from a farm in New Hampshire. These education staff members are trying to comfort her and get her used to the new place.









Our visitors, especially children, get to learn that what becomes tasty starts off as very very cute!

Comments

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

Um. Please don't bring that up with the children - especially preschool age. Definitely strongly encourage them to think about the associations between the food they eat and the animals that provide it, but don't get into the dogma of it. Also, talk about animals as you know they are, feeling and emotional beings.

These are preschool kids. It's extremely extremely extremely very much difficult to get them to eat in the first place. I can tell you first hand that any interference with this will be not at all appreciated.

Preschool kids are historically not very good at making judgements based on anything besides their guts. Don't take advantage of that for your own agenda. If you teach the kids that animals are feeling creatures then, when it's the appropriate time, the kids will be able to make a choice on their own.

It's the parents choice to introduce whatever dogma they choose into their childs life. Not your job. At all.

[turil.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't want to have parents getting upset, which is why I said that I need to do it in a way that doesn't upset them. I'm certainly not the dogma type. But I do feel obliged to make sure the kids don't have the wool pulled over their eyes. And I really want them to know that it's ok to be a vegetarian. I only wish I'd had someone who had told me that it is ok to be a vegetarian when I was a kid. I was forced to eat dead animals all the time because my parents thought it was the right thing to do. I don't fault them, since they grew up with all the propaganda of the 50s, and simply didn't know any better. But their ignorance did make my life (and lots of cute animals' lives, too) miserable for a decade or so (when they finally introduced me to a good friend of theirs who was a vegetarian - it was like a miracle for me to find out that I was not alone, and that being a vegetarian was perfectly respectable and healthy!).

Fortunately, I teach in Cambridge, where vegetarianism is practically the law! The school itself has an ovo-lacto vegetarian menu. And all the kids I work with are very hearty eaters who love fresh veggies and fruits and rice and pasta. So there will be no kids starving to death.

What's funny is that today I found a book on the shelves in the school that was called Cows That Type. It's about some cows who find a typewriter and start sending letters to the farmer (who owns them) demanding to be treated better or they won't produce any more milk. The farmer finally acquiecses when the chickens go on strike, too. What's even funnier is that nearly all the kids said that they had this book at home already.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

It sounds like your work has already been done for you. :)

That book is hilarious!