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My daughter came home from school today quite upset.
Upon enquiring why she was so upset she explained that other children had been calling her stupid.

Now heres the unbelivable part they were calling her stupid because she was telling them about us growing vegtables in the garden and the other children in question were saying you cant grow vegtables you have to buy them from the shop.


Those icons really do sum up my face when she told me about this.


What the hell are children being taught nowadays and where do they think the veg in the shops comes from?

Sounds a bit like the story of the town kids on a visit to the country who found a pile of milk bottles and thought it was a cows nest!!!

I feel sorry for the children who don't know anything about the joys of growing your own veg and then feeding your family and friends with it! I can't say they are the stupid ones - just the deprived ones!!

Hi Paradox

Sadly I'm not surprised by this story - same as we get grown ups that won't eat eggs laid by our chickens, but will happily go and buy the battery farm eggs from the supermarket, or won't eat our organic tomatoes but will go and buy shrink wrapped and imported pesticide ridden red blobs of mush.

Oops bit of a rant there... you pass on all our selfsufficientish hugs and best wishes to your daughter. It might be worth a word with the teacher to suggest that they start a vegetable garden at the school... even just herbs would be a start.

Anyway - her time will come. Just wait until she's taking the fruits of YOUR garden into school for snack or whatever... and see the other kid's faces when they realise she's got something really tasty to eat.

when i was little i remember being horrified that people had to buy vegetables asked "why don't they grow them like we do ?"

*sigh* Sad......

having been told by my children that one of their teachers was insisting that 'eco' meant economical and not ecological I am not surprised children don't know where food comes from.

My answer? I have sent the children off to school to proclaim we are downshifters and the meaning of it. That should confuse the highly trained teachers

As a childminder all the children help with the veg growing. Their other big treat is going on the bus, which is something my own kids now find boring.

Davina

It's not all bad, at the primary school where my girlfriend teaches, one of the classes have a vegetable plot where they grow veg, and then have a business called 'The Spuds' on Thursday's at the school gates where they sell there own produce. The whole thing has got pretty big actually, the BBC have done news reports on it and the teacher is going to all sorts of conferences! It's always a treat when my girlfriend comes home with some fresh Spuds veg, they even have a recipe book - my favourite recipe being 'Grandads Christmas Parsnips'


Tom

my childrens school does the same but they cook the veg and eat it as a mid afternoon snack, although I hear some parent are concerned about the veg touching the soil My kiddies eat all the produce whilst most sniff it and refuse to touch it!

ewww how disgusting - veg touching the earth - next you will be saying eggs come out of chickens bottoms and meat is from dead animals and milk is bovine mamary gland excretion.. and cheese and yogurt is gone off milk eww eww - no way - I'm getting my food from the shops - where it comes out of nice clean packages

hey paradox - perhaps you should take your daughters info and go back to the school and ask them to educate the kids? perhaps you could start a gardening club with help from other parents?
tiring though isn't it

Thanks for all your kind words people.

I think i will go and see the head teacher and explain whats happend.
I will suggest that it might be a good idea for the school to start a gardening club as an interesting means of educating the children about where our food comes from.

best of it is red I live in heavy farming area!

baldowrie wrote:best of it is red I live in heavy farming area!

isn't it always the way? Devon is a huge dairy producing area - yet time and time again I have had to explain to adults that milk comes from cows.. only AFTER the calf has been taken away (and bumped off for meat more than likely), that the milk is made for the calf by the cows.. that they have to have babies to start the process in the first place
This convo usually happened cos we lived on my parents farm - they would say 'oh how could you' if we remarked on a calf going off to slaughter.. and i always say back 'you drink milk dont you?'

I think its one of the major problems with society is they have no idea where their food, or other produce, comes from.

ok stepping away from the soapbox now...

My local organic farm is having an open day next Saturday. We can go and watch the cows being milked, collect eggs from the chickens and get a trailer ride as well. I have told everyone who will listen to me.

The things some people think are funny sometimes. One of my sisters has recently started moving to buying organic and gets all her meat and veg from the farmers' market now. Her eldest daughter (17), however, won't eat organic eggs. The reason? She's afraid she "might get a beak".

Back to the original topic though, it's awful how cruel children can be. Have you spoken to the school/teacher about it? Are they at all interested in the idea of a veg patch for the kids to take care of do you think?