Farm and Garden as an Essential Curriculum

Lost in my thoughts of the day, taking a moment to enjoy this newly arrived fall light as it filters through the slowly shedding limbs of trees forming the canopy covering the path, I am snapped out of my day dream world at the abrupt sound of someone coming around the bend on their way down the path.  It takes us both a moment, upon entering the now shared space of the world, to recognize each other.  She, who is my next door neighbor, quickly reaches for her mask in a startled manner.  We laugh as we pass at the initial discriminating, protective reaction, which still feels strangely hostile despite having become so commonplace.

Rudolf Steiner spoke of changing times to come in his post WW1 future; of catastrophic conditions like poorer soil, and foods with decreased nutritional value.  He spoke of the need for free thinking individuals to face the challenges ahead.  In his indications for the Waldorf pedagogy, he charged the incoming teachers through the context of the curriculum to try and "put the children in the right soul mood" to face these challenges so that they may be able to create new systems and ways of doing things.  In doing so, we teachers take on the monumental task of bringing our students into a balanced and healthy life, equipping them with the necessary tools, and educating and preparing their future selves to carry the torch of humanity forward.

Well studied in history, a keen observer of the present, and with an incredible gift of future insight, understanding before most others where the road was taking us, Rudolf Steiner, with much intention and purpose, included Farm & Garden in the original design of the Waldorf pedagogy we practice today 101 years after the opening of the first Waldorf school.  Steiner fully understood, not only the value of exposing youths to wonder, to the work of the farm and all of its inherent lessons, but to the fact that the farm and garden acts as one of the last forms of true humanistic education available to us all.  Although originally proposed as a subject among many, being a person of holistic points of view, I can easily assume Steiner saw the possibilities of weaving all the other subject matter the students were receiving into the Farm & Garden class, as we do in Otto Specht School.  From grade 1 to 8 and beyond, there are numerous opportunities for students to apply the content of their other lessons into real world situations through the farm and garden work.  Through these avenues the students engaged in Waldorf pedagogy have their capacities of intellect and physicality encouraged and cultivated, but most importantly their feeling life is awakened and engaged. In activating their soul life through the work and learning on the farm, and weaving into that work their studies and endeavors in the classroom, the academic work is further made alive and real for the students.

But it is also much more. Not only do the Early Grade children find the forms of the letters in the forest and in the bed rows of the fields, or the 3rd graders build wigwams and tipis harvested by saplings in the woods, or the Middle schoolers forage for mushrooms after a big rain and help create a Medicinal Plant Glossary by studying plants grown in the garden and turning them into different tinctures and balms, or the Upper Grades apply their physics knowledge of leverage while splitting logs and digging rocks out of empty field space in preparation for growing food to help supply the Cafe and Hilltop with Biodynamic produce, but they are learning, albeit unbeknownst to them at the moment, something far greater, more lasting and according to Steiner over 100 years ago, more imperative. They are learning what it is to be human. They are learning what it is to be a part of humanity.  They are being educated for the future.  For their future selves. For the future of humanity in the ever shifting world.  

And why one may ask?  The answer is that agriculture- the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products, is innately a social endeavour.  Food and drink is common amongst people of all color, religion, belief or creed, and in this, it is binding, unifying.   Farm and garden work requires independence and collaboration.  It requires delayed gratification, patience, care, intention, creativity, observation and perseverance.  It requires hope.  Hope that our work today will not in time be in vain.  It requires communicating and respect. It requires love and thankfulness.  Why do we include Farm & Garden for every grade, often first thing in the morning, 5 days a week?  Because it reminds us of our humanity, teaches us to be human, and offers opportunities to come together without fear, with open heartedness, with love and respect for each other in our mutual pursuit of life.  And perhaps, if we do our jobs well enough, our students and ourselves will be prepared for the times at hand when it is easier to be afraid, to recluse, to avoid each other, to divide and separate.  They will be prepared to stand together and find the much needed 'new methods' and solutions that will lead generations to come progressively forward and upward in the endlessly unfolding future.