Opening Garden Gates: Teachers Making Meaning of School Gardens in Philadelphia

• In Event: The Many Spaces of Gardens

Abstract

This paper examines how garden educators in Philadelphia navigate the challenges and opportunities provided by local school settings and the larger policy and social contexts to think about and explain garden education as valid and valuable pedagogy. While Philadelphia has a long history of urban gardening, there is no garden policy and little environmental programming in the Philadelphia school district, and teachers must actively promote gardens. Philadelphia educators explain their own perspectives on school garden programs by drawing on situated pedagogical paradigms about the contributions gardens programs make to schools and the schooled individual. In so doing, they build personally relevant meaning and public validation of garden work in institutional and community settings, creating gateways for implementation of school gardens.

Author

• Katie Ann Bucher, Community College of Philadelphia