A Promise to a Child... Human Permaculture.

We talk a lot about where plants should be placed so that they grow best and in unity with the world around it.  We talk a good talk about nutrition and sunlight for plants.  How often do we talk about sunlight and placement for our children and placing them in places where they are healthy and can grow strong roots?
I have always been a bit of a grammar nut and one of the phrases that I hear in the south, more often than I would like to, is "Where do you stay?"  People ask this instead of "Where do you live?" There was a time when I chalked this up to bad grammar, but in recent years, with the work that I do, I find it more accurate than ever.
We had been so focused on teaching children how to create plant and earth based environments that show how plants and earth should work together, that we often do not see that they themselves are in a transient state.  "Where do you stay?" is accurate because a large number of children do not live in the same place for very long.
It hit home this morning when we were working in the garden.  The children had an extra credit assignment to bring something in that they could grow.  They were provided with a number of examples of things they could find in the kitchen, that their parents may throw out when dinner is done.  Each of our students came to their teacher/advisor with something.  There were a lot of tomatoes and some potatoes and one of the things that we noticed was that it was almost as much of an assignment for their parents as it was for the student.
One young lady came to me with the top of a pineapple.  This is one of those projects that people often try, but we had intentionally steered clear of these because of the length of time it takes to grow an actual pineapple.  Yes, they will see growth throughout the year and they will come to understand root structure, but one of the reasons that we choose the plants that we have is so that students could at some point take a bite out of something they had grown.
The young lady was insistent on growing a pineapple, though.  I told her it was going to take a long time to grow.  She did not care.
I asked her if she would be able to lift it when it got REALLY big!?
She said she loves pineapple and wasn't going to take it home.  She was going to leave it at school.
I told her that she is going to go on to the fourth grade next year.
She said the next kids in my next class could have it.  She told me that I had to promise to take care of it when she was not around.
All sorts of things ran through my mind.  There were a number of things that could happen in a year. Still I promised and if not me, then someone else.
We only work with the students on Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings they are allowed to come to help us in the garden.  Still the thing that we try to instill in the children is that this is where the plants live.  This is where their plants live until they take them home at the end of the school year.  I have known so many people, children especially, who do not have permanent homes.  Where they sleep and sometimes eat is not where they live, it is where they stay until they are moved on to the next place.
I was blessed when I was growing up with being able to live in the same house in the same town as I grew up.  Many are not so lucky.  The beauty that I see in them now is that through this program, they are thinking a little differently and that there are things here, parts of them, that will remain, and memories that they can take with them. It is a beautiful thing to see that a child wants to be a part of a place.
We have a number of big projects coming up, but few are as fulfilling as recording the growth of something that someone has invested in for the sake of making the world better.  So follow us on instagram at Thelifecooperative to see how these projects are progressing.  We will try to post pictures every day! #trinaspineapple

The New Permaculture: Solving The Problem With Plastic and Pollution

We have been talking for some time about the problems with plastic and other pollution and the solution for some has been to ignore it or to attempt to eradicate it.  This is something that we need to take a deeper look at as it applies to the world today.

We are working with thirty 3rd graders and 9 tenth graders on amazing and simple permaculture project.  The process is simple; under the supervision of our teachers and interns, they are finding creative and safe ways to use what can be construed as garbage.

In the past, the ideology has been to get children (everyone, for that matter) to take merely the cursory steps to address pollution and the problem of plastic.  We have taught kids to pick up trash and put it in the proper receptacles, telling them that it is going to go away to some big factory somewhere to be broken down and turned into something else.  Let's be honest, sometimes this does not happen but that is another story.  In any event, it we are making a dent.

Swiss Chard being grown by a 3rd grader.

The New Permaculture factors in plastic as, we hate to say it, a part of our environment and goes a step further and look at it not just as a nuisance, but possibly as a resource.  We have reached a stalemate and within a generation with the emergence of a larger Chinese middle class not to mention other countries.  Discounting waste as a wholly unusable byproduct of our society may not be the best course of action given the amount that accumulates.  Merely sequestering it is not an option anymore because landfills are rising.  Plastic is simple and abundant and it is only getting more and more abundant each day.

So, our thirty third graders are going to learn how to work and live with plastic while working to reduce their waste.  Our 10th graders are going to working on ways to create new things from recycled plastic.
We are not just talking about plastics though.  We are talking about food waste.  We are talking about paper.  We are talking about all the things that are headed to the landfill or the side of the road that can be used and re-used.
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