Maya

Facilitator

Maya is a gender-vivid water being and land steward who loves to feed people and nurture their relationships to food. This beloved Farm School NYC faculty member has seen the school grow since our beginning.

Maya’s favorite Farm School Memory was the first in-person propagation class after the start of the pandemic. The relief of being back on land and getting to connect with students again was deeply refreshing. Seeing everyone’s personalities and having the ability to be in the community again while co-facilitating with Amara is something that sticks out for her about Farm School and that unprecedented time. For Maya, teaching during the pandemic was a moment of intense growth, and she learned how to become more flexible through collaborating with Farm School and other organizations who were providing a gentle push and encouragement to meet the needs of students. 

According to Maya our largelly dual facilitation model benefits learners and facilitators by keeping the learning process flexible and creating more pathways to implement feedback, giving facilitators a balance of autonomy and support. "Facilitators understand that each cohort brings new needs, new challenges and growth areas, and we’re expected to understand and adapt to these changes as we welcome students to come as they are. Alongside that there’s also increasingly more support for facilitators to adapt to those changes so we don’t feel alone in the process,"

When asked what advice comes to mind for potential FSNYC students Maya answered that the best way to enter farm school is to be fully yourself and allow your curiosity to guide you. FSNYC welcomes you and your voice. If you are a black queer person, you will be seen and valued, and if that is not the case you can voice that. Facilitators and staff are working to make you feel welcomed and cared about.

Maya also spoke to the intentions of accessibility being a guiding factor still present at FSNYC. Financial accessibility was an important intention of Farm School, which has grown notably in our expansion of the Gift Economy. The ability to pay it forward and tuition not being a barrier to educational resources is something that Maya, being a student in other spaces, understands the value of. Maya is grateful to continue to be a part of the process of growing and fostering student growth with the popular education model.