Caitlin Flanagan, writing in The Atlantic magazine, believes that the "edible schoolyard" movement is a waste of time that would be better spent having kids learn from books.
Flanagan is particularly concerned about Hispanic immigrant families who brought their children to the U.S. are now seeing their kids educated to pick crops.
"[A] cruel trick has been pulled on [schoolchildren] by an agglomeration of foodies and educational reformers who are propelled by a vacuous if well-meaning ideology that is responsible for robbing an increasing number of American schoolchildren of hours they might other wise have spent reading important books or learning higher math (attaining the cultural achievements, in other words, that have lifted uncounted generations of human beings out of the desperate daily scrabble to wrest sustenance from dirt).That no one is calling foul on this is only one manifestation of the way the new Food Hysteria has come to dominate and diminish our shared cultural life."
There is no evidence, she says, the the school garden movement actually improves children's academic performance. Such activities are fine for after school programming, but class time, she argues, should be spent actually educating students in academic subject matter. Otherwise, she writes, "we become complicit- through our best intentions-in an act of theft that will not only contribute to the creation of a permanent, uneducated underclass but will rob that group of the very force necessary to change its fate."
FULL STORY: Cultivating Failure
Depopulation Patterns Get Weird
A recent ranking of “declining” cities heavily features some of the most expensive cities in the country — including New York City and a half-dozen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Chicago to Turn High-Rise Offices into Housing
Four commercial buildings in the Chicago Loop have been approved for redevelopment into housing in a bid to revitalize the city’s downtown post-pandemic.
How California Transit Agencies are Addressing Rider Harassment
Safety and harassment are commonly cited reasons passengers, particularly women and girls, avoid public transit.
Significant Investments Needed to Protect LA County Residents From Climate Hazards
A new study estimates that LA County must invest billions of dollars before 2040 to protect residents from extreme heat, increasing precipitation, worsening wildfires, rising sea levels, and climate-induced public health threats.
Federal Rule Raises Cost for Oil and Gas Extraction on Public Lands
An update to federal regulations raises minimum bonding to limit orphaned wells and ensure cleanup costs are covered — but it still may not be enough to mitigate the damages caused by oil and gas drilling.
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