It’s a brilliant cool morning at Hidden Villa Ranch. Six third-graders and I approach a cow; she chooses this moment to lift her tail and defecate. Splat! The children shriek and giggle. I take my cue: “Yummy, yummy! Look at that! Strawberries! Asparagus! Brownies! Pizza!”
The children stare at me, aghast. “We’ll eat some of that for lunch,” I inform them. More giggles, shrieks, vigorous shaking of heads. “How,” I pause dramatically, “could we turn that into a strawberry milkshake?”
The children look at the steaming fresh cow patty, then at me, then back to the cow patty. They are not sure I’m altogether sane. I repeat the question. Silence. At last Brian speaks.
“You could put it in a blender and add lots of food coloring and sugar and stuff,” he hazards. “Good guess, but not quite. Anyone else?” More silence. Stephanie tries the old black box trick. “You could gather up a whole lot of it and put it in a factory and it could come out a milkshake.”
I relent and help them act out the solution, assigning them the roles of manure, soil, hay, strawberries, cow, farmer, milk, ice cream, and blender. Their two favorite parts are when the farmer has to milk the cow, and the blender gets to mix the strawberries and ice cream together.
We then walk up to the cow and the children feel her huge ribs and smooth coat. I ask them to point to where the milk comes from. That much they know. I ask them how often we have to milk this cow. They have no idea, and guesses range from every two hours to once every three months. Their eyes widen when I tell them it’s twice a day, every day, weekends and holidays.
“This teat here, that’s where whole milk comes from. This one is low-fat, and that one’s non-fat. And this one—as it is a brown cow—this is where the chocolate milk comes from.”
They pat the cow and don’t blink an eye. Good heavens, I thought, they believe me. I hastily recant and explain about cream and milk; they are eager to learn and want to start to milk the cow. But James has the last word: “I don’t like the milk that comes from cows,” he confides. “I like the kind that comes from bottles.”
According to a legend that still circulates at Hidden Villa, once upon a time, four little boys broke into helpless giggles while visiting a cow. When asked what was so funny, all they could do was point to the four pink fleshy teats. Finally one of them managed to say it. “He’s got four of them!”
Unbelievable? Unfortunately, all true. After the initial laughter subsides, there can be two reactions to these stories. Either one can shrug off such amusing ignorance in city children as unimportant—after all, knowing how to program a computer will be more vital to their generation than knowing the various appendages on a cow—or one can be disconcerted by the basic gaps in understanding where food and other necessities come from that such tales demonstrate. What do animals, dirt, forests and air all have to do with people?
The guides with the Hidden Villa Environmental Project, located on an 1800-acre farm and land preserve in Los Altos Hills that brings in 3000 children a year—a 13-year old program, tend to take the latter view. Various shibboleths can, and have, been concocted to try to encapsulate the purpose of HVEP: “Promote ecological understanding.” “Instill an awareness of the environment.” “Teach kids to care.”
But what really happens at Hidden Villa can best be described as the interface between impassioned volunteers and the five or six children they each take on for the day. Volunteers aged 16 to 65, who come to the conclusion, for whatever reasons, that it’s vitally important to get these children out in the woods, touching animals, feeling dirt under their feet instead of concrete; and the five or six children who come expecting an adventure-filled field trip.
But the guides are filled with an evangelical fervor—a sense of bringing true religion to these kids and believe that it’s crucial to these kids’ futures and our own that they understand at a very early age their dependence on the earth and their responsibility to take care of it and its creatures. We stick with it through the problem kids and awkward days because of an earnest, almost desperate idealism, a crusading spirit that this is one of the most important tasks we can set ourselves to in these times.
The brown-eyed calves are even more of a hit than their moms: petted since birth, they have learned to nuzzle up to children like huge kittens. Into this bucolic tableau, I introduce a discordant note: “Little Ben here is a boy. Can we milk boys?” They shake their heads. “What will happen to Ben when he grows up?” Either they don’t know or they don’t want to say it. I tell them evenly that he will be slaughtered for meat.
“No!” squeals Sara. “That’s so mean!” “Do you like hamburger?” I ask her, careful to not sound accusatory. “Yes.” “When was the last time you had a hamburger?” “Last night at dinner.” Now, a standard Hidden Villa question: “Where did it come from?”
She doesn’t answer and keeps stroking Ben’s thick fur. I don’t press her; I can see the wheels turning inside. It’s a shocking experience to realize for the first time that other creatures die to feed you. Shocking to many adults, much less a child who has every reason to believe that meat comes from those neat plastic packages at the supermarket.
Yet those difficult questions are often the most illuminating. The fact that manure, death, and decomposition are such taboo subjects in our culture may explain why these children have such a fragmented understanding of how the world works, and why many of the activities at Hidden Villa are designed to confront these issues head-on.
A striking example is how completely removed most children are from the soil at their feet. Like many others, my group of third-graders is afraid of dirt. They mince out of the cow pen to avoid soiling their gleaming tennis shoes and refuse to sit on the ground in the garden. Dirt is the implacable foe in Mom’s constant battle with Bix, Borax and brighteners, and it’s to be avoided whenever possible. “Dirty” translates freely into the ubiquitous word “gross.” Earth, or soil or mud, in whatever its manifested ions, is a vague enemy to be combated, not a resource to be cherished.
All right, then; we won’t leave the garden until every child has at least one grimy fingernail. I trick them into it by having them pretend their finger is a plant wiggling its roots in a soft earth bed. We visit the strawberry plants and see in actuality what we had before we role-played—manure turning into soil turning into strawberries.
At the compost pile, I ask them if they see cookies and spaghetti dinners in there. From the expressions on their faces, they are seeing mostly eggshells and citrus rinds, but they are trying. I tell them about the little beasties in there working hard to turn this stuff back into good rich dirt. I tell them they need some moral support, a word of cheer; and the word is “decomposing.” We chant the word and perform a suggestive dance wiggle down to the ground from a standing position. Somewhere in their laughter, the beginning awareness has sprouted that soil has something to do with everything they eat. The incomprehensible web of far-away food-producing factories that suspends them off the soil is begging to tear.
On the farm, I am trying to convey the practical links between soil and animals to our stomachs, sweaters, and soles of our shoes. Revolutionary as this usually is, it’s in many ways the easy part.
The rest of the day we will spend hiking in the grasslands, forests and chaparral of the foothills to Santa Cruz Mountain foothills; and what I want to teach is far fuzzier and more conceptual. I can hint at principles of interdependence, cycles, energy, and the whole vast complexity of the natural world. But my more important task is to catalyze an attitude of reverence and responsibility for the land and its creatures. Quite an undertaking for one field trip!
All the kids know, though, is that we’re exploring, playing games and having fun. As I lead my six children up a steep trail, we pause to get mustaches from sticky monkey flower leaves, collect pennyroyal for tea, speculate on who lives in a certain hole, feel moss with our cheeks, smell a bay leaf. Enrique spots a banana slug; these amiable beasts are good for 10 minutes of discussion and handling and a reenactment of the decomposer dance. After seeing me hold it for several minutes with no visible adverse effects, all of the kids venture to touch its gooey skin.
“What’s that?” Anna asks, pointing to a flower in the mustard family. “What would you name it?” I ask back. She thinks for a moment. “White Twinkles,” she says. “From now on, this will be Anna’s White Twinkle Plant” I proclaim. The others are eager to name their own flowers; we soon have George’s Purple Popcorn flower, Sara’s Starburst flower, Jimmy’s Blue Crystals, and many more. Unlike the monikers I could’ve served them pre-cooked and reheated, they digest the names they create, remembering them all day, and spotting their flowers with particular alacrity.
I decided to try an alone walk, an activity that means every child will have to walk about 200 yards of trail alone, slowly, experiencing a sense of solitude with the trees and birds. This may not sound too challenging, but it’s a real test of their faith in me. Several of my children have never taken a hike in the woods before, and fear that lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) await them in the forest. They are already wary of snakes, spiders, nettles, poison oak, and unmarked precipices where they could “fall off,” all lurking around the corner. I’ve learned not to belittle this fear. After all, how safe would I feel walking down one of their neighborhood streets, alone in an utterly alien environment?
Carlos bravely volunteers to go first, and I go ahead and give a coyote yelp as a signal he should begin. He appears in a few minutes, walking slowly and wearing a huge grin. The next, Brian, stops out of sight halfway and yells that he is scared. “Keep going—I was scared too, but I made it,” calls Carlos, and pep-talks him the rest of the way. Some of the others cannot stand the pressing solitude and break into a run. So, later, I try it again. This time, all complete it successfully, and I give them small notepads and pencils to record their feelings about the walk.
“I felt happy. I also felt funny, like something was going to jump out at me and eat me,” wrote Sara. “I thought it was neat, though.” “This land makes me feel kind of like I’m an Indian,” wrote Carlos. “I mean all the sounds. The birds, the water, the leaves. It’s like it’s all mine. I love it all. It’s so peaceful, wonderful.”
Though inexperienced, these children are wonderfully responsive and cooperative, a delight to be with. Not all days are this halcyon. Some children simply go wild outside without the restrictive atmosphere of the classroom, and it’s difficult to contain their energy. Some unleash their fears in violent ways and want to pull up flowers and kill every spider they see. Worst of all is the supercilious children, who profess boredom at everything and frankly tell me that they would rather be playing Pac-Man.
Even during a smooth day like this one, I wonder how much I am getting across—a trifle overwhelmed by how much I am trying to do. I am trying to teach vast concepts and also foster a land ethic in one brief experience sandwiched between bus rides and followed by the identical home environment they got their original misconceptions from. They may not be alone in a wild place, pet a farm animal or eat something fresh again from a garden for years. What I am trying to impart took years to develop in me; how many miracles can I expect to catalyze between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.?
Yet testimony pours in from teachers who bring their classes year after year; from parents, from children who grow up and come back as guides or bring their children back. At least some of it, somehow, seems to stick; and since we try to cover so much and plunge so recklessly into some of the stickiest dilemmas and biggest concepts if even a particle of that remains, some progress has been made.
We go on up and climb to some of the better chaparral areas. In the sun they begin to wilt a little, but I have a lunch spot in mind and devise games to keep them going. When we do reach the mountaintop, with its view of the whole Bay Area from San Jose to San Francisco, all kvetching ceases. Qualms about dirt are also forgotten as they plop gratefully on the ground and open their lunches.
“So who’s eating dirt for lunch?” I ask. They shriek at first, but catch on quickly. “We’re all eating dirt,” says Stephanie firmly.
Like all the children who come to Hidden Villa, they were instructed to bring a lunch that had no garbage in it; but like most, they had trouble understanding this. We pile all the plastic baggies, paper napkins and bags, and aluminum cans in the middle of our circle. “What are you going to do with this stuff?” I ask them. Throw it away, they reply. What if President Reagan got on TV tonight and announced that Congress had just passed a law forbidding anyone to throw anything away? Then what would you do?
They are nonplussed. We first start piling it up in the backyards, and then the house, and soon trash is overflowing in the streets and finally filling a canyon like this one. And where did it come from? Trees, fossils and rocks that had to be mined. I introduce the notion of recycling and they all solemnly promise to go home and use their baggie again.
A few times a parent will express outrage that we are indoctrinating their little one in radical environmental propaganda. “How dare you tell my little Johnny that we ought to recycle.” Clearly, we are promulgating an attitude; and while our motives spring from our own deep convictions, our methods are not the simple inculcation of ecological dogma that could be assumed. On the whole, we ask questions, not pontificate answers.
As we gaze at the unspoiled forested canyon behind us, I tell them about 96-year-old Frank Duvenek, who bought this land 60 years ago and decided to preserve it for people like us to enjoy. What would they do if they owned Hidden Villa? George replies that he would take a giant bulldozer and clear off all the trees and create an enormous playground. But the others object fiercely and talk him down to two swing-sets in the parking lot. I stay out of the debate.
We then talk about how many people and houses we can see from here, and where the smog came from, and how big the bay used to be.
Some of my questions leave them perplexed, which is as it should be. There aren’t easy solutions to the problems of urban sprawl, overpopulation, pollution, and resource use that I can smoothly stuff down their throats. All I can do is get them to think about it, to grasp at least the general outlines of the problems, and to raise the possibility that they can do something in their own lives to be part of the solutions.
After lunch, they have completely lost their initial fears and are curious about everything. We spot a hawk and pick through dried coyote scat, which I initially dub “used mouse,” and only later explain how it is the mouse came to be used. We play a running game aptly called “rump-bump” down the hill and at the bottom splash in the creek and hunt for critters.
As someone who believes in the healing powers of wild places and the universal magic of wild places, it is gratifying to see the changes wrought in my children after just one day. Their faces are shining and even the shyest ones are chattering excitedly.
Yet, have I taught them all I could? They are leaving for the identical home environment. How much of it will stick? Are they feeling, sharing my feelings, learning not just facts but how to feel?
At a huge moss-covered bay tree, I instruct them to each embrace the trunk. What do trees give us? Oxygen, shade, fuel, fruit, wood, and so on. But I want them to make the tree a friend, not just a provider of practical things. I want them to hug it, to imagine what it would be like to be a tree, to seal the friendship with a secret.
I walk these trails with great expectations. I go with these children because I feel I can actively make some of my ideas come true. A child goes home transformed; something tangible has happened. I can see the joy and the awakening in a child’s eyes. Perhaps our crusade is idealistic. But it’s better than giving up. At least I know I am doing something.
And I can take home a vision. Six children hugging a tree.
Gale Warner
Unpublished, 1983