The Flip Side!

And for another take on the same subject.... feast your eyes on this!

What aspiring gardener, or architect for that matter, wouldn't want to be involved in this?! Read more here.

Honestly, I am in a good mood today! But...

This morning I had the displeasure of reading this article. Make sure you click on the link within the article to read the original story.

Normally, when I find something interesting in the news that relates to the garden, I will pass it along without any commentary, but it is also rare that any garden-related news event even requires it! This had me spittin' mad - as a gardener, parent, student, and teacher to my children.

You all can form your own opinions, but since this is my blog, here's mine:

1. The idea that a school garden fosters a propensity for manual labor and repression.

WHAT? If you ask me our children need a good dose of manual labor, sunshine, fresh air, and sweat. Maybe the diagnosis of ADHD would go down... As for the repression, don't get me started on that crap - last time I checked, there was no danger of our citizens inadvertently being sent back to sharecropping and slavery days because they learned to garden.

2. The concern that immigrants would feel their children are sacrificing an education to go back to manual labor involving lettuce picking and such.

Puh-lease.... and as far as opportunity goes, with CA being a state that has 50% of its students listed as immigrant with this supposed horrible child-knowledge of agriculture, how about letting them serve as teachers, coaches, and peers for our urban children that won't even eat veggies, much less cultivate them? There is a possibility to turn this complaint upside down and even have these immigrant children she is so concerned about not only become productive citizens, but assume leadership and mentor roles. I mean, it's a CLASS, not a whole day spent out in tobacco fields!

3. Our children are sacrificing the more important classes such as math, science, etc to go learn manual labor.

HUH? This one goes right back to parents. When exactly was it that parents stopped valuing manual labor and an honest day's work? Not everyone can be the engineer in the air conditioned office, and those that build our houses, farm our food, pave our roadways and sweat it out in a foreign country to defend us should not feel that their work is any less valued. They make our world go 'round. As far as gardening being a ridiculous class, maybe it wouldn't even have to be taught if parents valued food production and taught their children simple skills from a young age. I know that growing up I knew where my food came from, how to harvest it, even watched my mom freeze and can the garden for winter. For all the children and the parents out there that think those French Fries are a real vegetable, THIS CLASS IS FOR YOU!

Come to think of it, I am not a moron. I went to college, by most standards I succeeded at life and am happy, but guess what? I garden. I sweat. I work in the hot sun. I stay up way too late burning myself with canning tongs when I could be shopping at W@lm@rt for my veggies in a can. Why? Because I know how! And thank you, Mom, Dad, Grandma, miscellaneous farmers in my community, their children... it's because of you that I didn't have to have "gardening" taught in school! But what about those who don't have anyone to teach them? It seems to be the majority of the population...who will teach them?

I think some people just need to wake up and not be so damn stupid. Why can't students nowdays fit this class in? Is this really an issue? Schools have killed gym class, driver's ed, Home Ec (yeah, remember that one? more life skills that are apparently repressive, HA!)... are our children really so dumb that they can't be expected to learn more than a math and science class? Or is it that expectations of the new generation of children have taken a nosedive? We feel we have to allow for videogame time, TV time, "downtime"..........REALLY???!!!!

Okay, I'm done. I am up to my arms in manual labor washing out my seedling pots and trays and I really wasn't going to blog until this evening, but nooooo, I just had to read an article I saw. I feel so repressed...

End rant.