Educating ourselves about food

[Mahazareen Dastur]

This morning, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture given by Dr. Dilafruz Williams. Dr. Williams is founding director of the Leadership in Ecology, Culture, and Learning program and of the Learning Gardens Laboratory at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. She also co-founded the Environmental Middle School (grades 6-8) in 1995, which has now expanded to K-8 Sunnyside Environmental School in Portland Public Schools.

These successful initiatives have been designed with the goal of addressing the ecological and cultural underpinnings of education in K-12 schools and in higher education and build strong community-school-university partnerships. How successful? The Learning Gardens concept has now taken root in a number of primary schools across the US as well as six high schools, which is mind-boggling considering the untimely and ignominious death of environmental education (known in its erstwhile avatar as EVS) as a school subject for the ICSE Board.

As the name suggests, the Learning Gardens is designed to help children/students as well as their families and communities connect to their natural roots. Our connection with soil as a living medium has been tenuous for quite some time. The program helps students learn about science, social studies, and sustainability--all of it in a place as unexpected as a garden.

One thing hit home quite forcefully for me, namely, our (read "the urbanite's") complete disconnect with the earth in our everyday lives. Most of us understand the ecological importance of nature. We see nature as a scenic backdrop on most of our travels/trips out of town and not much else. Few of us stop to think where we get our food from (the earth), what happens to the water we use (if you live in Mumbai, it ends up more or less assaulting all the aquatic life (or what's left of it) in the Arabian Sea), or exactly where the garbage disappears once we have (hopefully) put it out for the garbage truck. (I must admit that I was completely clueless about all of these things while growing up. If I had had an environmental education before I embarked on my Master's degree, it would have been an eye-opener and would have contributed immeasurably to my understanding of nature as whole.)

Ask an average person where his/her food comes from, and the answer would probably be the supermarket (if you are in the US), the farmer in the gaon (if you are in India), or something more hilarious (and completely untrue, if your average Jo.... What most of us do not realize is that the small-time farmer too is disappearing. Slowly, but surely, being taken over the big corporations in the name of convenience, scale, and supply chain management.

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[Mahazareen Dastur]

Dear Rina,

You are right. Things are not much different at home (i.e., in India). However, some people believe they are worse in the US. Our education and home-value systems are clearly missing some important milestones.

[Rina Mukherji]

Dear Mahazareen,

 

Many years ago, when I started off as a journalist in Mumbai, I had met activists at the Yusuf Meherally Centre in Tara Village in Alibag who were trying to educate schoolchildren on the issue by taking them on weekend trips to their Centre. The then Co-ordinator, ex-Lintas professional, and the brain behind the NAval Mutiny-B C Dutt, had then told me about the hilarious experiences they had when educating kids from posh South Mumbai schools on where the food and milk they consumed came from!  

[DR. (MRS) RAVINDRA KAUR]

Yes, very rightly said. Infact food is the most essential element of Tripple E (EEE), elements of environmental education. Charity begins from home, Mothers need to explain the very first component - the food to their kids and about the motherly spirit of  Mother Nature.  

[GOPI KANTA GHOSH]

Thanks...this is good lesson for me too