The Blessed Moment

(continued)
Fourth, Enhance Maximum Partnerships to create a world
How could our ecological designs be informed by these biophilic
that is not only Ecologically Sustainable, but also Socially Equi-
insights?
table and Bio-culturally Diverse.
For the last seven years, I have developed and used a “Part-
Third, Food and Gardens could be a Gateway to Deep and nership Model of Sustainability” as a guide to practice pedagogy
Delicious Social Engagements for transformational leadership among the new generation of
For the last six years, I was involved in designing and imple-
learners and leaders. This model addresses the issues of economy
menting the learning gardens experiment in Portland, Oregon,
and ecology on the one hand and equity and bio-cultural diversity
and now in Prescott, Arizona. We found that engaging children
on the other.
and youth in food and garden can offer avenues for a mode of
learning that is multicultural, multisensory, interdisciplinary
A brief description of the four partnerships follows.
and intergenerational (Parajuli, 2006; Parajuli , Dardis and Hahn, Intra and Inter-generational partnership: Explores social
2008). classes, gender, caste, race, ethnicity and other human created
We have been a pioneer in developing curriculum for K-8
institutions and practices of social inequities and cleavages. At-
children and youth who learn at any point in the continuum be-
tention to intra and inter generational equity and partnership is
tween, what I call the “soil to supper, and back to Soil
urgent because inequality is also at the core of current ecological
(the SoSuS) loop. The SOSuS Loop not only connects children and
crisis.
youth with the earth, it also connected people to people, commu- Inter-species Partnership: Addresses ecological, philosophi-
nities to communities (Parajuli, 2009). We then explore the con- cal and ethical aspects of human’s relationship with the more than
tinuum between “food to foodshed” and “water to watershed.” human worlds. I am teaching that we humans are nature in micro-
Our initial conclusion is that if designed carefully and tended cosm. “We are nature in every molecule and neuron,” says Paul
with heart, learning gardens may offer a series of benefits to en- Hawken. “We contain clay, mineral and water; are powered by
hance and deepen learning: sunshine through plants; and are intricately bound to all species,
• impact a school’s physical as well as learning environments
from fungi to marsupials to bacteria. In our lungs are oxygen mol-
• lead to academic enrichment and achievement for students
ecules breathed by every type of creature to have lived on earth
• enrich learning of the whole child
along with the very hydrogen and oxygen that Jesus, Gautam
• cultivate and nurture motivation, resiliency and leadership
Buddha and Rachel Carson breathed” (Hawken, 2007:71-72).
among children and youth Inter-cultural Partnership: Examines the field of biological,
• promote multi-sensory learning cultural, and linguistic diversities and the inextricable relations
• be applicable to grade by grade, subject by subject, and season by between the three. It is about recognizing what I call the “ethno-
season instruction and learning sphere,” the diversity of knowledge systems and diverse ways of
• use recurring themes over K-12 span of experience knowing, teaching and learning.
• effectively link ecology, culture and learning
Inter-economic Partnership: Includes mapping and re-
• enhance interdisciplinary inquiry
shaping of the global North and South as well as the social and
• address and fulfill academic benchmarks
economic institutions, trade, arrangements for exchanges and
• provide the seasonal framework for learning
surplus, fair trade and free trade, rural and urban, agriculture
• teach both time (linear and cyclical) and a sense of place
and industry, raw and processed materials, and producers and
• link experience to meaning, thought to action and classroom to
consumers. Moreover, water, food and soil will be one of the most
community
critical elements in the future of humanity.
• be the best sites for inter- and intra-generational learning, and
• connect/collaborate with the larger food and garden community
Fifth, Learn and Lead for both Biospehric and Ethnospheric
Health.
Not only in the arena of nutrition and learning, our engage-
ment in food, water and soil can take us towards a mode of social
Through a deeper probing of the partnership model of
engagement that is not only “deep” but also “delicious.” Interest-
sustainability, I have learned that no human solutions could be
ingly, the flavor of local, organic, and sustainable food economy is
found by just rearranging the human world. We need to reshape
much more alive in urban centers than in rural farms and commu-
our relationship with the more than human world. In the same
nities. Here again we are witnessing the melting of the old fences
way, ecosystems regeneration could not also be achieved by
that divide the rural from urban, industry from agriculture, soil
“fencing off” humans from the so called pristine natural areas but
from food and people from the planet. By changing our food hab-
by changing how humans live their lives (Parajuli, 2004; 2001 (a
its and preferences, we are witnessing a wide-ranging and a deep
and b). Thus our challenge is how to maintain the delicate balance
process of change from the very belly of the techno-industrial
between biospheric health and ethnospheric health.
beast and what the food author Michael Pollan calls, the nutrition-
al/chemical complex. Transition towards local and sustainable
In order to create the confluence between the three realms, the
food could give us the most delicious inter-economic partnership,
learning environment should be multisensory, multicultural and in-
as premised in the diagram below.
tergenerational such that it fosters interdisciplinary inquiry. Much
ink has been dried writing about multicultural education, as if ade-
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