SWOP program a success

Chisholm SWOP Team Recently, my family has developed a running joke about the “end times.” Whether conversation drifts toward oil spills or the latest moronic reality television show, someone makes a crack about how it’s just another sign that the world is ending. We all have a good laugh about how we need to move back to the farm, learn how to churn butter and stockpile ammunition to defend against the bands of post-nuclear mutants that will undoubtedly be roving the countryside….

However, I am not writing this article to persuade you to fill your cellar with household necessaries and take up spinning your own wool (after all, who knows whether we’ll have electric heat in the end times?). I am writing to tell you about a group of youth workers, their encounters with traditional skills, and their own writing about those encounters. Most importantly, I am writing to tell you how vitally important these skills are, end times or not.

Buhl SWOP Team The project I envisioned - which became a reality through the openmindedness and generosity of the site directors of the summer youth program, SWOP - began with the premise that basic life skills are being lost with each passing generation, and with those skills, many family stories and important lessons. Ask yourself these questions: “What did my grandparents know how to do or make that I don’t?” and/or “What do I know how to do or make that my grandchildren don’t?” My answer to the first question is embarrassingly lengthy: butcher and gut a chicken, darn socks, bake bread from scratch without a recipe, repair broken furniture, and on and on.

I wanted my small portion of the SWOP program to expose the kids to people who practice any sort of traditional skill. As you may have read in a previous issue of HTF, the Mountain Iron group divided up, half visiting a self-taught weaver and half the Fat Chicken Farm. To be honest, I felt more than a little concerned that these 11 to 14 year olds would look like the glazed-over, technologyaddicted youngsters many of us have been taught to expect. Sending preteen boys off to interview a weaver of all things and expecting them to be interested? Junior high girls touching chickens? I must be nuts!

And yet. The group I brought to the farm could not have been more rapt, whether feeding the chickens, picking cilantro, or learning about honeybees. Imagine my even greater surprise when I arrived back at the church to find kids arguing with each other about which trip had been “cooler.” They spontaneously recounted the events of the morning to each other: “She makes rugs for $1 per inch. I’m going to save up my money and buy one!” And: “We learned how to kill a chicken! She has 200,000 honeybees!”

A few weeks later, I returned to lead a SWOP-wide writing workshop based on the traditional skills outings. The Buhl group had learned how to make pasties, potica, and muffins. Those from Chisholm learned from a woman who crochets and knits. More than anything, I wanted each youth to have a sense of connection to these experiences; writing would be our medium. I encouraged the group to use imagination, make their writing vivid, suggested a few templates for what direction they might choose to take this piece, and off they went!

The variety of what our group created in a single morning is no less than astounding. Our workshop produced: a how-to guide on catching, holding, and killing chickens, a medieval fable starring a talented weaver, a letter to the editor about why farming should be taught in schools, a comic strip, letters to family members about what they learned, and many acrostic poems. Whatever the quality of their writing in terms of grammar, spelling, or vocabulary, each participant made a link and a leap between his or her story and the story of the person who taught about a traditional skill. The experiences they had on one day became firmed up, magnified, and transformed by writing them down on paper.

I hope the day of learning about traditional skills impacts at least some of these kids’ futures. Perhaps one will become a farmer, another a mittenknitter extraordinaire, another the best pasty-maker for miles around. To me, any of these things would mark success. But even if none of the youth discovered their life’s passion that day, it will not have been a waste. The writing from our morning workshop proves that they took away more than simple facts. They applied the skills and stories to their own lives, extracted moral lessons, imagined themselves in another time and place. The beauty of skills rooted in a culture or ones that have stood the test of time is that they are steeped in values and stories; they allow people to connect on a deeper level, to impart wisdom, to fill a role as student or teacher.

So what does this mean for you? If you are a young person, start asking to be taught. If you are an adult, start teaching. The opportunities are all around, and every person has something to give, whether it’s a skill, stories, or simply a listening ear. Why not start today? After all, the end times may be closer than you think.

Tyler Davis, a native of the Iron Range, is a yoga teacher and aspiring writer who lives in Minneapolis.

Dave Pervenanze: an acrostic poem
By Dakota Maki

SWOP student
Dave is a good cook
All his food is good tasting
Valentinis were his dad’s friends
English was his mother
Potica is very easy to make when you have many people helping
Everybody had fun making the food
Rode bikes for fun when he was a kid
Very good at making potica
Earning his masters degree in business/health/food
Norway his ancestors lived in Lillehammer
A great baker
No mashed potatoes and gravy to eat
Zoom goes the pasties
England and Italy is where his family came from

Kate
By Nick Champa
SWOP student

She lived on a farm. She had 100 chickins. She kept 12 for eggs. She lived in Staples Minnestoa. They had no TV and not water until she was in 10th grade. They went to bed at 8:00 p.m. They work a lot she did dishes when she was 6 years old. I learned crocheting by Katie and it was hard at first but she said never say you can’t do it because you can. She said that to us. It was fun with Katie. When she was a kid she played kick ball and played checkers and she loved to read. You can use shirts to crohet. When Katie moved up here she had four kids. The farm looked like a house just with pigs, cows and chickins. The farm smelled like pigs. Tasted like mud.