Friday, February 20, 2009

Eco-Literacy

When we were invited to help start my son's charter school, THE main founding parents, Marya Francis and Jay Owens, kept going on and on about eco-literacy. The term was so bourgeois, upper-middle-class, urban angsty that I just ignored it in the moment. That was not why I was interested in the school.

But with time I have become deeply moved and committed to the idea. Marya, a quiet, powerful visionary, slaved to make her dream come true. She did not care if anyone else was interested. Through her work and initiative this fall Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse Foundation came down to meet the Larchmont Charter Schools. The schools put together a fabulous lunch, prepared by organic chef mama Margarite Mees, and served Alice and her friends a fresh, delicious lunch out on the schoolyard with the children.

Those there had been warned that Alice would be tired, exhausted from a busy trip, and they had about a 15 minute window to get her attention or not. They did it! They broke through and Alice fell in love with the school. The Larchmont Schools have been accepted to be An Edible Schoolyard. The program is designed to teach children to grow food, to prepare food, and to eat better. It is to teach a connection to the land, the earth, local farmers, our community and the food we eat.

Today, Waters has a wonderful piece in the NYT about why schools need to feed kids good food. She argues, with powerful facts and figures, that school lunch should not be a cheap dumping ground for leftover corporate agricultural products and a gigantic junk food distribution system. She argues that we need to dump our current school lunch program and start again from scratch. I agree.

Today I go to the school garden with my boys. A group of devoted mothers have transformed an asphalt patch behind the school into a magical place. There are greens, herbs, flowers, a tiny fountain with stools and scarecrows made of recycled items. It is a tiny zen place in the middle of this urban jungle. It is a lesson in how you can create beauty and green out of nothing. The kids love it.

They water the plants and sniff the leaves. Last time we made salads out of every kind of green we could find. Today we will harvest some herbs and make herb butter. My son has started eating salad--in large part due to this garden. Nature is my place (though gardening is not my strength) and I am deeply moved to see the children watering, harvesting and eating what they have grown. Far more than I would have expected.

I have become an Eco-Literacy convert. I read Waters' biography and watched the old French movies that gave her famous restaurant its name. I surf the web at night trying to learn more, and I have become a fan of Andrew Goldsworthy, the fabulous British artist who creates ephemeral works in nature. I am ready to subscribe to an Eco-Literacy newsletter for kids, and to really get into it.

This is my favorite part. Real Eco-Literacy teachers emphasize that you do not want to teach children about all the harm that has come to the earth. You do not want to teach them about polluted oceans, falling Amazon forests, or other horrible things they cannot do anything about. You simply want to take them out into the woods, the forests, the deserts, the oceans and teach them to love this world. When they see how beautiful it is, when they sense its magic, they will spend their lives trying to protect it.

5 comments:

Lani said...

Hilary,

You might be interested in Richard Louv's writing.

http://richardlouv.com/

:) Lani

SQUIDLY said...

Down here in my little tiny corner of Long Beach, I have a 12x5 plot of dirt in an organic community garden. I have shared my bounty with others over meals, I have savored by myself a lone roasted beet when that was all that was ready for harvest, and I've watched for close to two hours a Monarch flap and stretch and unfold its wings as he left his chrysalis in my little garden plot. Nature is where I find God and every time I set foot in the little garden, I can breathe deeper. What a joy that your kids will learn to be connected to Earth through their garden, too.

Ilaria said...

lani, i LOVE richard louv. thank you for the recommendation. i am going to hunt him down and see if i can get him to come speak at our school. or at least make all the teachers read him. thank you!

Ilaria said...

and lisa,

nature is where i find god, too. which is sometimes why i wonder why i live in the city. i would be very happy in a cabin in the woods, with occasional madcap trips to the city.

we must be outside together. have fun with ann today!

SQUIDLY said...

We've moved our "girl date" to Monday. Can' wait to meet her!

But, how about we do a five-some for wine, late night bites, and jazz at Steve's gig next Friday night? www.casavinowinebar.com Five-some because I'm the band widow in attendance. :)