Re: [sg] Fw: Vandalism at the Edible Schoolyard

**D*@aol.com**

Reading David's message about school authorities replacing part of the Edible 
Schoolyard garden with a parking lot, I share his sadness and outrage. He is 
absolutely right about the disrespect such decisions show for our children. 
What happened at the Edible Schoolyard could happen to any of us in our 
asphalt addict culture. In spite of the criminal paving job, the kids and 
David's achievements in the garden continue to inspire all who saw them. I'm 
reminded of Holly Near's song about Victor Jara, the Chilean folksinger 
murdered after the CIA backed coup d'etat that brought Allende to power. 'It 
could have been me, but instead it was you." She sings. "So I'm going to keep 
doing the work you were doing as if I were two". The Edible Schoolyard has 
planted seeds no blacktop can smother. 

Don Boekelheide
Charlotte NC

In a message dated 5/15/01 12:17:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
transformingviolence@earthlink.net writes:

> andalism at the Edible Schoolyard
>   
>  
>  The destruction last week of a very significant part of the garden created 
> by students at King Middle School is sad indeed. It is now too late to save 
> the land or the testimony it bore to the work of hundreds of students at 
the 
> school.  But at least it is a story that should be told, and perhaps we can 
> learn something from it. 
>  
>   
>  
>  The particular part of the garden that has been bulldozed to create a new 
> access road is the steep sloping bank where the garden meets the vast 
expanse 
> of asphalt that typifies this and many other schoolyards across the nation. 

> It was a narrow spit of land with a mature arbutus (strawberry tree), a 
large 
> California Oak, and a number of smaller oaks and toyon.  The arbutus was 
one 
> of the most beautiful examples in the Bay Area and it provided fruit, shade 
> and shelter for birds and students alike. For the conservation of these 
trees 
> alone, the land should have been spared the bulldozer and the addition of 
yet 
> more asphalt.  It is a poor lesson to teach children, that these beautiful 
> trees, irreplaceable in their lifetime, are not worth conserving.
>  
>   
>  
>  But the real significance of the place for me, and my sadness at its 
> destruction, is that it was the location of a great deal of energetic and 
> high-spirited work and play for the hundreds of 11 and 12 year old students 
> who built the garden at King over the past five years.  I watched the 
> students reclaim this particular part of the garden, cutting back and 
> uprooting the invasive cotoneaster, terracing and replanting the bank with 
> hazelnuts they had grown from cuttings. The huge acacia tree that was 
> crowding the oak was gradually harvested and provided the material for 
> building the Ramada, the circular shade structure the students built as 
their 
> meeting place for the beginning and end of the garden class.  Students 
> figured out how to demolish the heavy steel railings that marked the upper 
> edge of the bank. They planted, made pathways, bridges, walls, and wove a 
> huge bird's nest large enough for four or five students to nest in. 
Students 
> were trusted to use axes, pickaxes, sledgehammers and crowbars to go about 
> their jobs, and never once did a serious accident occur in all the 
thousands 
> of child hours they worked in the garden.
>  
>   
>  
>  But perhaps the most sacred aspect of this place and the part that will 
stay 
> longest in my memory, and probably the memories of many students, was the 
> digging of the acequias (a drainage/irrigation channel) that became 
> affectionately known as the Middle River.  The students dug it along the 
> contour of the slope to drain the water from the Upper River they had dug 
> across the plateau of the garden.  Never have I seen such a splendid 
playful 
> application of youthful energy by so many young people over such a long 
time. 
>  The combination of water, mud, and high spirits, of dams, floods, jokes 
and 
> earnest hard work was something our children experience too rarely.  Now 
> their work is brutally obliterated.
>  
>   
>  
>  This place was, in short, the location of a very special sort of 
collective 
> activity. It is very rare in our culture for young people to be given the 
> chance to create something tangible, to care for the earth, to choose the 
> task they would like to do, and to learn to work together in a team.  There 
> were of course students who were not very interested, who hung out and 
> watched or who had conversations, some who hindered or just got in the way. 

> But the learning was incredible.  It was not the kind of learning you could 
> test anyone on.  Sometimes it was a chance to learn what you could do, what 
> resources and intelligence you could muster, whether your friends would be 
> supportive, whether you could work with someone you didn't like: to learn 
> what kinds of interaction were constructive, and how things could fall 
apart. 
>  It was also a chance to find out about some of the elements we depend on 
to 
> live on this planet -  dirt, rocks, water, and plants.
>  
>   
>  
>  We have very little notion of the sacred, or what is worthy of 
preservation, 
> and who needs to be remembered. The story of the Edible Schoolyard has been 
> told many times in the media, with it's focus being the founder, Alice 
Waters.
>   However, Alice isn't the only hero in this story, although she has 
> rightfully earned the community's respect for her vision and work. There is 
> another story that should be told, and many young people who should be 
> remembered and honored.  The best way of honoring them would have been to 
> respect the work they had done and to preserve the place they had nurtured 
> and helped create.  Many of them come back to the schoolyard after they 
have 
> left the school and have a deep sense of pride for what they did 
collectively.
>  This is not always apparent while they are attending the school.  Now they 
> will come back to find that what they did was not considered worth saving.
>  
>   
>  
>  This will not surprise them. For the most part the adult world is not 
> seriously interested in who young people are, nor in respecting what they 
> think, feel or are able to create. We are far from creating a culture in 
> which young people are fully respected.  I'm sad because in a small way the 
> garden at King has always tried to show that respecting the earth and 
> respecting children are fundamentally part of the same process. Small 
wonder 
> the favorite word of today's youth is "whatever". It's a way of defending 
> themselves against the pain of a lot of disrespect. 

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