Transforming schools

Start a farm-to-school initiative.

Farm-to-school, also called local food-to-school (to acknowledge important non-farm, traditional food sources) is a movement focusing on directing the enormous food purchasing power of schools and universities to support local, small-scale, organic farmers and other food producers. This in turn improves children's health and nutrition, benefits the environment, and imparts a vital, holistic education about and connection to food.

Take action

In the US:

Shift procurement policies in private and public schools with Vermont FEED's Local Food Procurement Toolkit and Farm to School Planning Toolkit, featuring information, paperwork templates, and forms specific to schools.
Make use of Getting Started With Farm to School, by the National Farm to School Network, providing "simple first steps [that] will help you develop a lasting farm to school initiative in your community."
Use farm-to-school programs to educate about the broader food system with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Farm to School Youth Leadership Curriculum, "designed to empower youth, teach them about their local food system, engage them in meaningful, hands-on learning activities that also strengthen their school’s Farm to School program and link them directly with farmers in their community."
Check out the Farm to School policies and policy advocacy tools, and the State Farm to School Policy Handbook for those working to advance the farm to school movement through supportive policies, from the National Farm to School Network.
Find resources "to implement, sustain, and maintain your farm to school program" from the US Office of Community Food Systems.
For Native American communities, see the Native Farm-to-School Resource Guide, from the First Nations Development Institute.

In Canada:

Check out the Resource Centre from Farm to Cafeteria Canada, sharing guides and stories from New Brunswick, British Columbia, Ontario and elsewhere.
See A Fresh Crunch in School Lunch: The BC Farm to School Guide, which provides "information on how to set-up, maintain, promote, evaluate and celebrate a F2S program in your community."

Get inspired

The Mouans-Sartoux’s Municipal Farm-to-School Program in France involved a town council purchase of an old farm estate that was slated for development and designation of over 100 hectares of land in the area as protected farmland. The municipality also set a goal that 100% of the food served to children in the region’s public schools should be local and organic, and updated their procurement policies to make it easier for small producers in the area to meet school catering needs.
In Five Things We Can Learn from Brazil’s School Meal Program, Colleen Kimmett reports on how Brazil spends over $1 billion per year on its national school food program, which stipulates that at least 30 percent of food purchased for the program must come from small family farmers, providing "an incentive for farmers to organize in co-operatives so they can meet schools’ demands for large quantities of high quality produce."
The Brazil school food program has informed the Purchase from Africans for Africa program, linking smallholder agriculture with school feeding through local procurement for hundreds of schools in numerous African countries. It has also influenced the Sustainable Schools program in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The farm-to-school movement in Canada is connecting students to healthy, local foods in hundreds of schools across the country, and supporting local food producers with some $16 million in annual spending, according to the Benefits of Farm to School report from Farm to Cafeteria Canada. In Quebéc, under the government's bio-food program, participating schools sourced up to 87% of salad bar ingredients from local producers, as shown in Salad Bars Bring Local Food to School: Recognizing Local Procurement in 9 Quebéc Schools.
Farm to school programs benefit local economies and farmers, public health and nutrition, and the environment. Read more in The Benefits of Farm to School from the National Farm to School Network in the US.
In 2021, the National Farm-to-School Institute at Shelburne Farms in Vermont, US, secured $5 million of federal funding.
In The Next Chapter for Farm to School: Milling Whole Grains in the Cafeteria, Hannah Wallace reports that "Oregon’s legislature has been funding farm-to-school projects since 2007, when it budgeted for a permanent, full-time farm-to-school manager position. In July [2021], the legislature re-upped the Oregon Farm-to-School Grant Program, setting aside $10.2 million in funding for schools to purchase and serve Oregon-grown foods."

‍

Next Action

Start a farm-to-school initiative.

Farm-to-school, also called local food-to-school (to acknowledge important non-farm, traditional food sources) is a movement focusing on directing the enormous food purchasing power of schools and universities to support local, small-scale, organic farmers and other food producers. This in turn improves children's health and nutrition, benefits the environment, and imparts a vital, holistic education about and connection to food.

Take action

In the US:

Shift procurement policies in private and public schools with Vermont FEED's Local Food Procurement Toolkit and Farm to School Planning Toolkit, featuring information, paperwork templates, and forms specific to schools.
Make use of Getting Started With Farm to School, by the National Farm to School Network, providing "simple first steps [that] will help you develop a lasting farm to school initiative in your community."
Use farm-to-school programs to educate about the broader food system with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Farm to School Youth Leadership Curriculum, "designed to empower youth, teach them about their local food system, engage them in meaningful, hands-on learning activities that also strengthen their school’s Farm to School program and link them directly with farmers in their community."
Check out the Farm to School policies and policy advocacy tools, and the State Farm to School Policy Handbook for those working to advance the farm to school movement through supportive policies, from the National Farm to School Network.
Find resources "to implement, sustain, and maintain your farm to school program" from the US Office of Community Food Systems.
For Native American communities, see the Native Farm-to-School Resource Guide, from the First Nations Development Institute.

In Canada:

Check out the Resource Centre from Farm to Cafeteria Canada, sharing guides and stories from New Brunswick, British Columbia, Ontario and elsewhere.
See A Fresh Crunch in School Lunch: The BC Farm to School Guide, which provides "information on how to set-up, maintain, promote, evaluate and celebrate a F2S program in your community."

Get inspired

The Mouans-Sartoux’s Municipal Farm-to-School Program in France involved a town council purchase of an old farm estate that was slated for development and designation of over 100 hectares of land in the area as protected farmland. The municipality also set a goal that 100% of the food served to children in the region’s public schools should be local and organic, and updated their procurement policies to make it easier for small producers in the area to meet school catering needs.
In Five Things We Can Learn from Brazil’s School Meal Program, Colleen Kimmett reports on how Brazil spends over $1 billion per year on its national school food program, which stipulates that at least 30 percent of food purchased for the program must come from small family farmers, providing "an incentive for farmers to organize in co-operatives so they can meet schools’ demands for large quantities of high quality produce."
The Brazil school food program has informed the Purchase from Africans for Africa program, linking smallholder agriculture with school feeding through local procurement for hundreds of schools in numerous African countries. It has also influenced the Sustainable Schools program in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The farm-to-school movement in Canada is connecting students to healthy, local foods in hundreds of schools across the country, and supporting local food producers with some $16 million in annual spending, according to the Benefits of Farm to School report from Farm to Cafeteria Canada. In Quebéc, under the government's bio-food program, participating schools sourced up to 87% of salad bar ingredients from local producers, as shown in Salad Bars Bring Local Food to School: Recognizing Local Procurement in 9 Quebéc Schools.
Farm to school programs benefit local economies and farmers, public health and nutrition, and the environment. Read more in The Benefits of Farm to School from the National Farm to School Network in the US.
In 2021, the National Farm-to-School Institute at Shelburne Farms in Vermont, US, secured $5 million of federal funding.
In The Next Chapter for Farm to School: Milling Whole Grains in the Cafeteria, Hannah Wallace reports that "Oregon’s legislature has been funding farm-to-school projects since 2007, when it budgeted for a permanent, full-time farm-to-school manager position. In July [2021], the legislature re-upped the Oregon Farm-to-School Grant Program, setting aside $10.2 million in funding for schools to purchase and serve Oregon-grown foods."

Previous Action

Start a school garden.

School gardens help get children outside and physically active; provide crucial education about the reality of food origins and fundamentals of ecology; and can help foster a life-long commitment to local, sustainable agriculture and food systems.

Take action

Get started with the Center for Ecoliteracy's Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms, and Cultivating Healthy Communities: School Garden Manual from Seeds of Solidarity Education Center.
Dive deeper with The School Garden Curriculum: An Integrated K-8 Guide for Discovering Science, Ecology, and Whole-Systems Thinking, by Kaci Rae Christopher, offering a "comprehensive framework, enabling students to grow their knowledge throughout the school year and build on it from kindergarten to eighth grade," and helping "develop organic gardening solutions, a positive land ethic, systems thinking, and instincts for ecological stewardship."
Access the US-based Edible Schoolyard Project's integrated curriculum of 62 lessons, sharing pedagogy, philosophy, practices, and approach to curriculum development, from school garden to kitchen. Connect with the global Edible Schoolyard Network.
See the teaching resources from Sustainable Schools New South Wales, in Australia, including learning and lesson plans, a kitchen garden syllabus and teacher training guides.
Check out program ideas, a crop planning guide and curricula from the garden to the kitchen from Farm to School BC (Canada). For Australia, consult Eat Your Garden: Organic Gardening for Home and Schools, by Leonie Shanahan of Edible School Gardens, and Seed to Seed: Food Gardens In Schools by Jude Fanton and Jo Immig, covering how to plan, install, maintain and utilize food gardens in schools.
Incorporate permaculture design principles into your school garden with Matt Powers' e-book, Permaculture for School Gardens, and Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share in Education: The Children in Permaculture Manual, by Children in Permaculture.
Produce your school garden's own fertility by composting food waste, using A Guide to Starting a Composting Program in Your School by Green Mountain Farm to School in Vermont, US.
Check out Asphalt to Ecosystems by Sharon Gamson Danks, "a compelling color guidebook for designing and building natural schoolyard environments", featuring 150 examples from 11 countries.

Get inspired

With the support of Slow Food International and the Rojava Ministry of Water and Agriculture, the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement helped build a series of school gardens in villages around the city of Kobane, Syria, in order to provide a "laboratory" for children to learn about the region’s biodiversity and how to care for it. Read more in Agriculture and Autonomy in the Middle East on Local Futures' blog.
In Timor Leste, Permatil promotes regenerative agriculture through many avenues, including a national farmers’ network and the inclusion of place-based agricultural education and school gardens into the national school curriculum. Learn more about Permatil in Planet Local, Local Futures' library of alternatives.
In Schools turn nutrition gardens in Mizoram district, Rahul Karmakar writes about the My School, My Farm program in the Indian state of Mizoram which is aiming to create "nutrition gardens" in every school in the district in order to both impart environmental education and tackle food insecurity and malnutrition.
Seeds of Solidarity, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts, US, has partnered with six schools in a low-income working-class area to address problems of obesity and food insecurity by helping to put fresh, local food on the menu and educate teachers and students about nutrition and food policy. Read more in Sowing Seeds of Solidarity by Leah Penniman in Rethinking Schools.

‍

Next Action

Start a school garden.

School gardens help get children outside and physically active; provide crucial education about the reality of food origins and fundamentals of ecology; and can help foster a life-long commitment to local, sustainable agriculture and food systems.

Take action

Get started with the Center for Ecoliteracy's Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms, and Cultivating Healthy Communities: School Garden Manual from Seeds of Solidarity Education Center.
Dive deeper with The School Garden Curriculum: An Integrated K-8 Guide for Discovering Science, Ecology, and Whole-Systems Thinking, by Kaci Rae Christopher, offering a "comprehensive framework, enabling students to grow their knowledge throughout the school year and build on it from kindergarten to eighth grade," and helping "develop organic gardening solutions, a positive land ethic, systems thinking, and instincts for ecological stewardship."
Access the US-based Edible Schoolyard Project's integrated curriculum of 62 lessons, sharing pedagogy, philosophy, practices, and approach to curriculum development, from school garden to kitchen. Connect with the global Edible Schoolyard Network.
See the teaching resources from Sustainable Schools New South Wales, in Australia, including learning and lesson plans, a kitchen garden syllabus and teacher training guides.
Check out program ideas, a crop planning guide and curricula from the garden to the kitchen from Farm to School BC (Canada). For Australia, consult Eat Your Garden: Organic Gardening for Home and Schools, by Leonie Shanahan of Edible School Gardens, and Seed to Seed: Food Gardens In Schools by Jude Fanton and Jo Immig, covering how to plan, install, maintain and utilize food gardens in schools.
Incorporate permaculture design principles into your school garden with Matt Powers' e-book, Permaculture for School Gardens, and Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share in Education: The Children in Permaculture Manual, by Children in Permaculture.
Produce your school garden's own fertility by composting food waste, using A Guide to Starting a Composting Program in Your School by Green Mountain Farm to School in Vermont, US.
Check out Asphalt to Ecosystems by Sharon Gamson Danks, "a compelling color guidebook for designing and building natural schoolyard environments", featuring 150 examples from 11 countries.

Get inspired

With the support of Slow Food International and the Rojava Ministry of Water and Agriculture, the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement helped build a series of school gardens in villages around the city of Kobane, Syria, in order to provide a "laboratory" for children to learn about the region’s biodiversity and how to care for it. Read more in Agriculture and Autonomy in the Middle East on Local Futures' blog.
In Timor Leste, Permatil promotes regenerative agriculture through many avenues, including a national farmers’ network and the inclusion of place-based agricultural education and school gardens into the national school curriculum. Learn more about Permatil in Planet Local, Local Futures' library of alternatives.
In Schools turn nutrition gardens in Mizoram district, Rahul Karmakar writes about the My School, My Farm program in the Indian state of Mizoram which is aiming to create "nutrition gardens" in every school in the district in order to both impart environmental education and tackle food insecurity and malnutrition.
Seeds of Solidarity, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts, US, has partnered with six schools in a low-income working-class area to address problems of obesity and food insecurity by helping to put fresh, local food on the menu and educate teachers and students about nutrition and food policy. Read more in Sowing Seeds of Solidarity by Leah Penniman in Rethinking Schools.

Previous Action

Introduce holistic programs into public schools.

Introducing holistic learning programs and modalities into public schools is important for reaching the many millions of young people worldwide who learn within public school systems. Administrators, teachers, parents, and students themselves have introduced edible schoolyards, outdoor learning, Montessori education, mindfulness, and more into public school districts around the world. With these resources, you can bring holistic education into your local public school.

Take action

Create public school gardens with the Greening Schoolyards Advocacy Toolkit from the Children and Nature Network.
Weave permaculture principles into public school gardens and curriculums with these three books: Outdoor Classrooms – A Handbook for School Gardens; Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share in Education; and The School Garden Curriculum: An Integrated K-8 Guide for Discovering Science, Ecology, and Whole-Systems Thinking.
In the US, encourage your district to offer a Montessori public school program, joining more than 500 schools across the country. The Montessori Public Schools page of the American Montessori Society offers resources to help.
Bring mindfulness practices and learning into schools with Implementing Mindfulness in Schools: An Evidence-Based Guide from the Mindfulness Initiative, the Mindfulness in Education Handbook, and the Mindfulness-Based Learning Resources from the Coalition of Schools Educating Mindfully.
Learn about the multifaceted dimensions of holistic education in a cross-cultural perspective, and its transformative potentials for advancing personal and planetary wellbeing, in the International Handbook of Holistic Education. Connect with the Center for Holistic Education at Southern Oregon University, and the Education and Being initiative.

Get inspired

The Cringila Public School permaculture garden near Sydney, Australia is an oasis for gardening and cooking, all student-directed, within an industrial suburb.
Dumingag National High Dapiwan Extension, a public high school built for Indigenous youth in Dumingag, Philippines, centers organic farming in its education curriculum.
Monocacy Montessori Communities, Inc in Maryland, USA operates two Montessori public charter schools, including one for high school students, serving hundreds of students.
The WESSA Eco-Schools Programme, based in South Africa, has reached 4500 schools and over 1 million students worldwide with project-based environmental education in schools.
SECMOL, the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, has for over 20 years put into practice a head, hands, and heart vision of education for youth from across the region that have been failed by the mainstream system.
Project DEFY is a holistic education initiative based in India and reaching as far as Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, that is pioneering new learning spaces which have no teachers, exams or curricula; where children and adults of all ages decide what, when and how they learn.
The Global Ecology Studies Program at Poolesville High School in Maryland, USA, is an environmental education program within a non-charter public school that emphasizes field trips and integrating sustainability into standard subjects. Your author is an alum. :)

‍

Next Action

Introduce holistic programs into public schools.

Introducing holistic learning programs and modalities into public schools is important for reaching the many millions of young people worldwide who learn within public school systems. Administrators, teachers, parents, and students themselves have introduced edible schoolyards, outdoor learning, Montessori education, mindfulness, and more into public school districts around the world. With these resources, you can bring holistic education into your local public school.

Take action

Create public school gardens with the Greening Schoolyards Advocacy Toolkit from the Children and Nature Network.
Weave permaculture principles into public school gardens and curriculums with these three books: Outdoor Classrooms – A Handbook for School Gardens; Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share in Education; and The School Garden Curriculum: An Integrated K-8 Guide for Discovering Science, Ecology, and Whole-Systems Thinking.
In the US, encourage your district to offer a Montessori public school program, joining more than 500 schools across the country. The Montessori Public Schools page of the American Montessori Society offers resources to help.
Bring mindfulness practices and learning into schools with Implementing Mindfulness in Schools: An Evidence-Based Guide from the Mindfulness Initiative, the Mindfulness in Education Handbook, and the Mindfulness-Based Learning Resources from the Coalition of Schools Educating Mindfully.
Learn about the multifaceted dimensions of holistic education in a cross-cultural perspective, and its transformative potentials for advancing personal and planetary wellbeing, in the International Handbook of Holistic Education. Connect with the Center for Holistic Education at Southern Oregon University, and the Education and Being initiative.

Get inspired

The Cringila Public School permaculture garden near Sydney, Australia is an oasis for gardening and cooking, all student-directed, within an industrial suburb.
Dumingag National High Dapiwan Extension, a public high school built for Indigenous youth in Dumingag, Philippines, centers organic farming in its education curriculum.
Monocacy Montessori Communities, Inc in Maryland, USA operates two Montessori public charter schools, including one for high school students, serving hundreds of students.
The WESSA Eco-Schools Programme, based in South Africa, has reached 4500 schools and over 1 million students worldwide with project-based environmental education in schools.
SECMOL, the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, has for over 20 years put into practice a head, hands, and heart vision of education for youth from across the region that have been failed by the mainstream system.
Project DEFY is a holistic education initiative based in India and reaching as far as Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, that is pioneering new learning spaces which have no teachers, exams or curricula; where children and adults of all ages decide what, when and how they learn.
The Global Ecology Studies Program at Poolesville High School in Maryland, USA, is an environmental education program within a non-charter public school that emphasizes field trips and integrating sustainability into standard subjects. Your author is an alum. :)

Previous Action

Resist corporatization and commercialization of schools.

Pushing back against the intrusion of corporations into public schools is essential for maintaining the integrity of our education systems. Unfortunately, companies are increasingly taking over schools, colleges and universities around the world: buying influence, shaping and limiting curricula and research, and molding ideologies and beliefs in their own image and interest. Join others in liberating educational institutions from the corrosive influence of corporatization with the following resources.

Take Action

Learn what's at stake and why the corporatization of education must be resisted with books including The Corporatization of Education by Kenneth J. Saltman, Giving Kids the Business, by Alex Molnar, The University in Chains by Henry J. Giroux, and Corporatizing Rural Education by Jason A. Cervone.
Get involved in Education International's Students Before Profit campaign, advocating against the expansion of profit making in education.
Watch Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom, by the Media Education Foundation, exploring "how education is short-changed and democracy is at risk when schools become marketplaces and commercialism goes to the head of the class."

Get inspired

In This Is What Happened When Scholastic Tried to Bring Pro-Coal Propaganda to School, Bill Bigelow shares the story of how educators and activists stopped Big Coal from inserting its propaganda into classrooms in the US.
Learn about how and why Mexico banned junk food in schools in this interview with the director of the country's Nutrition and Health Research Center.

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Next Action

Resist corporatization and commercialization of schools.

Pushing back against the intrusion of corporations into public schools is essential for maintaining the integrity of our education systems. Unfortunately, companies are increasingly taking over schools, colleges and universities around the world: buying influence, shaping and limiting curricula and research, and molding ideologies and beliefs in their own image and interest. Join others in liberating educational institutions from the corrosive influence of corporatization with the following resources.

Take Action

Learn what's at stake and why the corporatization of education must be resisted with books including The Corporatization of Education by Kenneth J. Saltman, Giving Kids the Business, by Alex Molnar, The University in Chains by Henry J. Giroux, and Corporatizing Rural Education by Jason A. Cervone.
Get involved in Education International's Students Before Profit campaign, advocating against the expansion of profit making in education.
Watch Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom, by the Media Education Foundation, exploring "how education is short-changed and democracy is at risk when schools become marketplaces and commercialism goes to the head of the class."

Get inspired

In This Is What Happened When Scholastic Tried to Bring Pro-Coal Propaganda to School, Bill Bigelow shares the story of how educators and activists stopped Big Coal from inserting its propaganda into classrooms in the US.
Learn about how and why Mexico banned junk food in schools in this interview with the director of the country's Nutrition and Health Research Center.

Previous Action

Create community-based learning opportunities in schools.

Creating opportunities for students to engage with real-world issues in their regions not only enriches their connection to their local communities and environments, but also instills a sense of agency and pride that will last a lifetime. In this Action, learn about high schools that center project-based community engagement in their curricula, and discover how to introduce this practice into schools in your area.

Take action

Browse a list of US schools that implement project- and community-based education opportunities through the Schools List database by Getting Smart.
Bring place-based education to your local school with the article and resource list Getting Started With Place-Based Education, Step-by-Step and the Quick Start Guide to Implementing Place-Based Education by Teton Science Schools.
Create a compelling case to your local policy makers for community-based education in public schools with the guide High School & the Future of Work by XQ, which offers roadmaps and examples of innovative, project-centered high schools from across the US.

Get inspired

Low-income high school students throughout the US create projects engaging in environmental justice issues in their local communities through mentorship from Howard University students. Read more in the article How Environmental Education is Moving into High Schools by Nonprofit Quarterly.
Public school students at Iowa BIG in the US partner with community organizations to carry out interdisciplinary projects, receiving course credits in English, Social Studies, and Business.
In 1966, a teacher in rural Georgia, US set aside the standard English curriculum and challenged his students to publish a magazine. For more than 50 years, high school students published The Foxfire Magazine twice a year, writing stories about Appalachian culture, skills, and perspectives collected from local community members. With proceeds from the magazine and books published, students also created a nonprofit and a cultural heritage center. Today, publication continues as a summer program.

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Next Action

Create community-based learning opportunities in schools.

Creating opportunities for students to engage with real-world issues in their regions not only enriches their connection to their local communities and environments, but also instills a sense of agency and pride that will last a lifetime. In this Action, learn about high schools that center project-based community engagement in their curricula, and discover how to introduce this practice into schools in your area.

Take action

Browse a list of US schools that implement project- and community-based education opportunities through the Schools List database by Getting Smart.
Bring place-based education to your local school with the article and resource list Getting Started With Place-Based Education, Step-by-Step and the Quick Start Guide to Implementing Place-Based Education by Teton Science Schools.
Create a compelling case to your local policy makers for community-based education in public schools with the guide High School & the Future of Work by XQ, which offers roadmaps and examples of innovative, project-centered high schools from across the US.

Get inspired

Low-income high school students throughout the US create projects engaging in environmental justice issues in their local communities through mentorship from Howard University students. Read more in the article How Environmental Education is Moving into High Schools by Nonprofit Quarterly.
Public school students at Iowa BIG in the US partner with community organizations to carry out interdisciplinary projects, receiving course credits in English, Social Studies, and Business.
In 1966, a teacher in rural Georgia, US set aside the standard English curriculum and challenged his students to publish a magazine. For more than 50 years, high school students published The Foxfire Magazine twice a year, writing stories about Appalachian culture, skills, and perspectives collected from local community members. With proceeds from the magazine and books published, students also created a nonprofit and a cultural heritage center. Today, publication continues as a summer program.

Previous Action

Resist tech in schools.

Technologies - especially digital technologies like computers, tablets and smartphones - are increasingly encroaching on school classrooms under the fatalistic belief that this is the 'future of learning', that children need to immerse in such technologies in order to compete in an ever-more competitive tech-dominated society. The downsides of this technological takeover of education are legion: from the physical and mental health of children, to the quality of learning and capacity for critical thinking, to Big Tech companies profiteering, it's time to push pause on the technologization of education.

Take Action

Check out the Action Resources on How to Make Schools Phone-Free, by The Anxious Generation, a project based on social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's book of the same name that explores the harms of the "mass migration of childhood into the virtual world" and "the transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood."
Make use of Manhattan Institute's Model Legislation to Restrict Smartphone Use in K–12 Public Schools to learn background about how smartphones are contributing to distraction, anxiety, loneliness, distress, physical health, connection to nature, and healthy socialization of kids, and why they should be restricted or banned in schools accordingly.
If you're initiating or want to strengthen a campaign to ban cell phones in schools, consult the phone ban resources for schools from Common Sense Education.
Use the Privacy for Students guide by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to learn how schools are increasingly adopting surveillance technology to spy on students, and how to resist this.
Join and celebrate Screen-Free Week in your school with these resources from the American Association for the Child's Right to Play.
Look for schools that already embrace a low- or no-tech approach, such as Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia and various nature-based or forest schools. In North America, find a Waldorf school or a public Montessori school near you. Globally, search the Waldorf 100 Map, and consult the country list of the Association Montessori Internationale and the Reggio Alliance.

Get Inspired

In May 2025, to promote "distraction-free" learning, New York became the largest state in the the US with statewide restrictions on smartphones in schools throughout the entire school day, and now a majority of US states have laws banning or regulating cellphones in schools.
Olivia Reingold tells the story of how sociologist and author Jonathan Haidt has largely won the fight against smartphones in schools.

‍

Resist tech in schools.

Technologies - especially digital technologies like computers, tablets and smartphones - are increasingly encroaching on school classrooms under the fatalistic belief that this is the 'future of learning', that children need to immerse in such technologies in order to compete in an ever-more competitive tech-dominated society. The downsides of this technological takeover of education are legion: from the physical and mental health of children, to the quality of learning and capacity for critical thinking, to Big Tech companies profiteering, it's time to push pause on the technologization of education.

Take Action

Check out the Action Resources on How to Make Schools Phone-Free, by The Anxious Generation, a project based on social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's book of the same name that explores the harms of the "mass migration of childhood into the virtual world" and "the transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood."
Make use of Manhattan Institute's Model Legislation to Restrict Smartphone Use in K–12 Public Schools to learn background about how smartphones are contributing to distraction, anxiety, loneliness, distress, physical health, connection to nature, and healthy socialization of kids, and why they should be restricted or banned in schools accordingly.
If you're initiating or want to strengthen a campaign to ban cell phones in schools, consult the phone ban resources for schools from Common Sense Education.
Use the Privacy for Students guide by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to learn how schools are increasingly adopting surveillance technology to spy on students, and how to resist this.
Join and celebrate Screen-Free Week in your school with these resources from the American Association for the Child's Right to Play.
Look for schools that already embrace a low- or no-tech approach, such as Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia and various nature-based or forest schools. In North America, find a Waldorf school or a public Montessori school near you. Globally, search the Waldorf 100 Map, and consult the country list of the Association Montessori Internationale and the Reggio Alliance.

Get Inspired

In May 2025, to promote "distraction-free" learning, New York became the largest state in the the US with statewide restrictions on smartphones in schools throughout the entire school day, and now a majority of US states have laws banning or regulating cellphones in schools.
Olivia Reingold tells the story of how sociologist and author Jonathan Haidt has largely won the fight against smartphones in schools.