A Child’s Garden of Controversy

Published on Friday, January 15, 2010, by James Norton / Edit Post

America's gone gaga over the idea of using gardens and small-scale farming to teach children, particularly those in disadvantaged school districts. What many parents assume is that this must have an incredibly positive educational effect, because it seems so damned wholesome and thoughtful. An Atlantic article by "I'm just an old-fashioned stay-at-home mom (with a full-time domestic staff)" Caitlin Flanagan takes aim at this theory. You can kind of get a sense of her point via the tone of her introduction:

"The galvanizing force behind this ideology is Alice Waters, the dowager queen of the grown-locally movement. Her goal is that children might become 'eco-gastronomes' and discover 'how food grows'—a lesson, if ever there was one, that our farm worker’s son might have learned at his father’s knee—leaving the Emerson and Euclid to the professionals over at the schoolhouse."

More an op-ed attack on left-wing elitism (actual and perceived) than a thoughtful analysis of educational policy, the article does do one valuable thing: It points out that measurement of education-via-gardening is difficult to do, and that it should be done more rigorously. But flatly writing the movement off because it fails to directly prepare students for standardized tests is about as blinkered a perspective as one can have on education. The whole article is, in fact, like a game of left-wing label pinball, where the aim is to hit as many loaded terms as you can in as few words as possible.

Moreover: There's no fresh-food crisis in urban America, because Flanagan once saw a Ralph's in Compton with all sorts of great veggies.

But the most irritating part of the article may be her description of Chez Panisse as: "an eatery where the right-on, 'yes we can,' ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting man or woman of the people can tuck into a nice table d’hôte menu of scallops, guinea hen, and tarte tatin for a modest 95 clams—wine, tax, and oppressively sanctimonious and relentlessly conversation-busting service not included."

That's a load. You can eat at Chez Panisse for $60 on Monday nights; $75 on other weeknights. And based on first-hand experience, the service was impeccable—and nobody is more irritated by sanctimonious left-wing crap than this writer, a Madison, Wisconsin native who was forced to relive the 1960s four or five times before graduating high school. Service at Chez Panisse was elegant, minimalist, warm, and welcoming.

Image source: Flickr member Pink Sherbet Photography under Creative Commons

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  • Frankly, I'm not so sure that educational farming is even the issue here: Caitlin Flanagan is. So, in that case, I'll rise to her defense, because I am sick of loopy educational theories, and have always admired her cheek.

    A dynamic, and never BORING writer, who continually, and with verve goes against the mob rule of bien pensants by questioning their 'choices'! How dare she! A stay at home...+READ

    Frankly, I'm not so sure that educational farming is even the issue here: Caitlin Flanagan is. So, in that case, I'll rise to her defense, because I am sick of loopy educational theories, and have always admired her cheek.

    A dynamic, and never BORING writer, who continually, and with verve goes against the mob rule of bien pensants by questioning their 'choices'! How dare she! A stay at home mother with a full-time staff! Why doesn't she just go back to her uncool DC burb and play bridge! iIf Mr. Norton's plume is so empty of ink on the subject of educational farming (and, indeed, one can practically hear the yawn through the entire lead until he works his way up to his petulant defense of Chez Panisse!) he may have to look for a bettery way of proving his point (if there is one) than sniveling at Flanagan for her remarks. yes, how irritating and funny she is. And, I'm sure she's flattered.-COLLAPSE

  • What a load of cr*p, and that asterisk is not subbing for an "o". James Norton's delicate sensibilities are in a bunch, and he can't engage in an honest debate on the subject. The fact is, you can not educate children almost exclusively through gardening, and he knows that. Where the rubber meets the road is, while he is in a twist over someone having the gall to speak to the presumption of power...+READ

    What a load of cr*p, and that asterisk is not subbing for an "o". James Norton's delicate sensibilities are in a bunch, and he can't engage in an honest debate on the subject. The fact is, you can not educate children almost exclusively through gardening, and he knows that. Where the rubber meets the road is, while he is in a twist over someone having the gall to speak to the presumption of power of said elitists wasting the one opportunity these poor children have at getting an education, he certainly wouldn't deprive himself of the opportunities his real education provided for him, nor for his children, if he has or had them. For Norton, these children are little more than cogs in the wheel.

    In fact, he's more offended that Waters and her expensive restaurant might be impuned by the critique, than he is for those children's futures. Flanagan aimed the bulk of her ire at the education departments who are going whole hog in this fruitless endeavor. In California, the same government that is crushing farmers, are the ones who, like Marie Antoinette, when she played at being a milk maid. There wouldn't be a food shortage, were it not for the idiotic far left's gamesmanship.

    I'd suggest that Mr. Norton cease and desist in demanding that other people's children are sacrificed on the altar of his vanity, and instead, he should quit his employment, and go out and devote his life to picking crops, take his children with him as well. After all, if he believes that a sacrifice is required, he and his should step up to the plate and put their money where their mouths are.-COLLAPSE