 How does the education system play into the future for our children in the agriculture and food system?
On his way out the door, I asked my son if there are any classes at his school specific to agriculture ... or maybe gardening ... or about food ... or eating habits?
The more questions I asked him, the more thoughtful he became, saying how cool it would be to have an actual curriculum at school, teaching what he has been learning, working on the farm all these years.
Meanwhile, I just sat there going in the opposite direction, becoming disillusioned with the typical school system. I am not just talking about the cooking classes -- which one high school I know of does an incredible job of -- I am talking about the whole food chain.
In my world of slow food -- local, organic, healthy lobbyist-free, sustainable production -- I cannot see how the high schools are preparing the student whatsoever for life, or work, in the production of food.
I look at the news and see the headlines of starvation, shortages, disease and technological Band-Aids and, most recently, how to deal with climate change.
Evidently, the system we have isn’t working.
Could someone please explain to me where in the schools we teach anything that would help the agriculture system. I am not mad at anyone, merely stating the facts as I see them.
With the push on for a more sustainable food system throughout the world, I am amazed.
Our children are being fed the basics of literacy and numeracy with a side dish of science, music, some physical education and a sprinkling of languages. Where do they learn how to feed themselves beside being seduced into the corporate playing field and learning how to make enough money to go to the box store to buy whatever processed food is on sale?
I cannot blame the teachers. They are some of the most educated, dedicated, hard-working, supportive people I know. The issue is that their hands are tied by the system. They must teach to a predetermined level and content.
The students must fit themselves into the pigeonholes to be successful and move to the next grade.
The typical school system is not geared to the exceptional on either end of the spectrum; teachers are forced to teach to the largest band of average students.
The typical school cannot function outside of this and, if I were to ask for my child to learn about agriculture or the food system from field to plate in Whitehorse, Canada or around the world, I would be gently ushered out of the councillor's office.
I don’t blame the teachers; it is the system that we have developed to babysit our children that is failing us. We are all responsible for this happening.
To find the solution, I have to look at any type of alternative schooling. I use the school programs in the Wood Street Centre as an example of amazing success stories. The programs offered there have created a huge demand for entry and, in all cases, the children had to choose to to go there.
They had to work hard to get into those courses. They work harder to stay in those courses and the instructors live to teach to the extremes, finding what capacity our children are capable of when pushed with a confident hand.
Now, if I had to ask anyone to teach our children how to feed themselves and the world, I would go to that type of alternative school system. That is how it should work. The children there are motivated, have strong self-esteem, they are self-reliant with huge support from their peers and the resulting student has a huge field of resources to draw from when they graduate.
In the meantime, all I can do is what I do on our farm. I grow things and try to reach as many people as I can, to show them that we need a better system, from the school to the field to our plates.
Talk to me about real food.
Tom Rudge farms with his wife, Simone, at Aurora Mountain Farm, one of several certified organic farms in the Yukon. You can contact him at
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