Reading, Writing & Gardening

By Zeina Washington

Nestled away in a quiet Oak Park neighborhood is an organic vegetable garden which for the past four years has been planted and maintained by students, parents and teachers at Nsoroma Institute. Although across America, more and more schools are using school gardens as outdoor classrooms, those gardens are rarely associated with schools serving primarily African-American Students.

Nsoroma Institute is a kindergarten through eighth grade charter school that seeks to build cultural pride and self-esteem in African-American students. An important part of the school’s philosophy is that humans have a responsibility for maintaining the delicate, harmonious balance that exists between the various forms of life that occupy the planet. What better way to allow students to experience that philosophy than by working in a garden?

Additionally, the school garden creates the opportunity to teach about health and nutrition. Students learn about the importance of eating fresh vegetables and about the medicinal properties of spearmint, peppermint, Echinacea, and the other herbs growing in a corner of the garden. Students learn important lessons about recycling by putting lunch scraps in vermi-compost bins. They get to watch day-by-day as red worms turn garbage into useful compost to enrich the school garden.

Each year at harvest time, students and parents work together to prepare kale and collard greens for all of the school’s 270 students. One second grade teacher created a unique interdisciplinary instructional unit by having students prepare salsa from the vegetables they had grown, and then writing and illustrating the recipe.

According to Nsoroma Institute director Malik Yakini, “We are making our learning community aware of the great potential of urban organic gardening to provide us with high quality food, and as a way of breaking our dependence on the agri-businesses that control most food in America. We teach our children to see themselves as creators of their own reality, not simply as helpless victims to be acted upon by powerful forces. Gardening builds a sense of self-reliance.”

Last year the school organized the Shamba Organic Garden Collective, a group of 15 families that grew organic gardens in backyards, vacant lots and containers. Shamba is a Kiswahili word that means ‘garden’ or ‘farm’. This year the Shamba collective has been given the use of four vacant lots to plant. This group provides an important bridge between learning at school and home.

The Nsoroma garden is a winner this year of a youth garden grant from the National Gardening Association. That grant has provided the students with much needed resources to improve their gardening efforts. The school is also seeking donations of tools, books on gardening, and organic seeds.

While maintaining a school garden means lots of work for both the children and adults, watching the joy on the faces of young children discovering newly sprouted seedlings or spotting a ladybug makes it all worth it. Nsoroma Institute can be contacted at (248) 541-2548.