Are School Gardens Cheating Kids Out of an Education?

I learned to remove weeds by their roots in kindergarten. I was sitting in the school garden and at first I thought you could just grab 'em and yank -- but it was not so simple. In the most recent issue of The Atlantic author Caitlin Flanagan writes a scathing article on school gardens, particularly the Edible Schoolyard program led by Alice Waters in California. I honestly didn't realize one could have such harsh words for a little school gardening. School gardens seem to encourage healthy eating and alternative educational experiences, but in a bankrupt school system with high dropout rates, it is not so simple, at least not to Flanagan.

Flanagan argues that school gardens are taking kids out of the classroom and wasting the state's precious resources, while those children should be hitting the books and getting the knowledge to pass the standardized tests they need to graduate and advance to the California higher education system (although that system is also struggling for money). She sees a child picking lettuce as a cruel irony. She starts her article by describing a hypothetical family of migrant workers who have a son born in the United States. As a citizen he attends an American school fulfilling a dream his parents had for him -- only to be picking lettuce in the hot sun instead of studying in the classroom pursuing the better life his parents worked to get him.

Flanagan goes on to describes the agenda of California’s schoolyard gardens as "patronizing." If it was "promulgated in the Jim Crow South by a white man who was espousing a sharecropping curriculum for African American students, we would see it for what it is: a way of bestowing field work and low expectations on a giant population of students who might become troublesome if they actually got an education."

But this is after quoting a section of the agenda, that really needs to be quoted again here:

Some families, particularly those from other countries, may feel uncomfortable when asked to help out at school because their English skills or educational background do not give them a solid classroom footing. For these families, the living classroom of a garden can be a much more inviting environment in which to engage in their children’s education.

In another piece in The Atlantic, Corby Kummer, who often writes on food topics for the magazine, responds to her attacks. He cites cases where student grades and understanding of lessons has improved with the addition of school gardens. He defends the program and Alice Waters and discusses the effects the gardens have on children's diets and the effect they could have on the rising problem of childhood obesity. What the gardens appear to have little effect on is the state's budget, as they use no additional public funds.

Financial problems, low grades and poor student health are just some of the problems affecting the California school system. It seems obvious that sweeping changes are needed to help fix it. I don't think a school garden was ever intended to fix the system. It's one program among many working towards a better system. Unfortunately, it seems to be the best know program and therefore it's getting an unfair amount of attention and now blame in this very political argument.

What I can offer in defense of school gardens is my own story. During elementary school I attended the Waldorf School of Garden City in Long Island, N.Y. Waldorf schools' principles are based on Rudolf Steiner philosophies -- he developed biodynamic farming among many other achievements. As you might imagine we had a school garden. We didn't spend a lot of time in the garden, perhaps as much time as another class would spend studying a class pet, but it gave me a good perspective on where food comes from. I was actively part of the story of growing food. During childhood (and even now) the lessons that stuck with me best had a great story or were taught in a unique way. I believe I have a healthy appetite and a respect for where my food comes from, because I was involved in the weeding, the composting, the creation of food. This was a novel experience for me. My parents didn't garden and before coming to school I wouldn't have been exposed to this lesson. To me a school garden's simplest and perhaps greatest achievement is putting your food into context. This is how a carrot grows; this is how it's picked. I don't have that kind of relationship with Fritos, so I don't eat them very much. In the same vein, my teacher told us a story of a licorice factory to help us learn subtraction, and I do have fond mathematical memories I associate with licorice -- but that's a whole other story.

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