The power of learning and the Fairchild Garden ... by gimleteye

Don't have a lot of time this morning. I'm driving to Palm Beach for the Everglades Coalition meeting, held every January. At last night's Coalition dinner, some school performers selected from the Fairchild Challenge were invited to entertain the crowd. The young man in the photo wrote a poem about the Everglades. It is ironic, of course, that the leader and innovator of the Challenge, Caroline Lewis, was terminated from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and teachers are in an uproar at the same moment the Challenge is on display as an example of the enthusiasm and diversity supporting the Everglades. A frequent criticism of the environmental movement in Florida is that it does not represent our communities. The Challenge not only does but does so splendidly. That is why the dismissal is so outrageous based on trustees' claims. A comment interpreted by junior staffers as having racial overtones caused her to be removed from supervising her staff: what she said (scroll down to earlier posts for details) was exactly to the point of energizing children from schools largely representing minorities.

Here's a quick story. Years ago, I was involved in lobbying public broadcasting to expand its coverage to the Florida Keys and Monroe County. When I first moved with my family to Florida, in 1988, it was to the Keys. I was amazed to learn that National Public Radio's reach didn't extend there and was informed -- after asking questions-- that the board of education in Monroe was responsible for making a request for the service. I finally found a school board member who was sympathetic. The threshold issue was that the Monroe county school board didn't want to have to listen to Miami-Dade county school board meetings whose broadcast was a condition of licensing etc. and couldn't be segmented out for Keys' listeners. I asked my school board friend in Key West: is it really that important to deny people the chance to listen and to be informed by NPR programming because of a school board meetings in Miami-Dade? He leaned in closely to me and said, "It is not about the school board broadcasts. There are just some in this county who don't want other people to become educated."

I was taken aback. But my experience in Florida for the past two decades is just that: there are some who just don't want people to become educated. Especially among children-- whose sense of right and wrong is so sharp-- the power of learning is a wonderful thing to behold, but it can come at a price that would shock you.

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