In the video the migrant farm workers are the teachers and the learners are those watching the video.  The teacher could also become the one utilizing the video for learning.  The explicit learning is that the migrant farm workers work in the fields, share meals with family, go grocery shopping, share ice cream with friends, make tortillas, live in the U.S. (as evidenced by the flag), and have communion outdoors.  The implicit learning is that the work of a migrant farm worker is very hard, they live in poverty, and yet they are very similar to other Americans and other Christians- they enjoy spending time with friends and family and they worship the same God.  One person suggested that implicit learning could also include that the migrant workers have a deeper sense of family and faith than people in easier circumstances.  The null or unintentional learning is harder to identify but we could learn from the video that the migrant farm workers do not interact much with other Americans since they are not shown doing this.  We also are not shown how/why they arrived at the life of a migrant farm worker.  We could assume that they chose this life and that they enjoy it when that may not actually be the case.

In regard to the “Who is my Neighbor” curriculum, the teacher is the Colorado Council of Churches and/or the person or people leading the studies/utilizing the curriculum.  The learners are those participating in the studies.  The explicit learning in general is that God/Jesus calls us to be hospitable to and to love our neighbor.  Explicit learning is also found in the various statistics and charts showing facts about immigrants and immigration.  The implicit learning is that we should allow immigrants into the U.S. because it is the morally right thing to do and also based on the information provided in the statistics which show benefits of immigrants/immigration.  The null or unintentional learning could be that Jesus wants us to be hospitable and to love our neighbor even at the expense of our own welfare.

Regarding the coherence of explicit, implicit, and null criteria, there is a contrast drawn with the culture of the migrant worker among the dominant American culture.  God is seen for this family in many ways familiar to other Christians: embodied, participating, and at work in the circumstances, daily lives, rituals, and well-being of the people, and worthy of praise for God’s faithfulness.  And yet there is also dissonance in viewing this video: wanting to commend a life of simplicity that is clearly integrated with faith amid struggle, and a simultaneous desire to lessen the struggle that family experiences.

Ages/Stages of faith formation applicable to this learning environment:

1) Within the film: Sr. Medrano’s film portrays two older adults and three younger people, all in the same household.  Guessing age is always a challenge, but the two older adults, if over 50, would be in the “new senior” age, and the three younger people appear to be either all “young adults” (20’s) or perhaps a mix of “young adults” and “ages 16 to 18″.  It is interesting to try to put the Augsburg resource within this film — the Nurturing Faith booklet draws common experience from the dominant culture in America (ethnic/class), so many of the stereotypical particulars given for age group may not apply.

Those that do appear to apply include:

- 16-18: engaging in making plans for the future, finding mentoring relationships, concerned about physical appearance (on Sabato, especially), can have their own money and transportation (one of the young men — not the driver — refers to the color he wants to paint his truck).

- young adult: forming dreams, finding mentoring relationships, learning job skills.  One of the young men is shown symbolically watching the road behind as they drive to town… while his speaking parts focus on his individual and material concerns, he also shows no outward youthful angst against the older adults, and participates seemingly very willingly in their daily life of intermingled work and faith.

- new seniors (with or without the tilde): both the director of the film and the oldest adult characters show elements of “taking inventory and making judgments,” and also “desir[ing] to leave something behind after death that will benefit others.” [As a related aside, the Augsburg publication seemed awkwardly afraid to connect people in each of the age categories to *their own* other-generational family members (i.e., as mother/father, son/daughter, etc.).  For the sake of the film, it is fair to assume the "others" being benefitted also include their own children.]  For example, the film itself is being left behind as a meditative learning offering; the father(?) and mother(?) in the film exercise spiritual leadership through teaching moments of worship “when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise” (Deut 6:7), recognizing the connectedness of God, the people, and the land, leading by example in prayer and in communion; living life as prayer, seeing and giving glory to God for God’s significant participation in the daily and mundane, whether that is giving life to the land, or shaping that life into tortillas that sustain them.  The mother(?) shows us some of her “conjunctive faith” as we see her reflect momentarily on the disjunctive tension between her Hispanic-American identity together with their modest income, and the Americanized (pre-packaged, processed) Italian pizza box that she rejects in favor of mixing flour and water into tortillas herself at home.

2) For those to whom the film and the packaged curriculum on immigration form the learning environment: all ranges of adult learners (plus ages 13-15 and 16-18, if not younger) might be anticipated for this learning.  The two offerings (Sr. Medrano’s film and the CO Council of Churches curriculum) form a sharp contrast.  The film by Sr. Medrano offers a meditative opportunity for open-ended possibilities of transformation of the viewing community into new thinking, relationships, and living.  The Colorado curriculum instead works from the convictions of its preparers to direct learning along a specific course toward a pre-determined outcome of preferred action (using techniques such as selection of scripture, use of the word “fear” to minimize opposing viewpoints, and a pre-selected list of people who are acceptable to “know” in the immigration debate.  Our group of four seemed to be together in harmony with the Biblical challenge presented in the curriculum (toward loving/inviting/embracing the neighbor, in the midst of the defined “illegality” of many immigrants), but the contrast between presentation/teaching styles was nevertheless marked.  This contrast also mirrors a central point of Eunjoo Mary Kim’s book, “Preaching the Presence of God,” which highlights similar differences between traditional Western and Asian approaches to preaching and teaching.  To directly address the Augsburg booklet, congregational learning communities would presumably also include “middle adults” and “older adults”, each with their own generationally-gifted locations and contributions to bring to the circle.

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