by Tracey Brennan, Class Teacher

During the first full week of school in the fall, the fourth-grade class goes on a traditional farm trip to the Hawthorne Valley Farm in Harlemville, New York. This trip, which follows the third-grade study of farming, is looked forward to and fondly remembered by all of our students. It gives children the chance to help with the harvest and with the care of the animals. They see where our food comes from and become part of the daily rhythm that produces it. The farming block and related gardening projects throughout the years at GBRSS and the Great Barrington Waldorf High School—including fifth-grade botany and high school “practicums” on the farm—are all very important elements of a Waldorf education. These subjects may be the most relevant and crucial ones that we teach to this generation. As Barbara Kingsolver writes in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Harper Collins, 2007), “Is the story of bread, from tilled ground to our table, less relevant to our lives than the history of the thirteen colonies?… Isn’t ignorance of our food sources causing problems as diverse as overdependence on petroleum, and an epidemic of diet-related diseases?”

We teach respect for the farmers who feed us, and reverence and gratitude for the earth—from the very earliest years. At the Hawthorne Valley Farm the children experience local, sustainable, biodynamic agriculture firsthand. We will have lots of fun spending our days and nights on the farm, being outdoors instead of in the classroom, extending summer, and getting to know one another even better. But this experience will also be one of the most important lessons of the year!