Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Alice Waters and School Gardens

With the Edible Schoolyard, and the thousands of similar programs, the idea of a school as a venue in which to advance a social agenda has reached rock bottom. This kind of misuse of instructional time began in the Progressive Era, and it has been employed to cheat kids out of thousands of crucial learning hours over the years, so that they might be indoctrinated in whatever the fashionable idea of the moment or the school district might be. One year it’s hygiene and another it’s anti-Communism; in one city it’s safe-sex “outer-course,” and in another it’s abstinence-only education. (Sixth-graders at King spend an hour and a half each week in the garden or the kitchen—and that doesn’t include the time they spend in the classroom, in efforts effective or not, to apply the experiences of planting and cooking to learning the skills and subjects that the state of California mandates must be mastered.) But with these gardens—and their implication that one of the few important things we as a culture have to teach the next generation is what and how to eat—we’re mocking one of our most ennobling American ideals. Our children don’t get an education because they’re lucky, or because we’ve generously decided to give them one as a special gift. Our children get an education—or should get an education—because they have a right to one. At the very least, shouldn’t we ensure that the person who makes her mark on the curricula we teach be someone other than an extremely talented cook with a highly political agenda?

9 comments:

dcat said...

G-Rob --
I agree with much of what you say. But I can see no more logical argument for having, say, shop class than having this. If we want no practical skills classes, that's fine, I guess. But I'm not sure gardening and in the process learning about the way plants grow is a bad thing. I bet kids will remember a lot more about that than they will about their classes talking about photosynthesis. If we want to get rid of practical skills classes, that's all well and good. But this seems in many ways better than home economics and every bit as important as most "mechanical arts" classes.
I have a hard time seeing this as rock bottom -- you really think this is WORSE than, say, abstinence only education? Abstinence only education was almost certainly positively harmful, whereas this hardly seems to do any harm at all.

dcat

g_rob said...

I didn't say that, Caitlin Flanagan did. I don't write as well as she. And I think her point is that a niche-curriculum like gardening should not hijack the entire educational system. I don't know what she thinks about shop classes. I quite like them.

dcat said...

Ah. Ok, then Caitlin Flanigan overstates the case. Which should not surprise anyone who reads Caitlin Flanigan regularly. People who look for attempted brainwashing wherever they look tend to find it.

dcat

g_rob said...

I don't think she's concerned about 'brainwashing'. The point of her article is that it seems rather misguided to teach immigrant laborers how to garden when they are, by and large, leaving high school only semi-literate at best. It is a waste of resources and it's being pushed by a non-educator who happens to make a mean, organic, locally-grown, very high-priced, meal.

Flanagan tends toward hyperbole, to be sure, but I think she does make some valid points. And I happen to be all for organic, locally and sustainably-grown food. I also know that there's nothing that California bureaucrats like better than the curriculum du jour. Nothing like introducing a new, exciting, innovative curriculum model to your school district in order to get that next step up the ladder. Whether it works or not.

dcat said...

Greg --
I just see Strawman written all over this. Are these schools really not teaching people how to read and write? And again: Why target this? Why not target shop or home ec or other things that don't get that strawperson immigrant any closer to reading? Why not also dump music, art, and physical education? This strikes me as a non-problem being used to cudgel people whose ideologies she disagrees with.

dcat

g_rob said...

"Are these schools really not teaching people how to read and write?"

She cites some pretty convincing statistics that at least the flagship school in Berkeley is failing in this respect.

"Why target this? Why not target shop or home ec or other things that don't get that strawperson immigrant any closer to reading? Why not also dump music, art, and physical education?"

Aside from P.E., these are all electives. Nobody has to take them. The garden-curriculum she describes, and I am only familiar with it through her article, is a school-wide program. As in they teaching throughout every core subject, and in her argument, that means they are neglecting the basics that need more attention. Welding is not discussed in English nor is woodshop debated in Civics.

"I just see Strawman written all over this"

Yeah, a little bit. I think it's more of just a poignant example of how ironic and misguided this approach is that is focusing so much attention on teaching the value of 'hard work' to a group of immigrant people that are trying to get an education so they don't have to return to that life. But I agree, it is failing poor kids of every color and nationality too, I agree. And there are plenty of other crappy, pet-projects by administrators and special-interests that are failing our students as well.

dcat said...

G-Rob --
Thanks for the response.
But look, social science 101 is that correlation is not causality. Before these gardens were reading numbers really better? Is there any sense that the two are tied to one another?

The electives point is all well and good. But is it true? You never had to take those classes in junior high or as a freshman? I did. I don't know anyone who did not have to take home ec and/or shop in jr. high.

I just don't think Flanigan is all that rigorous a thinker is all.

dcat

g_rob said...

I did not have to take a shop class in Jr. High or Sr. High. I took them as electives. The current M.O. is to not allow any students to take an elective nor have a free period (TA, office aid, etc.) if they are failing any core classes.

dcat said...

I would suspect that's a state/local education policy matter.

I don't have a dog in the fight for the school garden thing. I don't care. But to simply pass it off as ideological is sloppy, shallow thinking.

dcat