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Paula and most of her fellow farm workers have dementia. Boerderij Op Aarde is one of hundreds of Dutch “care farms” operated by people facing an array of illnesses or challenges, either physical or mental. They provide meaningful work in agricultural settings with a simple philosophy: rather than design care around what people are no longer able to do, design it to leverage and emphasize what they can accomplish.

For people with dementia, who are often less physically active and more isolated, farm settings promote movement and social interaction. And care farms can have emotional benefits, too, giving participants a sense of purpose and of making a meaningful contribution.

Studies in Norway and the Netherlands found that people with dementia at care farms tended to move more and participate in higher-intensity activities than those in traditional care, which can help with mobility in daily life and have a positive impact on cognition. Dementia is often linked to social isolation, and care farms were found to boost social involvement, especially among those who wouldn’t opt for traditional assistance options. Spending time outdoors in nature, often part of a day on a care farm, can also improve well-being among people with dementia. Farms are not only good for individuals. Their families also benefit: studies find caregivers experience less guilt when their loved ones are supported by services they consider to be nurturing and fulfilling.

home-schooling is back to its prepandemic rate of 4 percent, and data from the National Center for Education Statistics found that by far the steepest drops in public school enrollment during the 2020-21 school year were among children in pre-K or kindergarten.

All of this at least raises the question of whether some of the people driving the outrage, even animus, against schools might not have much skin in the game and might not have any recent experience with teachers or curriculum.

Garry Golden commented, “There is always risk of being seen as trendy or just buzz– but ‘engagement’ is a huge concept being explored today by people across the learning world…. I think engagement is a concept worth exploring.” And blogger Gretchen Jennings responded, in a post on her Museum Commons blog,  that she has and continues to “[urge] museum educators to focus less on formal education materials and methods and more on interpretive planning in exhibitions and visitor engagement in the museum, both on site and online. So I have decided to explore engagement in more depth. What is it, anyway? What would it mean for the-profession-formerly-known-as-museum- education to facilitate visitor engagement?