Adventures in Agriculture

I explained to my students this wekk that instead of growing kales for their agricultural project (part of their score on their national exam) we would be growing napier grass. Kales are commonly grown in this area, even though the oppressive sun means that in a good season, the crop will only be somewhat wilted. Napier grass is not grown in the area even though it is a drought tolerant crop that is good for controlling erosion (a big problem in the area) and makes good livestock feed (big concentration of livestock in the area).

At one point, one of the other teachers at my school tried to explain to me that I should just have them grow kales. Since he is the english teacher and the debate coach, you might have expected him to have the edge in the argument. Nope, I explained to him that I was going to make sure that the students were going to learn something from the project (another one of my radical innovations at the school) and outlined the advantages above. It silenced him pretty quickly. I think our record in debates is something like Me: 27, Him: 0. I almost feel bad for him, but really, I just feel bad for the students who he coaches in debate.

Anyway, the project sounds good, except I don't know how to grow napier grass. My students don't know how to grow napier grass. I don't know of anyone in the community who has raised it before (although it is grown in nearby communities). I hope that this succeeds somehow. (I already betrayed my lack of knowledge when I asked a teacher to go get seeds. The plants are grown from cuttings apparently.) Still, if it fails, hopefully the students will take some good lessons from that (and if it succeeds, I can take credit for introducing a productive crop to the area). Most of the time, failure is swept under the rug, instead of used for learning. Of course, they have their exam scores at stake. As I understand it, since the government just takes everyone's word for it, there is a lot of sweeping under the rug on these projects.

Sweepity-sweep-sweep.