President’s wife takes part in Benchmark Tour
While Utah State University President Kermit L. Hall is touring the state milking cows, his wife, Phyllis, will be reading books on the subject of cows to second graders in each of the 29 counties.
Phyllis Hall said she wanted to go along with her husband on the “Raising the Benchmark Tour” because she sees it as a great opportunity to learn about the state of Utah.
“That’s been the case already,” she said of the three counties the couple has visited. “We learn about what the people do in those counties to make a living and get to know them.”
Phyllis Hall left her job as a library media specialist at an elementary school in Raleigh, N.C., to join her husband at USU. Before her seven years as a library media specialist, she spent 20 years as a classroom teacher.
“This past month I’ve been here is the first time in a long time I’ve woken up in the morning and not gone off to an elementary school,” she said.
She said she chose to read to students because reading is “the most important thing they learn in school.”
Along with Phyllis Hall’s classroom reading, Debra Spielmaker hopes to bring second graders in Utah a message about agriculture.
Spielmaker is the coordinator of Agriculture in the Classroom, a program conducted in every state with the purpose of educating children about agriculture.
Spielmaker said research studies have demonstrated that children, and even many adults, know very little about how or where their food is produced.
“I took a group of third graders on a field trip to a vegetable farm and when the farmer pulled a carrot from the earth and began to explain how carrots grow, one girl turned to her friend and said, ‘Ew, carrots come from the dirt?'”
Spielmaker said 75 percent of Salt Lake City fourth graders think hamburger comes from a pig and 50 percent said they could survive without farmers.
In each classroom, Spielmaker shows the children a tub containing 20 items – all of which come from cows. She asks the students to guess the common ingredient, and said the children have been good about guessing it so far.
Spielmaker said she plans to go to all the counties the tour will hit while schools are in session.
Phyllis Hall said the classroom visits have been a success.
“Children are great audiences,” she said. “I probably have the easiest task of anyone involved in this Benchmark Tour.”