November 23rd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
The clock is still ticking, and collapse continues unabated. Most are oblivious to the true nature of the progression, what it means, why it's happening, and most importantly, what we should do about it.
But the answer is simple, and it's right in front of us. It's so simple, in fact, that most people will not accept it. The answer is this: we must turn our schools into organic farms; as many of them as we can, in the shortest possible time.
By doing so, we have the potential to address, if not outright solve, almost every pressing social issue of our age. In a short time, every community in the country will reduce its carbon footprint dramatically. Education will be reborn and reinvented, with children learning and applying hands-on skills that respond to their physical, emotional, and intellectual needs. Every discipline is welcome and included: woodworking, mathematics, chemistry, biology, engineering, art, and architecture. All of it is applied to real world problems that our communities must address in a responsible and proactive manner.
Issues of animal cruelty, environmental destruction, and good nutrition will be placed into a context of critical thinking and careful reflection. Standardized tests will be exposed as a fraud, the product of a cruel and twisted logic on the part of politicians and planners.
Children will become ambassadors for the cause of local food. They will take the seed that we plant, they will water and nurture it and make it grow. They will open the eyes of the ones they love, millions of people across the country, to the promise and the possibility of a national renewal. Our children will show us the way in a leaderless and silent revolution.
Our local economies will be rebuilt on a new model, as schools will require materials, expertise, and technological innovation to rapidly put in place a radical overhaul of the school's curriculum and landscape. Open source technologies will be developed by the students themselves at breakneck speeds. These technologies will be deployed and converted into viable local business models.
This is not utopian. This is real, and it can happen now. The country is ready for it. This is apolitical and post-ideological. We need to organize and demand it. We need to visit our local schools, ask them if they've considered it. We need to put together petitions. We need to knock on doors: city councils, neighborhood associations, teacher's unions, mayoral offices, school boards, PTA's, county officials.
We need to get local resources interested in the idea, and apply the principles of slow money towards the development of a capital resource base for making the vision a reality. We need to network with other people who are already working on similar things, including CSA's, the OSAT community, and the transition community. We need to search out past experiences and research initiatives, and conduct further research, to verify and promote the inherent value of this approach.
We need all of it, and we need it now. If I was a gambling man, I'd be ready to bet the farm that if this happens, it will work. The kids will show us the way.
Posted in Agriculture, Albuquerque, Appropriate Technology, Development, Environment, Global Warming, Organic, Politics, philosophy | 1 Comment »
Tags:
Agriculture ,
children ,
education ,
farming ,
OSAT ,
permaculture ,
schools
