Alburgina: How a Holstein Calf
Transformed a Classroom

by Virginia Holiman

Virginia Holiman teaches kindergarten in Alburg, Vermont, a tiny town on a peninsula that juts out of Canada. Alburg Educational Center serves approximately 240 students, K-8. Recently, the birth of a local farmer’s calf—and later, the arrival of the Food Education Every Day (FEED) program at her school—helped change the way she thinks about and practices teaching.

Teaching is a wonderful profession. Teaching little children is almost a spiritual experience. So how did I get to the point of pushing curriculums that demand uniformity and consist of academic exercises? How could I accept boxed programs and be denied doing any child friendly supplementation? When did I stop taking into consideration children’s needs and developmental stages? When did I stop really trying to make a connection between our school program and a child’s “real” life? It was not intentional. I suppose the change was gradual. The pressure was on for academic achievement. The kindergarten programs I knew and loved were gone. I was doing what I was told. The twenty plus years of teaching had apparently dulled my senses—dulled but not destroyed.

A niggling feeling started in me and grew into frustration and self doubt. I was aware I was not giving the kids what they needed. Yet I felt stuck and unable to move positively.

Thankfully and quite remarkably, a beautiful Holstein calf changed everything!

A farmer dad mentioned that soon a calf would be born at his farm. Maybe I could bring the kindergarten class to see her? Something clicked. Finally something awoke me and wonderful things started to happen. That new life transformed my classroom and in a sense transformed me. Suddenly I had a connection.

The class adopted and named “Alburgina”. We needed money to feed her so we all brought in our pennies. We counted…and we counted. We took our rolled pennies to the Grain Shed and bought calf feed. We visited the farm regularly and measured and weighed Alburgina. We graphed her growth. The children loved the dairy farm and Farmer Ladd. He welcomed them with a genuine enthusiasm. They wanted to see everything! Through the children’s eyes the cows became amazing creatures! They wanted to draw them, write about them, sing about them and read about them. They questioned, observed and investigated. No front upper teeth? Four stomachs? Four teats? We learned correct names and functions of all the cow’s “parts”. We dressed up like a cow and visited other classrooms to present our knowledge. (There is something special about watching five-year-olds convey their expertise to eighth graders!) We toured an old time milking parlor and a brand new one and compared. We listened to farmers talk about what farming was like in the “old days”. We sat on the tractors; and rode in the hay wagon to go pick up a new calf that had been born the night before in the far pasture. The conversations and writing generated by that experience were incredible. The children were fully engaged and so was I—as were the farmer and the store owner. Positive new school–community partnerships were spontaneously formed. Farmer Ladd decided to join our School Board. The Grain Shed donated seeds for our garden. The children had visited and were comfortable with two new parts of their community. Their vocabulary had expanded to include many appropriate agricultural community words.

Then VT FEED (Vermont Food Education Every Day) came along. The program was offered to the staff, and to me it seemed like a sign, a reaffirmation. It would help me continue and expand what Alburgina had started. I was on the right track toward creating a full program that would address the children’s needs at their own levels and meet the curriculum goals and Vermont Standards. (I should admit here that the many years of working in this community, my strong personal philosophy, and knowing I had parental and immediate administrative support made it easier to tweek, add to, and bend the specific programs I was supposed to be teaching.)

The nutrition and food groups came alive! FEED’s dynamic Dana Hudson and Joseph Keifer helped us start from scratch. We studied and tasted what foods had historically been raised and eaten in Alburg, and why. We made corn muffins, grinding the corn with a rock in a hollowed log. We studied the food groups and enjoyed samples from each. We instituted the food team. Each day two students went to the cafeteria to find out what was for lunch. They recorded each item in the appropriate section of a large laminated food pyramid. Then they reported their findings to the whole class.

"I suspect there are other veteran teachers out there who are struggling, knowing that they have misplaced that faith in themselves to find and stick to what they know is good for the whole child."

We visited a goat farm and saw the milking process, (“You can milk a goat??”) all the way through to the cheese making. We sampled different kinds of cheese. We instituted the “no thank you bite” policy. We wrote a picture book about our visit. We dressed up like a goat and learned the functions of the “parts.” The goat farmer became another good community friend to the kindergarten.

A parent brought in “Turkey Lurkey” and she laid an egg in our classroom! We cooked with eggs she had laid at home.

We made all kinds of bread from scratch, grinding wheat berries, cutting zucchini, grating carrots, making and kneading dough and shaking the butter to top off the finished bread.

We worked with the lunch agent to taste test different food groups: grains, fruits, and vegetables. This collaboration was a first in our school.

The children decided to monitor snacks from home. Each day snacks were evaluated by the children themselves and then listed on the healthy snacks chart.

“The children know where they live and now have a better sense
that they are an integral part of their community.”

The list of activities and projects goes on and on, and so does the learning. Nutrition, health, math, writing, recording, reading (non-fiction and fiction), local history, social studies, and vocabulary concepts were, and still are, covered in these kindergarten adventures throughout the community. And all has been done at the individual student’s level. (Lest anyone be worried, specific necessary skills not covered are addressed in the classroom in an age-appropriate way.) We have had some contact now with each of the local businesses and many of the farms. The support and encouragement have been overwhelming. The children know where they live and now have a better sense that they are an integral part of their community. They appear noticeably more confident.

Teaching feels wonderful again. The children’s excitement and ever growing connection to the community are conducive to expanding the program. It is lots and lots of work but oh so worth it! I am feeling challenged to continue this exploration, to follow my personal philosophy built on years of experiences and much thought. I thank FEED and Alburgina for the courage to do what I know to be right. It’s important to me—really important.

I suspect there are other veteran teachers out there who are struggling, knowing that they have misplaced that faith in themselves to find and stick to what they know is good for the whole child. May they find an Alburgina or FEED to guide them back to be the advocates they are meant to be.