Global Green News
How to be a green school
THE GUARDIAN. JULY 28, 2009. By Zac Goldsmith
Teachers and students want to do good things for the environment, but sometimes they can't see the wood for the trees. Zac Goldsmith sets out five things all schools can do
It's a worrying fact that around 400,000 British children are on behavioural drugs such as Ritalin. Some, no doubt, need the treatment, but the sheer number of children taking these drugs suggests that in our society, childhood itself has come to be seen as a disease.
Children spend an average of 13.9 hours a week in front of their televisions, and six hours in front of their computers. It can't be healthy. According to Unicef, British children are the unhappiest in Europe, despite unprecedented material wealth.
There are many reasons for this, but one, surely, is the fact that children have become increasingly insulated from the natural world. We've all heard of the surveys revealing that teenagers think cows lay eggs, and others where children can identify more brand logos than trees, by a staggering margin.
My view is that children will form a significant part of the green fightback. They instinctively understand the value of the environment. Ask any 10-year-old if Google – at its height – was really worth more than the Amazon rainforest, and they'd laugh.
But if the current crop of children is to emerge as a generation that cherishes the environment, they need to understand it, connect with it and love it. That goal must form part of the school experience. Schools collectively are huge energy consumers, producers of waste, and consumers of resources. What can they do?
1 Good food
One thing we all do is eat and so of all the levers for change, food is the most far reaching. Even a small change in the way we eat has huge implications – in schools, that is particularly so. The government spends approximately £2bn each year on food for schools, hospitals and prisons. Imagine the impact if instead of buying the cheapest junk on the world's markets, that money was invested in local, sustainable produce?
The benefits would be huge. We'd see money flowing into our collapsing rural economy. We'd see a significant reduction in the amount of oil used to ship and fly food around the world. We'd actively reduce our dependence on a global food system that is ravaging the world's breadbaskets. And of course, we'd see the market flooded with good quality sustainable food. With levels of obesity, diabetes and coronary heart disease increasing, and with growing evidence linking diet with mental health, crime and antisocial behaviour, that's no bad thing.
We're failing nationally. But there are some exciting local examples, for instance, in Merton, south London, where parents set themselves key goals: to win funding for a working kitchen in every school and to improve the quality of ingredients and cooking standards. It was ambitious, and no one knew if it would work. But it did. Led by the formidable Jackie Schneider, they pressurised the council to put aside £450,000 to refurbish primary school kitchens and allow them to produce fresh food on site. They also set up a twinning scheme with a nearby farm. Inspired by their success, I helped set up a similar campaign for Richmond and Kingston, called School Food Matters. The group is already making huge progress.
2 Cooking and growing
It's not just the quality of the food. Children should also know about preparing it, and growing it. Growing food – as a process – has a clear value. Catherine Sneed, a counsellor in San Francisco's county jail, noticed early on in her career that the same people kept returning to prison. Inspired by The Grapes of Wrath, a novel in which connectedness to the land binds families together, she set up a small prison garden. Inmates loved it, and the project flourished. The food they grow feeds hundreds of low-income families in the area, and inmates who take part in the project are a staggering 25% less likely to return to jail than those who don't.
If growing food is therapeutic for California's prisoners, there is every reason to believe it will be good for all of us. All schools should teach children basic cooking skills. Every school should be able to buy sustainable, good quality food wherever possible from local sources. Every school should include food growing in the curriculum. For some, that will mean twinning with willing farms. For others, it will mean literally building their own small farms.
