The Lunch Story of the Students Who Taught Their Principal at Guilin Elementary School in Gukeng

For Jian San-lang, principal of Guilin Elementary School in Gukeng, Yunlin, a conversation he had two years ago in a public setting at the school with all the children still leaves a deep impression on him. At the time, he had not long been transferred to Guilin Elementary School as principal. Eager to encourage the children to keep a good record of their full winter vacation, he excitedly told the sixty students gathered below the podium: "Children who do a good job on their winter vacation homework, the principal will treat you to steak!"

Based on Jian San-lang's experience, children usually dance with joy and cheer loudly when they hear they are getting steak, but unexpectedly the room fell silent. After a moment, the children began answering one after another: "Principal, eating steak is not good, it harms the environment!" "We want to eat plant-based food to save the Earth!"

Having worked in education for more than thirty years, Jian San-lang had always been the one teaching children what to do, and never expected this to be the first time he was educated by children. Not only did Jian San-lang not look displeased, he instead began learning from teachers and students about the benefits of plant-based eating and organic agriculture for health and the environment.

↑Jian San-lang (center) asks community elder farmer Xu Lian-gui (left) for advice on growing vegetables and how to deal with pests.

A Hope Project in Environmental Education Starting with Plant-Based Eating

Guilin Elementary School is located in the famous Huashan area of Gukeng, Yunlin. Besides its natural scenery of rolling mountains, murmuring wild streams and towering green bamboo, it also has a rich variety of agricultural products, including liu-ding oranges, mandarins, bananas, plums, coffee and honey, among others. In response to Yunlin County Magistrate Su Chih-fen's education policy of promoting "one organic vegetable garden per school," the school rotates crops by season, planting vegetables and plants such as cabbage, corn, chive flowers, lettuce, kale and Chinese mahogany shoots. Although the school is very small, surrounded by old trails and old trees, the children have far more opportunities to be close to nature and the land than city children.

When many county and city elementary and junior high schools across the country began promoting a policy of one plant-based lunch per week, why was Guilin Elementary School able to reach four plant-based meals per week? And even win the approval of community parents? The reason this hope project for campus food education has been able to continue to this day is that former principal Chen Ying-cong began promoting plant-based eating more than four years ago, and teachers Huang Jin-shu, Li Ping-gui, Peng Xiang-jing and Hong Rong-zong have long instilled in the children through education a correct understanding of diet.

Teacher Peng Xiang-jing said that because a relative had cancer, she began to be exposed to plant-based eating more than ten years ago. From attending courses at the Bliss and Wisdom Cultural and Educational Foundation, she came to understand that behind food processing there are many invisible chemical additives devouring our health, and that behind livestock production there are also many negative impacts on the environment and on humanity, and she could not help but worry that the modern popular Western diet is affecting the health of Taiwan's next generation.

↑Before lunch at noon, the children put their palms together in thanks for the farmers' hard work in cultivating and providing the ingredients.

In particular, she remembers that three years ago in class, she saw that the children were drowsy during lessons and felt that to improve the children's learning condition and health, one had to start with breakfast. To that end, she photographed the plant-based breakfast she ate and shared it with students' parents during a parenting lecture, and even brought parents to taste her own hand rolls made with whole-wheat wrappers filled with nori sheets, alfalfa sprouts, pumpkin seeds and raisins, conveying healthy dietary concepts, and the parents praised them endlessly after tasting them.

"Plant-Based Food" Is Not "Vegetarian Food"

Retired director Huang Jin-shu of Guilin Elementary School emphasized that most people often mistakenly equate "vegetarian food" with "plant-based food." In fact, from the perspective of dietary health, vegetarian food uses many processed products and has a great many food additives, which is instead harmful to health, while "plant-based food" is the truly healthful and environmentally beneficial way of eating. To promote plant-based eating, Huang Jin-shu, while in office, tried growing all kinds of edible flowers, herbs and plants on campus, and also studied how to make plant-based meals tasty and delicious.

Building on the foundation laid by former principal Chen Ying-cong, and with the cooperation of current principal Jian San-lang and the teachers, they jointly sought outside resources and assistance, taking the opportunity of parent-child education events to invite family medicine physicians, dietitians and volunteers from the Ci-Xin Organic Agriculture Development Foundation to give talks on the problem of food additives and the benefits of plant-based eating. The school also set up a practice restaurant themed around plant-based food called "Guilin My Home." Gradually, community parents also began to accept the concept of plant-based eating, and the campus plant-based meals of "Guilin My Home" also led Guilin Elementary School to be selected as a national excellent school for creative educational travel.

↑Huang Jin-shu turned the campus into a creative kitchen for green plant-based food.

The Organic Vegetable Garden: A New Starting Point for Grandparent-Grandchild Exchange

Besides promoting plant-based food education in the classroom, the organic vegetable garden also became the best medium for the children to carry out outdoor teaching observation and to exchange farming know-how with rural elders. Jian San-lang said that when it comes to how to grow vegetables, the teachers are usually busy with teaching and have little farming experience, but how to grow the vegetables, the children's grandfathers and grandmothers know best.

Mr. Xu Lian-gui, now 77 years old, has a grandson in sixth grade, and was invited to guide the planting of the school's organic vegetable garden. Once, when teachers and students were planting sweet potato leaves, they planted for quite a while without success and asked Mr. Xu to come guide them on site. He could not help but mutter a few phrases in Taiwanese, "How did you plant it like this," and then personally demonstrated how to plant sweet potato leaves. It turned out that when the vines of sweet potato leaves are cut and inserted into the soil, there is a certain direction; if the direction is wrong, the sweet potatoes will not grow. Amazingly, under Xu Lian-gui's guidance, the replanted sweet potato leaves actually succeeded.

Besides guiding vegetable planting, in order to solve the troublesome pest problem of the organic vegetable garden, Xu Lian-gui worked out a method of soaking tobacco in water and spraying it on the vegetable leaves to repel insects, and even used local materials by laying betel nut leaves on the soil layer to suppress weed growth, saving costs. Whenever he sees the grandchild-generation children happily harvesting organic vegetables, Xu Lian-gui shows a satisfied smile.

↑The children listen carefully as Grandpa Xu Lian-gui introduces the characteristics of vegetable cultivation.

From one plant-based meal a week starting in 2006, to two plant-based meals a week in 2008, to three plant-based meals a week in 2009, and to four plant-based meals a week in 2010, Jian San-lang said that in the future they will not only move toward the goal of five plant-based meals a week, but also hope to lead Guilin Village toward becoming a health and wellness village. He said that many community parents can already accept the idea of organic principles, and besides growing vegetables without pesticides, they have also reduced the amount of pesticides used in growing fruit trees such as liu-ding oranges and ponkan mandarins.

Although it is a small rural school, the journey of Guilin Elementary School in promoting plant-based food education proves that campus lunch is not a dull daily routine, but can be a green mouth revolution rich in educational content, parent-child interaction and environmental response.

↑The children's first experience practicing cooking in the practice restaurant. (Photo / provided by Guilin Elementary School)

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Guilin Elementary School–‘Gui in Organic’ Learning Website