food - life skills - Making

The School Garden flap …

While in some ways I hate to give Caitlin Flanagan any more web traffic for her flameball of an article about school gardens, the response has been very heartening. Here’s a link roundup:

As someone who comes from a long line of experiential educators, as well as someone who watched a number of very very smart family members struggle with dyslexia (and thrive when given something concrete to do), I think anything that gets kids connecting what they’re learning in the classroom to applications in the real world is a great thing …

I'm a writer and editor based in Livingston, Montana. I moved to Livingston from the San Francisco Bay area in 2002 in search of affordable housing and a small community with a vibrant arts community. I found both. LivingSmall details my experience buying and renovating a house, building a garden, becoming a part of this community. It also chronicles my efforts to rebuild my life after the sudden death of my younger brother, and closest companion, Patrick in a car wreck.

2 Comments on “The School Garden flap …

  1. The sad part about Flanagan’s article is how little she trusts the teachers. Of course if teachers haul kids outside to pull weeds for 1 1/2 hours/week, instead of having them practice reading, then that’s a problem. But if the teachers use the garden as a learning tool, well, where’s the problem? Having a school garden is comparable to going on a field trip, except you don’t need to pay for buses. And you can go more than once a year.

  2. Isn’t this a classic complaint of students, particularly in math class: “How are we going to use this in real life?” Seems to me school gardens bypass this complaint, teaching content in context.

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