Episode #3 | Michaela Ryan
A New Village
Education Innovator at New Village Farm - a farm school for kids aged 5-18
Episode 3 is a very personal conversation with an educational innovator, Michaela Ryan. For almost 20 years, Michaela has operated a farm school for kids ages 5 - 18, called New Village Farm in Shelburne, VT.
Many children, including a young woman named Resika, (who introduced us to Michaela) grew up farming at New Village. For them it’s a completely normal part of their lives. Beginning with rabbits and chickens, children learn not only animal husbandry skills, but deep empathy, front-lines life and death realities, and the joy of giving care.
As early learners grow, they move into the feeding, moving, milking and understanding of goats and their baby kids, Eventually these children, fully capable and mindful of their own safety, graduate to caring for enormous dairy cows, as well as how responsibly and successfully to engage these animals, who are over 10 times their size!
Michaela talks us through the incredible layers and dimensions of learning in this profound environment, and its impact on human development, including her own very personal story.
Resources
New Village Farm - https://www.newvillagefarm.com/
Schools receiving federal funding for school lunch are required to reduce sodium content - https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/school-nutrition-standards-updates/sodium
Rudolf Steiner - https://www.biodynamics.com/steiner.html
Ancestral cooperation with indigenous people bc of common interest in medicinal plants - https://unitedplantsavers.org/the-original-medicinal-plant-gatherers-conservationists/
Milk prices same as in 1930 - https://www.in2013dollars.com/Fresh-whole-milk/price-inflation/1939-to-2025?amount=0.26
% of Vermont dairy farms that are small scale - https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2025-04-21/new-commisoned-study-shows-americans-consuming-more-dairy-vermont-is-in-the-forefront
Heat stress, grazing health and other bovine developmental issues in dairy cows separated from their mothers at birth - https://www.agproud.com/articles/59804-more-than-milk-production-long-term-effects-of-heat-stress#:~:text=These%20factors%20create%20a%20vulnerable,value%20within%20the%20dairy%20industry