Posted on 10/05/2006 11:05:12 AM PDT by HungarianGypsy
On a mild October morning, the child who turns up her nose at broccoli pats the seedlings into the ground, later mulching and watering the tiny plants. Over the next month, she'll tend them, watch them flower and finally cook them just lightly enough to eat. “We're going to change your mind about broccoli,” Paul Gates tells his second-grade class, in response to the girl's complaint. “You've never had good broccoli until you've had Mr. Gates' broccoli Nationally, celebrity chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., has expanded an organic gardening project to encourage local schools to buy produce from farmers markets and integrate food production into the academic curriculum. She argues that adults have abdicated their responsibility by placing children's well-being in the hands of the fast-food industry.
San Antonio teachers don't talk in such revolutionary terms, but with obesity and diabetes well-publicized problems here, many are all for encouraging kids to grow and eat their vegetables.
Gates' second-graders at Madison Elementary School in the San Antonio Independent School District plant flowers, trees, fruits and herbs, do soil samples, recycle water and study the life cycle of butterflies, all while working in the dirt under the persimmon, pecan, live oak, huisache and mesquite trees planted by past classes. Later this year, when they go inside, they'll blog about their experiences.
Gates says parents come to him amazed.
“They'll say, ‘What are you doing to my kid? He wants to eat broccoli,'” he said.
This fall, Dorris Trotter, who coordinates a local youth gardening project for the Texas Cooperative Extension, is dreaming up fun recipes, including an eggplant pancake, in an effort to support teachers at the estimated 175 local schools involving children in gardening projects.
“If the kids grow it, they're much more willing to try it,” she said.
Even simple gardens seem to have this magical effect.
Like most student gardeners, Lackland Elementary School first-grader Jordan Wooden, 7, feels a sense of ownership toward the seedling he nestled into the earth.
“That's my tomato,” he said, distinguishing one plant from the clump.
At Madison High School in the North East Independent School District, students engage in sophisticated experiments such as growing lettuce fertilized by fish in a shared tank.
Plant science teacher Josh Anderson also brings in organic and conventionally grown produce for taste tests. Though the organic doesn't always taste better, the teenage students are open-minded about unfamiliar foods, he said.
The focus on food led one student to switch from soda to water last year, Anderson said, losing 15 pounds in the process.
“Last year I had a parent come and say, ‘I need your cole slaw recipe,” said Gates, who downplays his cooking skill, saying he keeps it simple and doesn't overcook vegetables.
He noted that some kids would fall behind if it weren't for the hands-on work, which helps them retain what they learn about science.
“Mr. Gates said these are seeds,” said Armando Luna, 7, holding up two live oak acorns. “So I'm going to plant them when I move to a new house, because I live in an apartment now.”
Of course I was a picky eater. I say it was because my parents didn't know how to cook. I still can't stand canned vegtables.
You are better off without the canned vegetables, preservatives (including sodium), and water that has the nutrients.
Thank you so much for posting a positive article about education. FReepers will find some reason to say this is bad, wrong, horrible or abusive.
I loved vegetables as a kid, as long as they were raw or lightly cooked. Chinese food was good, as they knew how to cook vegetables without turning them into mush. I still prefer veggies cooked just enough to make them tender. Canned veggies? Yuck! Frozen are OK, though.
Not recipes this time, but a good article about children growing their own veggies to encourage them to eat them.
Why do you have to cook perfectly good veggies?
Not this FReeper! This is exactly what school should be about.
You have no idea how much I despised green beans as a kid. As an adult I made fresh green beans. They are my favorite vegetable. It is so cute how my six year old will come back for seconds and get disappointed if their aren't green beans. I really should grow some.
If there were more hands-on projects like this, kids wouldn't be so bored. The projects I remember most were growing things or making a habitat.
We grew all our vegetables when I was growing up. They were often the best part of the meal....my Mom could make the best squash & onions, and her pan fried okra was to die for!
Everytime I see a kid who'll only eat chicken fingers and fries, I look at what the parents are eating---- chicken fingers and fries.
Canned green beans are just plain nasty. We always bought fresh green and yellow beans in season, and later my father grew green and yellow beans, and sugar snap peas (about 20 years before I ever saw them available commerically). There was another vegetable he grew, I think it's called kohlrabi, which is a turnip-like vegetable that I actually like. I don't like cooked turnip, squash or sweet potatoes to this day. Raw turnip is good, though.
No doubt her experiences were shaped by the Great Depression.
Mmmm! I suddenly have an urge to pull out the bushes in front of my boys' bedroom window and expand my garden. It seems the planters in front of my house are the only places I can get things to grow. I have some herbs right now (basil, onion, and cilantro) and peas. I have one more section that I might be able to fit lettuce and spinach into. But, I want to grow more. While everyone else harvests, this is one of the best times to plant in Arizona. Things aren't going to fry to a crisp.
Note! the vegetables are strictly ornamental.
All that "organic" crap is contaminated with all kinds of nasty third world bacteria.
I'll take mine picked, packed and canned by robots, thank you.
I had a first grade teacher (late '70s) who did this. I did not eat my potatoes and green beans, so she made me sit there until I was done. I missed recess and half of the next class. She claimed my dad said I "loved" these things. Years later I found out my dad never said any such thing. My husband says he has never known anyone to carry a grudge as long as I have carried this one against that teacher.
Yeah,
between now and April/May are the best gardening times here. Things won't die from the heat.
Even my eggplants that struggled all summer to stay alive are now producing.
Anyhow, I have 'kitchen' garden off the kitchen steps with my herbs and things like eggplant etc. Hopefully, next year I can get more things to survive.
What is the best (and easiest) way to cook green beans so they stay crisp?
We like canned, we like fresh, we like frozen.
I ate veggies growing up, and my kids (and hubby) eat them also. They have no choice , not that they really try not to anyway. I never made a big deal, and since we eat them and don't make faces etc., they just consider it part of the meal.
I grew up w/ 3 older brothers, and we were on the poor side, so when the food went on the table, you were hungry and you ate, no matter what it was.
Lots of canned veggies etc also growing up. And worked in the garden weeding and such every Saturday morning, after breakfast and before cartoons. And onions in the pantyhose, lol, hanging under the house.
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