WHY A FARM continued from page 7
customs, and cultures – both wild and tame – that help shape their beliefs and ethics. As Roxbury’s own famed essayist John Burroughs wrote, “The soil is in my blood.” This social experiment of bringing children from diverse backgrounds to the same place, to do the same work, and honor that labor was the vision of our founders when they started Manhattan Country School more than 50 years ago. There have been thoughtful programmatic and physical changes at the Farm, but always with children as stakeholders and mission as our guide. It has never been our vision to produce future farmers, but to help students become informed citizens, environmental stewards, educated consumers, social change-makers, and community leaders. We believe that when people are aware of, and educated about, the sources of their food, fiber, water, and energy, they become powerful advocates and critics of the people and businesses that grow, produce, and supply these basic human needs. While everything we produce is self-consumed at the Farm and the 85th St. campus, or donated to those who are food insecure, the experientially-educated child is the “product” we ship down the road.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR John McDaniel is the Director of the Manhattan Country School Farm in Roxbury, NY. The MCS Farm is the educational farm campus of Manhattan Country School in NYC. Since 1989, John has worked to help children make lasting connections to the natural, cultivated, built and their own personal world. Providing authentic, hands-on experiences to a wildly diverse community of students, teachers and families is both a MCS Farm and personal mission.
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PEN The Journal of the Progressive Education Network Winter 2023-2024