After a coffee-filled weekend at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA, I went to visit my friend Ben who helps run a school garden program at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkley. This program is so neat and so needed! It was Saturday morning so I didn’t get to see students in the space, but it takes little imagination to see how such a well-run garden provides ample learning opportunities.
It was a volunteer workday and I got to help prepare lunch for the weeders and pruners. Ellen was in charge of the kitchen that day—an efficient woman who left her catering business in NY to fill in for the kitchen head here on sabbatical. “I’m interested in more school-garden programs,” she said while stirring lentils with her right hand and reaching for the salt with her left. “The kids go home after eating here and tell their parents ‘we are supposed to be cooking our own food. We are supposed to eat at the table as a family.’”
The program serves sixth through eighth grades that visit the garden and kitchen four times a month. They learn kitchen skills like using a knife correctly and get to experiment with ingredients; last week they made frittata; next week might be curry.
Ben, who works mainly in the garden, told me the space provides a needed outlet for students from different cultures to share their expertise. MLK middle school receives all of the ESL students from the district and its diverse student body has a wealth of experience related to cooking and gardening. Just last week while they separated barley wheat from its shaft, a quiet boy from Nepal said, “I’ve done this before.” Ben asked for tips on technique and the student taught them all how to toss the grain in the air, allowing the wind to blow the shaft away while the grain lands back in your bowl. If the garden hadn’t been there, this cultural exchange would have been unlikely.
“That’s why we try and plant a lot of grains from other countries with similar climates,” Ben said. The sixth graders start with the grains, seventh graders tend vegetables, and eighth graders focus on kitchen skills. More info at edibleschoolyard.org
