Through our program, Healthy Lunch & Lifestyle Project, we use the Garden Classroom for break-out sessions for students who are ALREADY performing below the standard in math and science. The Garden Classroom supplements, it does not replace, traditional classroom curricula. It provides another opportunity to teach children who may not (for a variety of reasons) be “traditional learners.”

Additionally, we use the Garden Classroom for nutrition education; the middle school students who are engaged in the garden and in garden-based nutrition education (which includes cooking classes) are participating in the school lunch program in greater numbers. This is significant because our school meal program focuses on whole fruits, whole vegetables, and whole grains which are prepared from scratch daily. Improved nutrition is positively correlated to improved classroom performance and behavior; surely Ms. Flanagan would not refute the evidenced-based, peer-reviewed research which supports this finding.

Last, and certainly not least, hands-on learning develops critical thinking skills (which “teaching to the test” does not.) We are a nation of entrepreneurs and I have seen the work of some of our nation’s future great minds at work in the garden.

Education reform is necessary; we are no longer a nation of factory workers and we need an education system (or systems) that acknowledges this shift.