trowel fodder
n.— «Excavations are often very expensive or simply use students as “trowel fodder,” providing no training at all.» —“Archaeology in Further Education” by Dave Jones Education and the Historic Environment Mar. 2, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...
There was a time when William Shakespeare was just another little seven-year-old in school. Classes in his day were demanding — and all in Latin. A new book argues that this rigorous curriculum actually nurtured the creativity that later flourished...