The Dream of a Central Park Pasture School - Part 1: A Visit to the Harbor School

Precedent for a new School, True Pastures, and Bringing Sheep back to Central Park

The Pasture School: A Central Park Vision

Central Park lends itself to daydreaming. Its painterly atmosphere, sculpted hills, and mythic statues create the conditions for imagining what could be (I’ve written about the origins of the park and its connection to painting here).

On a recent visit to Central Park’s Sheep Meadow a vision of the park’s future appeared before me. I had initially and intentionally gone there to imagine the sheep that had really been there for many decades (and were removed about a century ago). I have discussed their plight in the context of Prospect Park, but both parks cry out for their return. Though I believe that project in the realm of the possible, in the next few posts I want to lay out how that might be achieved..

It was on this recent visit one clear possibility for the return of the sheep and the true pasture emerged: through education—and specifically through a Central Park Pasture School.

Before I lay out what such a school might look like and why it could be a truly fruitful endeavor for the City of New York and its connection to the countryside and its farmers (as I’ll do in a follow-up post) it is crucial to note that this isn’t pure fantasy. In fact a model for this school already exists and it is right here in the City. That school is the New York Harbor School.

Precedent for CPPS: Meet the Harbor School (It really exists!)

Like many districts, New York City has real, on-going challenges with many of its schools, however it also has its share of resounding successes. With nearly a million school children in its care and a public/private partnership model for many of its newer schools a fair amount variety and experimentation is possible. The Harbor School emerged in this context in 2003. On one hand this high school seemed a throwback to the trade schools of a previous era. It found its final home on Governors Island, a small island just off the south end of Manhattan (and across the Buttermilk Channel on its Brooklyn side). Governors Island had served many purposes over the centuries, but more recently its time as a Navy (and then Coast Guard) base had lent the island a certain abandoned institutional quality. The Harbor School was part of the revitalization plan and indeed all its curriculum was to be centered around the water of the New York Bay, including vessel operations, ocean engineering, and marine biology. All of these became part of this incredible school, but the school truly came into being because of its Twenty-First century qualities. That is, these traditional trade school qualities were paired with a deep and active environmentalist commitment.

Each school day around 400 students ferry over to Governors Island and alongside their math and writing curriculums the harbor at the foot of their school building serves as their “outdoor laboratory.” Over the years their school projects have intertwined with efforts to improve the Bay. Significantly, students work with the Billion Oyster Project, a Governors Island-based non-profit dedicated to reseeding the bay with a billion oysters. Oysters (which I will cover in depth here in the future) have remarkable filter features which help to literally clean the toxins out of our waters. Their beds simultaneously help provide a base for rebuilding the complex habitats that make an ecosystem thrive. If you visit the Billion Oyster Project you might find Harbor School students growing the spats that will become the oysters that will go into the bay or decked out in SCUBA gear ready to install a new oyster “farm” into the harbor waters. The Harbor School is a model for what all NYC high schools should be—a mix of traditional academics and engaged in meaningful exchange with the world. It is the reality of the Harbor School that gave rise to a dream of the Central Park Pasture School.

So here we have public/private support for educational approaches that draw upon New York’s environmental resources. In the next post (coming soon), I’ll lay out a vision for the Central Park Pasture School—a transformative high school experience in the heart of New York City—with sheep!