The Michelle Effect

Caitlin Flanagan, whom many would call a reactionary, launched an attack on school gardens in the Atlantic yesterday, suggesting that teaching our kids about how things grow will undesirably eat into the time we ought to be using to teach them how to do advanced math.

Flanagan blames new Changemaker Alice Waters for garden-mania.

But it's bigger than Alice. It might even be bigger than First Lady Michelle Obama.

Mrs. Obama's garden continues to garner a lot of attention, not just from the media but from visiting foreign dignitaries.

The 1,000-plus square-foot plot has, according to the Associated Press, "yielded more than 1,000 pounds of sweet potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli, fennel, lettuce, other vegetables and herbs," much of which is eaten in the White House. A nearby beehive has produced almost 150 pounds of honey.

And that isn't all the Obamas have gotten from the garden: Mrs. Obama told the AP that she began to take an interest in gardening when her young daughters' pediatrician expressed concern that they were eating too much processed food. (To their credit, the adult Obamas were pretty busy even before they moved in to the White House.)

Sasha and Malia now police her diet; sometimes, Mrs. Obama said, "they look at my plate in disgust."

This kind of transformation, personal and public, can't be generated by a single program, no matter how revolutionary. And it most definitely is not the sign of a failed program.

Photo credit: America.gov