Roots and Research in Urban School Gardens

Abstract

338 Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 22 No. 1 (Spring 2012) ISSN: 1546-2250 Roots and Research in Urban School Gardens Gaylie, Veronica (2011). New York: Peter Lang; 195 pages. $33.95. ISBN 1433115255. The well-named Roots and Research in Urban School Gardens by Veronica Gaylie entered into the conversation about green schools, school gardens, and social justice with perfect timing, serving as a reminder of the history that has led to the current school garden momentum. Gaylie provides the reader with an understanding for how these committed plots of land serve students and their communities in a variety of rich ways. If you are not yet convinced that school gardens meet children’s intellectual, emotional, and social needs in a way unique from other aspects of schooling, Gaylie makes a compelling argument. In the introduction of the book, Gaylie explores the history of school gardens and shows the value of these small but mighty urban plots to educators, students, and the communities served by these gardening projects. She accomplishes this by exploring small gardens by region, recounting the history of each garden project, student experiences there, and the pedagogical practice each site employed. Gaylie bridges the history of school gardens with their currently understood benefits for students through case studies from California, the Pacific Northwest, and Canada's West Coast. In each region, Gaylie sets the specific cultural context for the gardens she describes. Roots Gaylie’s comprehensive section on the roots of gardens provides a history of school gardens going back more than 100 years. This history explains how school garden plots grew out of instructional intentions for patriotism, economic progress, and an all-around healthy work ethic—themes addressed daily in the political rhetoric of America. Gardens that were instrumental parts of schools 339 provided the United States with child and adult gardeners that helped alleviate short food supplied during wartime. Yet, in our current situation of rapid population growth and rapidly diminishing land for food production, the benefits of school gardening have largely disappeared from our collective consciousness, spurring a movement of school gardens to work tirelessly to restore the concept. As one school garden coordinator stated, the goal of the movement is not to force gardens into every school. Instead, as Gaylie illustrates in each of her case studies, the ideal outcome of the school garden movement is to inspire gardens to become a part of school culture in a way that grows up from the school, fitting its students, surroundings, community and unique goals. While there are aspects that every sustainable and successful garden needs to address, there are no rules, standards, nor molds into which a garden needs to fit. School gardens remain a creative frontier for teachers and children. Research Gaylie identifies the need for school gardens by addressing increasing social concerns like food shortage, a disconnect between children and the earth, critical-thinking skills, ecological awareness, and environmental disarray in urban areas. The schools Gaylie identifies are not suburban or rural areas with sprawling schoolyards; described as “[S]mall plots with high hopes” (13), the sites selected were purposely in dense urban areas in order to confront the misperception that a school garden takes a large space. Gaylie also targets her case studies to schools with strong administrative support for the project, where the garden was still in the process of being developed or was growing, and where the garden was instrumental in the school's identity. Her decision to synthesize schools with these criteria is quite effective in explaining what gardens can become with the right amount of support and vision. 340 For educators with visions of gardens on their school grounds, a valuable lesson that Gaylie tells through the case studies is to start small. There can be a tendency to think of urban gardens as large, complex operations, which they can become. Nonetheless, Gaylie provides a gentle reminder of the amount of work and dedication required to sustain a garden project. Through her case studies, she demonstrates that the planning and passion that emerged from within the school community to generate a plot of land that both engaged students and harvested food crops included strong buy-in...