Mindful Metropolis August 2009 : Page 33
to serve all of the world’s people, yet some peo- ple are hungry. Why?’ So, for six weeks they might explore food production and learn about how our food gets from the farms to the table, and how some things are processed and how some things are shipped from other countries. They might go to organic farms or have people come to school with animals. There are all sorts of ways that children explore these themes, de- pending on their interests. Another interesting component is that the students are evaluated on the type of ac- tion that they take as a result of their learn- ing. Teachers are always looking at, naturally and autonomously, what types of actions do the students initiate? It can be something as simple, for 5-year-olds, as a parent coming to school and saying, “Man, I was trying to cook dinner last night and my five-year-old kept coming into the kitchen and turning off the faucet and saying, ‘You’re wasting too much water. You do not need to run the water when you’re not using it.’” And that’s action. That shows that a student is really doing something with what they’re learning. Are there parts of the day where they just learn reading and writing and arith- metic the old-fashioned way? That’s the work of art that makes up the IB pro- gram. What the teachers’ job is is to incorpo- rate all of the Illinois state learning standards, or all of the Tanzanian standards, or whatever country, or whatever city or wherever you are in the world. The IB program can be imple- mented anywhere in the world. It gives you the framework, but depending on where you are, you can incorporate the necessary standards and make sure the students are on track with learning what they are supposed to be learning. It’s fascinating to see how you can incor- Top: Students connect with their local food source through a classroom visit by an urban chicken farmer. (Photo: Noa Goldberg). Center: Students participate in composting their food waste from the organic caf- eteria. (Photo: Sarah Elizabeth Ippel). Bottom: Sarah Elizabeth Ippel shares in the students’ excitement as they explore their living outdoor classroom. (Photo: Daniel Laich). porate all of the necessary requirements, but at the same time be teaching in a way that’s very globally and environmentally relevant, and also in a way that really pulls from dif- ferent disciplines to explore something and to answer questions, which I think is actually quite similar to the way as adults we operate. Never, or quite rarely in our fields of work, are we doing one subject. We’re oftentimes pulling from different areas of life in order to achieve something successfully. So I think it also really prepares them for that reality. What’s the latest at the school? There’s a lot going on. We’ve recently obtained a grant to build a greenhouse, which will be up and running this fall. Some of our teachers right now, as we speak, are in Tanzania. We’re going to be starting a collaborative organic garden- ing initiative in the greenhouse with a school in northwestern Tanzania, utilizing these Earth Boxes. The Earth Boxes are part of the Learn- ing Connection, which is a United Nations program developed to connect educators and students around the world with the purpose of growing food in a way that is very efficient in regards to water use. So that’s one thing. That organic gardening program is very innovative and we’re excited to be working on that. I read that the Academy for Global Citi- zenship is participating in a pilot pro- gram with CPS and Chartwells-Thomp- son, a major food service corporation responsible for feeding the majority of CPS kids. How did this program get off the ground and how is it going? There’s a lot of different perspectives on this, but my personal perspective is this is a won- derful opportunity for us to explore the impli- cations of this program. How do you source all organic food with an emphasis on obtaining locally sourced food? How much does it really cost? How can we develop relationships with vendors and farmers and how can we bring the costs of this program down? There are all of these things right now that we are grappling with so that—and this is me speaking as an idealist right now—but so that at some point this program can be brought into all Chicago Public Schools. I know there are people out there that will say that will never happen, but what I’m excited about is incremental change. It’s very exciting to see that, working within a bureaucratic system, we can try new things. Yes, tomorrow, or overnight, we’re not going to change the whole system, but I think mov- ing the system forward and learning about what things we can do is really exciting. Have you met with much resistance at Chartwells-Thompson? It’s interesting. The person we’ve been work- ing with at Chartwells, which is Bob Bloomer, is very passionate about this. He went so far as to build his own organic garden in his back- yard. He’s really thinking critically about this issue. And it’s hard, if you look at the whole systemic problem of what’s going on and how to change it; it’s kind of a nightmare. But if you see that people are willing to think through things we can do and try new things, it’s kind of exciting. I mean, there’s hope. mindfulmetropolis.com 33
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