Nonviolence comes to DeWitt Clinton High School, Part 1 - a visit from Mark Kurlansky

by Raymond Pultinas

Last summer, I picked up some small stones from the bed of the Westfield River while vacationing in Western Massachusetts and they reminded me of what I’ve written and thought about for some time now.   Entering and wading in a cool river creates the kind of moment I need to have before returning to the practice of teaching high school students. Sitting and stretching in the buoyancy and flow of water I touch a stone made smooth over the course of this river’s life, millions of years in the making.  I hold the stone in my hand.  I work the stone with my fingers. 

The work of educating one’s emotional sensibilities, one’s self control, I imagine might take a process that is akin to this patient circular rubbing of a smooth stone between thumb and forefinger for the act of rubbing is deliberation itself.  In practice, I am  educating myself to be at peace in the world and it requires just such patience and contemplation, I would think.  The process involves affirming but holding the passions we carry; not acting first, but thinking first.  During these times, we look for a center, and the stone seems to signal for us this retreat into the contemplative - away from the world.

So I imagine carrying this stone around with me wherever I go and taking it out as needed to think through a problem.  To gently rub the stone smoother, perhaps somewhat prayerfully, as an accompaniment to the consideration of what to do next, where to go, what is right and what is wrong, what is best, or any other question that needs an application of thought or thinking through.  The gentle rolling of the smooth stone with the fingers accompanies deliberation and thinking in harmony with it.

David in his epic battle picks up the same smooth stone perfect for sling-shot and hurls it into the forehead of Goliath.   A boy is caught on video throwing a stone through tear gas at soldiers behind shields.  Throwing a stone in anger to hurt, damage or destroy is a choice that some humans make.  It is the choice to be violent.  Countless circumstances, provocations, self-defenses, just causes will certainly complicate any discussion of violence, but at its heart, at its origin, at its core, one might find and feel a smooth stone and what to do with it. Carry it or throw it and under what circumstances?  The choice to do one or the other is a defining moment of life and “coming of age.” 

In his book Nonviolence: Twenty-Five Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea, Mark Kurlansky examines an historic arc of nonviolent resistance from biblical times to the present.  In the fall of 2010, Mr. Kurlansky visited a combined class of sixty 12^th grade literary criticism students at DeWitt Clinton to discuss nonviolence in an event made possible through Behind the Book. The book fills in a substantial gap in our knowledge of names and events that have been central to the nonviolent movement for centuries. Students prepared for the visit by reading and discussing each chapter, constructing group presentations to a class audience who also researched deeper, generated vocabulary lists, developed questions, debated points, wrote poetic improvisations, and created wonderful and incisive drawings.  

I was interested in the connections students could make between Mr. Kurlansky’s book and what they were presently facing in a school saturated in hostility and violence.  Last year around this time, DeWitt Clinton was a much different place than it is now.  Each period of each day was punctuated by some disturbance in the halls or in our own classrooms.   Large groups of defiant and troublesome teens would routinely circulate and instigate looking for open doors and fights would break out.  Even some of our best students would run out to the halls in a frenetic and bloodthirsty way to spectate on some faked or real physical and emotional turmoil. 

Nonetheless, prior to Mr. Kurlansky's visit, groups of students in my literary criticism class prepared and presented chapters in literary circles for about a month and constructed a visually enticing wall of hope, a museum of responses with comments and drawings inspired by our discussion of nonviolence.  The behavior of students, the tone of the school and the newspaper headlines of the day immediately became the common reference point in our discussion.  Our school had become a microcosm study of global and national unrest and discontent.  And in the midst of chaos some students chose to pick up the smooth stone of contemplation and deliberate.

In Part 2, I’ll share some of these student voices and more excerpts from Mark Kurlansky's visit.

Midsummer Garden Report

By Raymond Pultinas

Arriving back to the garden a week after being away I approach as I might a present to be opened.   What happened since last time I noticed that some of the carrots had just fully matured, or that the tomatoes were about to change and some had the blight?  The variety of peppers we planted were about to give us cheery little standing at attention fruit and the beautiful squash flowers gave way to a perfectly formed little pumpkin.  

Sunflowers belong to the bees.

A pumpkin arrives in the carrots.

My desire to be in the garden accumulates while on vacation and I cannot walk by one on my travels without stopping to notice.  I can't help but take solace and strength from the health and beauty of the gardens I see. How can we not draw health and vitality from direct sensuous experiences in a healthy garden?  Whether I am simply working it or taking its nourishment home, the garden is part of my sustenance. I'm certain too that if I had seen a troubled garden while away, I would sense some worry and fear within me.  

Native butterfly garden includes the Three Sisters, corn, beans and squash.

Our garden has grown to at least double the size from last year at this time. Thanks to generous support from Citizen's Committee of New York City, GrowNYC, Bronx Green-Up and Green Thumb, we have fulfilled our goal of growing the garden.  Last year we planted five of six raised beds that were donated to us by Montefiore.  This year, we have added four additional raised beds from lumber that was delivered by Green Thumb for a total of nine beds.  We have also planted flowers, basil and vines in five large containers.

Squash and basil intermingle.

Presently, we anticipate another abundant crop of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, basil and peppers.  We also are eager to see how the vegetables we’ve introduced this year (string beans, corn, carrots, watermelon, broccoli and pumpkin) will produce.   

Five foot high tomato plants

Broccoli flowerets forming.

One of our goals had been to create a plant border along the 20’ fence that separates the garden from the faculty parking lot.  Morning glories and hyacinth beans are presently planted, perhaps grapes will be in the future.

It's still a parking lot.

We have succeeded in preparing DeWitt Clinton High School’s Garden to be an onsite place of learning where students and faculty could witness and practice sustainable urban living.  

DeWitt Clinton High School Garden expands.

The garden demonstrates where food comes from and how it is grown and we have begun to educate students about the value of fresh food and fresh ingredients that contribute to healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle.  

An early summer harvest of carrots.

The Witt Seminar has built an alternative space on the campus of the high school and is now poised to engage the entire school in taking more responsibility for its own health and well being.

Calendula and eggplants.  

The Witt Seminar Wants to Cook!

by Ray Pultinas

Cooking with my students has been among the most transformative experiences I’ve had as a teacher with over 20 years in the classroom.  There is something transfixing when we work around food.  It is an intensely social occasion that accumulates its own energy and momentum as a meal moves from the planning stage through prep and cooking and finally enjoying with one another the rewards of our efforts.  It is also a highly cooperative enterprise that seems to bring out the most charming, confident and satisfying expressions in my students as they compete with one another for a chance to help measure or pour or mix ingredients.  Those who stand back to observe the scene are often looking for a role to play, something to do, and in the kitchen there is always something to do.  Students guard over the cooking detail they’ve assumed or have been asked to perform, yet I detect a cooperative anticipation of the tastes they’ve all helped to create out of raw ingredients.  What will the magic of this mixing and making be?   Of course, this is the kind of delayed gratification that we would want to encourage in all of our classes and with all of the subjects we teach.

Mark and Elca

In the fall of 2005, I was given permission to teach a course on activism and publication at DeWitt Clinton High School called the Witt Seminar.  Four school wide conferences on activism and three publications later, in 2009 we decided to narrow our focus on food politics in an attempt to confront the poor eating habits of our students.  With alarming rates of obesity, diabetes and other health and diet related illnesses in the Bronx and reflected in our student population we felt that we could have an immediate impact studying and working on this problem.  One of our first tasks was to develop a survey to inform ourselves of the eating habits of our students and we learned that most students self reported that they know the value of eating healthy food but also find it difficult to obtain it.  Of the approximately 400 students we surveyed in our school of almost 5,000 students, almost 70% felt that eating healthy food is necessary in order to do well in school.  70% said they found nutritious food to be delicious and satisfying.  However, there is a significant amount of students, 53.9%, reporting that they never eat school cafeteria food and only 25%, one in four students, eat cafeteria food more than 3 times per week.   This might indicate that most students do not feel that the cafeteria offers healthy and nutritious food.  When asked to describe the lunches served in our school cafeteria, a total of 49% found that the food was either not too nutritious or not at all nutritious.  Also significant are the 24% of students who had no opinion.  Only 1.4% of students found the food to be very nutritious and 25.2% found the food to be only “somewhat nutritious.”  And where do students who don’t eat cafeteria lunch eat during the day?  Among those who do not eat cafeteria food, over 60% wait until after school to eat.  While only 15% of students surveyed bring their own lunch, over 26% use either the snack line, the G.O. store or R.O.T.C. to meet their hunger demands by purchasing chips, cookies and now the ever-present granola bars. 

Debra, Cire, Kimberly and Abigail

The present mission of the Witt Seminar emerged in the fall of 2009 and we have oriented our curriculum to address what we saw as fundamental needs of our students to have healthy food choices at our school.  We partnered with the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food and became one of only six high schools in the city to participate in the Cool School Food program.  Our school cafeteria now offers plant-based (vegetarian and vegan) menu options twice per week.  The Witt Seminar has promoted these meals through biweekly public announcements, posters and bulletin boards, as well as healthy school food “speak outs” and food “sampling” events in the school cafeteria.  We also started a school garden and in the fall of 2010, thanks to our partnership with Behind the Book, celebrated our first harvest by inviting Wellness in the School founder and world renowned chef, Bill Telepan to use our abundant eggplant, acorn squash, basil, turnips and onions to cook our first harvest meal.  Our Green Thumb registered school garden continues to flourish with generous support from Citizens Committee for New York City and Grow to Learn. 

Third floor bulletin board

Poster near cafeteria entrance, basement level

Though we have acquired a modest sum of money to continue to grow our garden, we are currently seeking support that will enable our Witt Seminar students as well as other students at DeWitt Clinton to have increased opportunities to prepare their own healthy meals from the food we grow in our garden and healthy food that can be found, grown or purchased in our local urban communities.  We need to make it possible for the students in our school to develop culinary skills that they could take back to their friends, families and communities. I have learned that caring communities can emerge around shared food and if we want our young people to eat better we need to teach them to make their own delicious healthy food so they are not as dependent on fast and convenient food.  In order to empower our students to make healthy food choices they must experience directly the vegetables, fruits, grains, and other ingredients that go into the preparation of healthy food. Our long-term goal is to convert an abandoned teachers cafeteria space into a working instructional kitchen to expand opportunities for students to cook for themselves, make oven meals or bake bread.   This would take a substantial amount of money for we would need to purchase a stove, refrigerator as well as kitchen supplies, equipment and utensils.  A more modest goal is to use what we already have while we build towards this larger dream.  We have cleared and cleaned an alternative cooking space amidst the unused steam tables and microwaves to practice the arts of preparing our own meals using an electric skillet.  

Abigail scooping the last of the Banana Beignet batter

What we are missing is a solid foundation in community food education that an organization like Family Cook Productions currently provides to teachers and students.    The program would allow me to be certified as a community food educator and help train students to become food educators as well.  The training would allow me to run Teen Battle Competitions that have already made a powerful impact on the food issues in urban environments like ours. To run this program successfully, we also will require a healthy food budget that will keep our program running throughout the school year.  

Gogola (Banana Beignets) are delicious.  (See "Eat, Pray, Smear" by Julia Moskin, March 23, 2011, New York Times.)

The Witt Seminar Journeys to Albany With a Purpose

by Kevin Nipal, Abigail Barima, Cire Kaba, and Licia Hooks of the Witt Seminar

Clinton students assemble to strategize in between visits to Assemblymembers José Rivera and Marcos Crespo.

We boarded the bus at 7:00 am on February 8 and headed to Albany in the hopes of persuading our State Assembly members to continue their support for our Montefiore school-based health center.  Our clinic is important to us because without it we wouldn’t have free health care services that include treatment for chronic illnesses like diabetes and asthma, physical check-ups, mental health counseling, and dental care.

When we arrived in Albany after a three-hour bus journey, we first entered a conference room where hundreds of students, parents and teachers from throughout the state were already gathered to “speak out” about how vital their clinics were to the members of their school communities.  This was an opportunity for all of us to listen to and be inspired by stories from second graders to high school students about how much they loved their own clinics, how they felt cared for and safe knowing that there were health care professionals right in their own schools. 

DWC student Teddy Reyes delivers at the "Speak Out" in Albany.

Our primary task of the day was to speak to two of our own State Assembly members representing districts in the Bronx where students from DeWitt Clinton live.  Montefiore Clinic Community Health Coordinator Jessica Moorman prepared us with speaking points and we were prepared to insert our own personal stories to convince lawmakers to vote to preserve the money that Governor Cuomo has already set aside in the budget for school-based health centers. 

From left, students Kevin Nipal, Arieal Figueroa and Marc Perez try to get some straight answers from Assembly Member José Rivera.

We first met Assemblyman José Rivera and were very eager to hear him respond to us.  As we presented our ideas and related our information to him however we felt that he didn’t really listen to us.   It seemed impossible to get a straight answer from him.  Fortunately, our second visit was to Assemblyman Marcos Crespo. We were very impressed to hear what he had to say.   After we stated one idea to support our cause he went on to answer all of our questions without us even having to ask him. He covered everything that we wanted to know. He had us speechless and he helped us to understand not only how state government works but how his 85th district that includes Hunts Point was one of the poorest in the nation and how needy residents there had few health service providers and depended on clinics including those in schools to help meet basic health care needs.

             This trip was a major success because we got to prove our point.   On the long way back to the Bronx, we felt a sense of accomplishment.  We were finally listened to and knew we helped to make a difference for our school.

Behind Books and Bricks

by Raymond Pultinas

ORDERS

Witness something at our school

New heights of frightening disregard

(hatred of one’s neighbor as one’s self)

         not everywhere, not everyone

         But you who are impressionable

Speak about the depths of poverty

Violence is only physical

Food insecurity only a symptom

Diabetes only a disease

Obesity only a problem

of few resources and the desire for more…

Change the dialogue

Do now

Write about a time

when you witnessed your own or someone else’s

Blindness

Remain truthful

Reorient my identity

Be stalwart

amidst the torrent of rushing bodies

Step up

Four thousand students or more

         are sinking

What can teaching become?

Start with a poem I wrote that I recited when recently awarded the first “Creating Readers for Life Award” from Behind the Book, a non-profit organization that I’ve collaborated with to bring writers into my classrooms since 2005.  The benefit was held at the William Bennett Gallery in SoHo on October 27, 2010.  Ben Greenman was a delightful and amusing host and Randy Cohen, New York Times magazine’s “The Ethicist” shared a long piece on the joys of reading, riffing off of Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader.  There was a silent auction in the gallery whose walls were covered in bizarre Salvatore Dali drawings. It was a wonderful experience for me to be in such presence and among so many passionate readers and supporters of books and young readers. For more on the event, please go to Behind the Book’s blog.

The mission of Behind the Book and its founder Jo Umans is to promote book literacy in public schools by facilitating author visits.  It has been joyful for me to work with this program, deciding what books and authors to read and teach, preparing my students and planning and awaiting the arrival of the authors.  Over the past eight years, Behind the Book has provided my students with thousands of books.  Writers like Francine Prose, Colson Whitehead, Russell Banks, Marion Nestle, Katha Pollit, Suheir Hammad and Martha Southgate (just to name a few) have all come to my classes.  They might appear to my students (and to me) as strange travelers from the outside world suddenly here to help guide us to deeper and greater literary experiences.  First imagine believing, as I do, that reading and discussing literature creates opportunities to practice empathy, critical thinking, reflection, judgment and moral reasoning.  Then imagine having the author of a book we've just read on hand to discuss the work.  Shouldn't every teacher have such opportunity?  The authors come in to my classes to participate in ongoing discussions about their work, their characters, and themes that they’ve captured in literature that we've all brought back live to the discussion. They sign the books that students get to keep, perhaps forever.  There has always been a magic to this transaction, it is truly transformative, what I often call an "out of school" experience. 

At first, I was afraid that the poem would be unsettling to some, I was apprehensive about whether to share the poem.  Such a positive evening, such high notes of excitement amidst pleasant talk - why read something that might bring people down?  Here I was again being the downer public school teacher poet.


It's been a most distressing year so far.  Many of the twenty or so year veterans like myself have never seen it so bad.  The local papers, like the Norwood News have covered the scene but no one seems to have captured the disappointment many of us feel to be in an environment that we have seen grow steadily worse over the last several years. Our school has been overcrowded now for almost ten years.  The recession has only made it worse - after school programs are the rare exception not the rule since faculty advisors are no longer compensated for time spent after school.  Copy machines are lacking or in poor condition.  As teachers we seldom have one classroom to teach in and wander around an enormous school with our overstuffed bags as if we carried our offices on our backs.  We have been under-funded and over stressed in so many more ways.  

Over the last several years, as a school, we have been forced to take on populations of students who do not qualify or are displaced from smaller schools.   The steady increase of more needy and less prepared students has coincided with an increase of security that is often perceived by students and staff at odds with the values of education.  Our school often feels like a police state.  Uniformed officers, entrance security, metal detectors, scanners, captive lunch - students are routinely objectified.    Teaching and learning should not be held in the context of fighting and violence and spectatorship but each hall passing holds the threat.  Almost 5,000 students moving from one class to another at the same time.  We go to our posts to maintain our presence in the halls, to help tame the beast that might at any time swell up and battle in the halls.  We have long been aware of a hall culture or culture of the hall, there has always been a temptation for students to cut and roam.  Now instead of loner strangers roaming the halls, there are loosely allied bands of youth sharing a willingness to lash out at all of this.  Rudeness, cursing, vulgarity and intolerance seem to rule the halls.


Earlier in the day, I had read a draft of the poem to my literary criticism students.  An earlier version of the poem was more specifically aimed at impressionable students, especially freshmen, who I knew had been swept up as spectators of the fighting, bullying and intolerant behavior that seemed to have reached a high point at our school during the month of October.  In my revising of the poem, I wanted to simultaneously address an audience of devoted readers, lovers of books, of the arts, of children, who I knew would be gathered that evening.  I wanted to impress upon all my concern for the future of our school, the future of my students and all students who attend neglected overcrowded schools.  Whether we like it or not, the many students who have taken so easily to violence and spectatorship this year are the future citizens of this city.  Over 4,000 students can't be swept under a rug.  I assume that we all want the citizens of the future to be adept and perceptive readers.   Isn’t this what public education is all about?  I wanted the Behind the Book audience to be aware of the conditions that have been created in one of our city's most famous and now last remaining large public high schools and how these conditions threaten to jeopardize a dream I think we all have of an educated and responsible citizenry. There was a time when a certain population of DeWitt Clinton was considered at risk.  Under these conditions, every student is at risk, not to mention every teacher, dean, aide, or security officer (SSA or NYPD).

Perhaps what bothers me the most about what has been happening in our school is not knowing what will happen next.   The fact is that the students in my classes are as motivated and excited about learning and as deserving as any I have ever taught.  I know that good things happen in this school and I feel as if I'm part of what is positive here.  I don't want the positive opportunities to end for my students or for me. 

The culture of the halls has not seeped into my literary criticism classes though we might hear it at times banging at the doors.  Just last week, my students engaged with Marina Budhos over the nuances of the characters drawn in her latest novel, Tell Us We’re Home.  Students could readily identify with the hopes, dreams, and desires of daughters of nannies and housekeepers, immigrants, outsiders with insight.  Our session with Marina was dynamic and intimate as students shared their own poetry and insights as "give backs" to an author who intellectually and physically entered their lives.  On November November 4, Bill Telepan, the celebrated chef and restaurateur who consulted with Michelle Obama about the Chefs Move to School program cooked our harvest dinner made from eggplant, basil, turnips, acorn squash, jalapeno and habanero peppers and oregano grown in our newly established school garden.  Students were inspired by witnessing this superb chef in action and I never thought I'd hear some of my students say "I love turnips!"  Read an article from the Riverdale Press and see more pictures in the Riverdale Press.  Alissa Quart visited the Witt Seminar twice to help students write convincing and powerful persuasive essays on issues that matter to them.  We had read and discussed her book Branded:The Buying and Selling of Teenagers and Alissa shared with us some of her life as a journalist but we also strategized together about how we might use writing to inform the outside world of our plight and help bring about change in our school.  In a couple of weeks, Mark Kurlansky, the author of the bestselling histories Salt and Cod will be visiting my literary criticism classes.  Students debated which of his books to read and then voted to read Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea.  As a setting for our discussions of the book, we've constructed what we've called "Walls of Hope" in our classroom .  I imagine our class as having become a kind of "thinktank" to generate ideas about how to actively oppose the violence we've been witnessing on a regular basis.  Behind the Book has helped keep our hope alive.

Eating Healthy Food is Difficult for Teenagers, Not Impossible

by Arva Pierce

In today’s society, it is very difficult for teenagers, as well as adults, to eat healthy. I personally think it is not fair that we as consumers have to pay more to get healthy food. We turn to fast food corporations like McDonald’s and Burger King because they make it very convenient to eat out. We, as teenagers, in some sense are not given a choice of what we want to eat. It is so much easier to just go to McDonald’s then it is to go to an organic market to buy fresh and healthy food. What can be done about this unfair situation? If there were more places where healthy food could be bought at an affordable price, like farmer’s markets, we would be able to purchase healthy food without burning a hole through our pockets.



Generally everyone likes to complain, but only a few would step up and deal with their problem or concern head on. Others want to confront their problem, but do not know how to do so. I believe most people are aware of what kind of food they are putting into their bodies and how food affects them. However, in today’s economy, many of us are concerned about having enough money to feed our families not whether it is healthy for us or not. Consequently we are starving ourselves. Our bodies aren’t receiving the vitamins and nutrients provided naturally from plant based foods. As a result, many people today suffer from a kind of malnutrition.


Most people who suffer from malnutrition are portrayed as excessively thin and on the verge of being anorexic. However, those who are the most malnourished are obese and eat fast food and processed foods habitually. “When most people think of hunger in America the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk” (“The Obesity – Hunger Paradox,” New York Times, March 12, 2010). Hunger and obesity are often indicators of undernourishment. The Bronx has the city’s highest rate of obesity, and yet it is almost guaranteed that you will see at least one McDonald’s or Burger King on your way to work or school. The Bronx also faces stubborn hunger problems. According to the survey by the Food Research and Action Center, many people lack money to buy food at some point in the past year. When these people who live in areas such as the South Bronx get their hands on small amounts of money, they instantly turn to the fast food corporations to satisfy their hunger.


When people are not indulging themselves on greasy burgers, they are most likely standing in line at a local supermarket. Full-service reasonably priced supermarkets are not as common in poorer neighborhoods. The grocery stores in poorer neighborhoods tend to provide more processed foods than seasonal fruits and vegetables. I witness this first-hand. I am currently a cashier in a supermarket and I see how and where people spend their money. Of course there will always be that big family with two shopping carts filled with processed foods such as ground beef chuck and high content sugar items such as cupcakes and cookies. Most of these people receive a month’s supply of food stamps worth about two hundred dollars. To get the most out of the money they are given they either buy in bulk or buy what is on sale which is almost all the time highly processed foods. Then there are the rare few who spend their hard-earned cash on healthy and organic foods such as the “Nature’s Promise” brand. Fortunately, the City of New York offers a Health Bucks Program that encourages people to spend their food stamps at farmer’s markets by giving them an extra two dollar coupon for every five dollars they spend there. I think this is a great idea and it helps persuade people to purchase healthier food. But, how can they do so if the availability of farmers’ markets in the city are so limited?


Teenagers are among the people who suffer from malnutrition. It is too common to witness a teenager eating at a fast food establishment after school because they have to return to school for team practice. We become so accustomed to this lifestyle that we essentially don’t care about what we put into our mouths and what it is doing to our bodies. “Eating healthy is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and is something that should be taught at a young age” (Healthy Eating for Teens). Since most children today, as well as teenagers now, are or were introduced to the “Happy Meal” as young as two year’s old, they have conformed to poor eating habits. Good eating habits include: eating three meals a day with healthy snacks, drinking a lot of water, eating balanced meals, baking more and frying less, eating fruits and vegetables for a snack, decreasing the use of butter and heavy gravies, and eating more chicken and fish.


As we all know, eating poorly can lead to serious health problems. These problems include obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Eating healthy is important during adolescence because body changes that take place during this time affect an individual’s nutritional and dietary needs. Adolescence is about growing, maturing, and making decisions without the direct influence from parent figures. Many adolescents experience a growth spurt and an increase in appetite and need healthy foods to meet their specific growth needs. Adolescents often eat more meals away from home than younger children. We are also influenced by our peers which results in eating too many of the wrong kinds of foods: soft-drinks, fast-food, and processed foods.


Farmers’ Markets in New York City are not very common, but if determined anyone could make use of the ones that are available. Of course, the obvious reason why people, including myself, don’t eat healthy is because we can’t afford to. Personally, eating healthy for me is extremely difficult. I wake up every morning at about six o’clock to leave my house before seven. I almost never eat anything before I leave so by the time I get off the train by my school I’m starving. I usually run to McDonald’s for breakfast or buy a buttered bagel at the deli. That lasts me for about four periods and by twelve noon I’m hungry all over again. By this time I find myself on my school’s cafeteria snack line buying snacks such as baked chips or chocolate chip cookies. This holds me off until I get out of school at three in the afternoon. Most of the time I go straight to work from school and I have no time to have a nutritious balanced meal. If I have a few dollars to spare, I spend it on a slice of pizza or worse: I end up back on the line at McDonald’s. Honestly, I hate it. I can’t stand eating fast food. I think, “Wow I’m killing myself. I don’t even want this junk, but I’m hungry and I have to eat before I go to work so…”


I realize that my situation and that of every other person struggling to eat healthy is very difficult. However, there are several options available for those who feel that eating healthy is close to impossible. Although the availability of farmer’s markets in the city is limited, there are some available. In the Bronx, you can locate The Hunt’s Point Farmer’s Market, Harvest Home Co-op City Market, and the Poe Park Greenmarket. At these markets you can purchase fresh fruits and vegetables that were grown right here in New York. We can also substitute fruits and vegetables for those sweets we love so much such as: cake, cookies, candy, etc. The amount of nutrition we obtain from the food we eat is essential because we need certain vitamins and minerals for our bodies to run efficiently. Most of the time we attain protein from the meats: chicken, fish and red meat. Instead of eating these all the time, we can also substitute beans, rice, and peanut butter for the meat protein. Drinking more water would benefit us as it is also proven to allay hunger. Then there is also the option of making your own lunch at home so you won’t be tempted to buy fast food. There are many ways for us to incorporate these healthier choices into our daily diets. With sources such as the internet and the media the possibilities of the different recipes and dishes that can be made are endless. We just need to be determined to change how we eat.


Eating healthier should be a goal that everyone should want to achieve. But this won’t be possible if people are ignorant or choose to ignore the facts. Eating fast foods and highly processed foods harm our bodies. We only get one voice, one body, and one chance to decide to live our lives as healthy and safe as possible. Shouldn’t we take advantage of this opportunity?

The Impact of Urban Farming on our World

by Karissa Francis

The Clinton Garden on September 8, 2010 - the first day of school.

       As the Grow Your Own Food Movement continues to grow, I wonder what impact urban farming will have on our culture and the future of our planet. Urban farming and gardening can be found in the most inconspicuous places. Lush, colorful vegetable gardens in between buildings with peeling paint, fruit trees and tomato vines stretching high to reach the sky as bodegas and tenement buildings watch the miracle of nature. You may have walked right past a whole system of fruits, vegetables, and flowers thriving through the concrete and hardly noticed. In our dense city, this is understandable; you hardly notice the sidewalk when you’re trying to get somewhere quickly, as most New Yorkers always seem to be doing. However, when you look closely you’ll see the window box disguised as simple flowers and greens are secretly a plentiful herb garden for a mother’s kitchen. Urban farming is making our city even more beautiful and it’s making our environment healthier.

To understand the effect of urban farming, first you have to understand what it is. The Grow Your Own Food Movement and urban farming are about taking back the food we eat and becoming self sufficient. Today we have little control over where our food comes from and what goes into producing it. Farming can hardly be called farming anymore; everything is over processed and industrialized. Machines and engineers have taken the place of farmers who know the earth and what’s best for the soil. Now “Food” is produced in labs and factories to be made more cost efficient. Migrant workers are taken advantage of; they are paid the very minimum, sometimes less, and work in harsh conditions. Neither human beings nor animals are taken into consideration in the production of food. Food is a business; in business, profit is the bottom line and everything else is given little thought. The food we eat directly affects our health and when profit is the most important thing to a company, the health of the consumers is the least important. Animals and people aren’t the only things exploited by the food industry; the earth is overworked as well. The way farming is done today strips the soil of vital nutrients to continue growing food. Diversity is what sustains our world and keeps systems in constant motion. The form of farming done by big companies doesn’t allow biodiversity. Instead, one type of crop is planted at a time. The soil is overworked and eventually becomes dead. Traditional farming thrived on diversity, if one crop didn’t survive, another would be readily available for distribution; a concept big company farms can’t seem to grasp.

 Animals are brutalized and put in the worst conditions possible. Cows are the new Ford T model, on assembly lines to their death. Chickens are pumped with hormones to fatten them up quicker, their breasts become so large they can’t walk. Pigs are put in tiny crates, where they can’t even turn around. The environments the animals are put in causes them distress. They suffer before they’re packaged, shipped, bought, and cooked. By starting a small garden or urban farm, we can lessen; maybe even reverse the harm done to our bodies and earth by the food that seems to do more harm than good. Urban farming gives you a sense of accomplishment and who wouldn’t want farm fresh fruits and vegetables in every meal?

The thought of growing your own food may sound a little ridiculous at first. You can hardly finish your “to do list” everyday, how will there ever be enough hours in the day to tend to a farm? The sound of a farm may sound foreign to someone who lives in the city, but farming isn’t defined as a large mass of land in NoWheresville with creepy cornstalks and the thick smell of animal. Anyone can be a farmer. Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, had a farm in a ghetto of Oakland, California. In addition to growing everything from tomatoes to pumpkins, she was also a beekeeper and raised chickens, turkeys, and even pigs. The Edible Schoolyard program, an organization that builds urban farms in schools, has made its way to P.S 216 in Brooklyn, where a garden is being built. A solar powered building, complete with a kitchen classroom, a chicken coop, a composting system, an outdoor pizza oven, a cistern to collect rainwater, and a movable greenhouse will make the garden more than a garden, but a place where children can discover that vegetables can be delicious and nutritious.

 You may not have the time to raise and kill livestock or have $1.6 million on hand to build a fantastic backyard utopia, but there are much simpler ways to start growing your own meals. A great way to start off an urban garden is a small window box. It doesn’t cost much or take too much tending to grow an herb garden for fresh seasonings. You can go to Home Depot’s gardening section, Loews, or any hardware store near you. If you don’t like the idea of dirt in your house, you could always start hydroponic window garden. A hydroponic garden is a garden that only uses water to grow plants.  For fewer than 30 dollars, you can turn any window in your apartment into a garden. Hydroponic gardening is perfect for small spaces and those who don’t want anything to do with dirt. Another option is a rooftop garden where you could grow anything from small potatoes to broccoli. Like anything in life, tending to a garden or urban farm takes work. However, the hard work will pay off when you and your family are healthier. You’ll be proud to show off your rooftop beehive and lettuce heads. You’ll feel accomplished when you and your loved ones enjoy fresh garden salads and mushroom burgers.

With every innovative idea, there will be skeptics. Urban Gardening is not an exception. There are people who don’t agree with gardening being taught in schools and being encouraged. The argument is that it is taking away from conventional topics like reading and math. However, learning about something new can never take away from what you learn in Geometry or English class. In fact, learning about how to better yourself and help save the environment can only add to what you learn in History or Science.  So, whether you grow herbs in your hydroponic window farm or fruit trees in your front yard, you’ll be contributing to preserving mother earth. Every time you don’t fund corporate farming’s gradual destruction of the earth, nature rewards you in small ways; with the sweetest peach, the crunchiest lettuce, or the leafiest greens.