South Bend school farm program connects students to the land

On a crisp January morning at Good Shepherd Montessori School in South Bend, IN, snow crunches underfoot as students fan out over the frozen grounds. They take their places at 16 designated observation stations, notebooks in hand, eyes and noses barely visible with faces obscured by hats and coat collars. Gloved hands note the depth of the snow, sunlight or lack thereof, and the slope of the terrain.

The ground is still and cold, but in a few short months, this six-acre property will be bursting with flowering fruit trees, kale, lettuces, corn, beans and tomatoes. Once harvested, this bounty will find its way into the school’s hot lunches and a Thursday after-school farmers market. And students ages 6 to 14 will be involved every step of the way.

Since the school was founded in 2002, Good Shepherd’s farm program has been a linchpin of its curriculum. Students spend one day per week at either an area farm or the urban farm on the school’s property, where junior high students have daily chores. The program stems from Maria Montessori’s preferred teaching setting for adolescents, which was a farm school, and extends to elementary-age students as well.

“Dr. Montessori wanted children to literally have their hands in the earth,” says Dan Driscoll, head of school at Good Shepherd.

Respect for the child forms the core of Montessori education, and that respect extends naturally to the child’s environment.

“Attention to the environment is in the woodwork here,” Driscoll says.

The school has been recycling and composting from its first day. A compost bin, chock full of worms, sits in the hallway outside each classroom. Students read junior versions of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Joel Salatin’s Holy Cows and Hog Heaven. The rabbits on the school property are fed with fruit and vegetable scraps from student snacks, and students collect eggs from the school’s chickens daily.

“If we want kids to be stewards of the earth, they have to be immersed in the earth,” says Theri Niemier, enrichment specialist and director of Bertrand Farm, one of the school’s partner farms.

In 2017 Niemier moved the farm’s educational component from Bertrand’s Niles location to Good Shepherd, with the goal of creating an urban agriculture learning center for the Michiana community. As a result, students have daily access to nearly all aspects of farming, and farming influences much of the curriculum.

“Farming integrates math, science, writing, creativity and design, creating many learning options,” Niemier says. “It helps kids discover what they love. Maybe it’s animal husbandry or the science of the soil, environmental issues or nutrition and health.”