Antonio Machado, the Spanish poet, wrote, “Caminante, no hay camino.  Se hace camino al andar.” – Traveler, there is no path.  We make the path by walking.  At PS 161, the public elementary school where I work in New York City, we are trying to make a path to greater sustainability that has many inspirations but few precedents.  The NYC Department of Education recently announced that it has opened its first “green” public school, and I’m disappointed it wasn’t ours.  That disappointment is tempered by the realization that a) green schools are on the rise and b) many such schools are on the path we at PS 161 are trying to walk.

Teaching elementary school can be exasperating – Where’s your pencil?!  Sit down!  Stand in line!  Yes, I mean it.  No, that is not edible and get it out of your mouth.  It can also be inspiring.  Daily I am given reminders by our students that as adults we often miss the small delights around us. A student recently suggested that I might want to put a garden on our school roof.  Why?  Not because of a desire for localized economics or sustainable food practices or access to pesticide-free vegetables.  “Maybe you want to garden on the roof because it’s your hobby.”

What does a green public school look like in New York City?  That is what a number of us, at PS 161 and around the city, are trying to figure out.  My job involves finding ways to engage, educate, and inspire the students at my school: potential stewards and innovators of tomorrow, to highlight the sometimes hidden connections between the benefits of jumping rope to combat obesity and the use of compostable trays in the lunch room.  Together, we are working to raise consciousness and increase participation, to make our school a cleaner, healthier, and more efficient place, to explore possibilities.  Have we officially been recognized as a “green” school by the Department of Education?  No, but we’re making the path as we go.

To celebrate United Nations Peace Week earlier this fall, students made kites out of recycled materials and wrote about them as physical representations of hope.  Did the kites fly?  Some did, some didn’t, and no one seemed to mind one way or the other.  Forget the trees for the forest – we adults often miss the thrill of flight by focusing on the complications of altitude and velocity.  For many of these students the joy of new things is a frequent phenomenon.  Electricity is generated when connections are found between what we study, what we see around us, and what we want for the future.  Talk about an unrealized alternative energy – elementary school students buzzing around on future hopes and dreams.

At a recent conference organized by a national environmental group, ostensibly about reaching out to our country’s Latino population on issues of sustainability, I heard more about Superfund remediation and regional council protocol than I did about health clinics, urban farms, and energy conservation.  I had hoped for content that was more applicable to our context, but I did receive an important reminder: just as large-scale policy development and implementation are necessary, so too are the thousands of incremental steps taken at the local level. Kites from recycled materials and thank you notes and collages about rainforests and drinking water instead of milk at lunch and even simple “Good mornings” said with a smile – these are all steps towards sustainability, for sustainable in a school community (and our culture at large) should be as much about the practice of humanity as about monitoring kilowatt hours, waste tonnage, and body-mass indices.  While a third grader’s stride may be relatively short, she can show us paths we haven’t even dreamed of.  Just ask her.