In the early 1900's there was a strong movement to enter real world education into the educational system. The population had been shifting from a rural society to an urban society with both more concentrated poor in larger cities and many new immigrants. At the same time education was expanding to include everyone and not just a small part of the society who were being trained to be the elites in society. Education and moral training were seen as a way to both combat poverty and to help assimilate the immigrants. One way that was seen to help was to introduce gardening into the elementary grades and to use urban and other land that was not being used. In the cities this was often vacant lots and in the rural areas the land around the school. There were no massive parking lots in those days. Here is an example of one such book describing how to begin such a program. While it is dated and some of the techniques may be dated or even out right wrong in our modern day opinions, the hints as to how to establish gardens in a waste land with minimal tools and expenditures could supply some useful information. It also supplies information in how to best educate your children in the garden process. It is written to influence the school board and the teachers, so in some senses a propaganda instrument,so some of the early chapters are less important than the later how to do it chapters. School and home gardening; a text book for young people, with plans, suggestions and helps for teachers, club leaders and organizers : Davis, Kary Cadmus, 1867-1936 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive It may well be that it is more useful to use the modern concepts of this 1900's movement in your home schooling and alternative education settings as I doubt it would pass the teacher's union guide lines. Doing extra work and not being paid for it and cutting into their valuable summer vacation. Here is one random selected resource for using gardening in a home schooling situation. Any contact with that movement would I am sure be very helpful. It will not how ever replace the old methods that were used in the early days and thus you lose a lot of the hands on approach that would be so useful in both developing a homestead or after SHTF. Gardens for Learning Guide Book — Life Lab
I actually think this is an excellent idea! One that that should be expanded upon to include carpentry, electrical, plumbing, etc...hell, even sewing and canning! Knowing computers is all fine and good, a necessary tool in the modern age, but so is the knowledge of electricity, etc. or preserving foods. Question: What would you use more in your life, the knowledge of how electricity is generated and enters your home and, more importantly, what to do if you lose electricity or speaking French, German, or etc... So why is a foreign language necessary to graduate some high schools? It makes me life that most graduates can't speak or write good English, but they have to have a foreign language. LOL!!! I think school curriculum needs to be totally rebuilt to reflect reality, get rid of the fluff, get back to basics and throw in some courses that actually help one in life, like finances, not economics, but basic finance from balance a checkbook to investment in the stock market, in bonds as opposed to stocks, etc...
If you plan on surviving during or after a major event with the help of a garden, you must start now. If you plant a garden now and it fails you are out some time and money. If you plant a garden after the event and it fails, you well may be in a FEMA camp. a refugee or dead.
