This summer LHNC team members and local farm educators, Malaika Bishop and Amanda Thibideau had the oportunity to attend the Edible Schoolyard Academy inBerkeley for some special farm to school curriculum training. I caught up with Malaika and she shared a little bit about her experience.
Farm to School co-chair Amanda Thibodeau and I recently attended the Edible Schoolyard Academy inBerkeley. It was an amazing gathering of approximately 100 garden educators, teachers, food servicestaff, cooking teachers, and administrators and of programs around the country which are teaching young people about cooking and gardening. The Edible Schoolyard, founded by Chef Alice Waters and located on the campus of Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, CA hasbeen pioneering farm to table education for the last 16 years.
The Edible Schoolyard has a one acregarden and a kitchen from which they teach standards based 6-8th grade lessons. The training spent oneday focused on the kitchen program, one on the garden program and a third on program administration,fundraising and evaluation. We had the opportunity to experience lessons similar to the ones they dowith the middle school students and delve into the nuts and bolts of what makes a good lesson and why.
Additionally we ate in their state of the art cafeteria and heard from the food service director and otherguest presenters. I appreciated that not only do they value California State Standards, but they alsocreated a set of “Edible Schoolyard Standards” which aim to teach the children values and culture suchas waiting until everyone is served to eat, cleaning as you cook, having conversations where one persontalks at a time and saying “yes” whenever possible. We both came away from the experience inspiredand motivated to recreate the best elements of The Edible Schoolyard program here in Nevada County.Keep an eye out for updates on this!
-Malaika Bishop
Farm to School co-chair