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Is the World Safe to Eat?
…and other pertinent
questions for the future of education
Reflections
on Upland Hills School’s First Annual
Winter
Salad Celebration
by Clifford Scholz
 Entering the geodesic dome
greenhouse in late November, the contrast is vivid.
Outdoors: brown. Indoors: green. Before us, beds of lettuce
have grown ready for harvest while the world outside the
dome withered. Above and all around us, a protective
superstructure consisting of clear double wall polycarbonate
supported by the miraculous geometries that made it all
possible.
We have our own little
planet.
I enjoy watching the
children’s expressions best of all. The looks on their
faces, their little pauses before they kneel or reach down
to snip the leaves with the scissors. And how gentle they
become in those moments.
Next, the handfuls of
leaves going into the bowls, the younger ones beaming with
“I did it!” and in some of the older ones, a momentary blip
of confusion that I read as “Is that it? Am I done?
Is it really this simple?”
Yes, that is “it”. Walk to
the greenhouse and pick a few leaves.
But how simple
it is depends on how deeply one feels into the moment and
into the layers of human, botanical, animal and celestial
activity that embrace the simple act. Of course, the
teachers understood and prepared for this. With everyone
gathered prior to the harvest, David played gardening songs
on guitar that the children sing, opening the aesthetic
doorway. Ted and Karin followed, providing cognitive
scaffolding for additional layers of appreciation by
describing the history of the greenhouse and this particular
crop of student-grown lettuce.
Later, with
all the leaves washed in the individual morning meeting
rooms, we meet again and all the lettuces and other greens
are combined in a very large salad bowl. With everyone in a
circle, I have the honor of tossing the green green
GREEN! salad as Ken pours the dressing on and the students
and teachers move back and forth in ring dance, with Ted
providing musical accompaniment. Yes, it’s exuberant, and
maybe it’s even a little it’s silly, but so is lettuce
growing on November 28th -- in Michigan!
At last all
the children and teachers have bowls of salad in their
hands. After Jean speaks eloquently about the significance
of what we are doing, we begin our little feast. In the
quiet of chewing, student observations are shared. I sample
the lettuce, look around, and realize that the salad is
undergoing a profound, almost alchemical transformation. No,
I don’t mean the obvious transformation of lettuce turning
into children right before my very eyes, though that is
noteworthy. The instant the salad starts to disappear, some
very important understandings, probably new to many, begin
to take root and grow.
 Is the produce of the
earth, this earth, right here-- safe to eat?
Can we trust
plants and sun and soil to nourish us?
How does it
happen?
The answers to
questions like these aren’t likely to be found by looking at
textbooks. To eat and share food is to connect with the
primal, emotional part of one’s being. To grow and harvest
food is to bend down and touch the earth with care and
gratitude, and to plant a seed is to actively participate in
a mysterious and unknown future.
I think that’s what we did
at the All-School Salad. At least, that’s what I’d
say if anyone asked me what we did at school today.
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