The idea of school can conjure up memories of sterile, brightly lit classrooms and lectures on grammar or quizzes on algebra. Students of Angie Viands’ class at South Side Occupational Academy, on the other hand, are encouraged to get their hands dirty. As a certified Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Viands teaches agriculture, introducing students to urban farming techniques and organizations in the field.
South Side Occupational Academy serves students with disabilities aged 16-22, though most join after graduating high school. Courses range from culinary classes to business, carpentry, and health sciences. The school also has a student-run pet store and cafe for acquiring various job skills.
Today, Viands’ classes are researching chicken breeds. Viands is working with the carpentry teacher to build coop perches and repair the chicken run, adding protective structures to prevent predator break-ins. Once the chickens arrive, students will feed them, monitor their health, and maintain the coop.
In the fall, students tended to the school orchard. They learnt how to mulch, water, and use integrative pest management. The orchard includes apple, pear, and soon elderberry trees. They also raised microgreens indoors to package and take home.
Once a week, Viands’ classes do “community-based instructions,” visiting local and community-run agricultural spaces to see the work in action. Sometimes students get internships or jobs there.
“Chicago is actually a thriving hub of urban agriculture,” Viands said. “There are lots of little local farms growing produce and distributing through farmers’ markets.”
In Illinois, students with special needs are provided public education up to age 22. After graduation, Viands said, some of her students start working while some go on to community college. “Their paths vary widely.”
When Viands was that age, she studied history and joined AmeriCorps to work on habitat restoration, which led her to work on invasive species removal and prescribed burns in Florida and Oregon. Her interest in agricultural work, however, started much earlier. “I was exposed at a young age because my grandparents had big outdoor gardens,” she said.
After AmeriCorps, Viands got her teaching certifications. She taught middle school, covering social and environmental sciences. She also spent a few years at the Field Museum as an educator before joining the Gary Comer Youth Center. There, her duties shifted to “actually growing food with teenagers.”
When asked about her decision to return to CPS, Viands cited the teachers’ union and the pay scale as the top reasons. Currently, CPS has an annual “step increase” for teacher salaries based on seniority and cost of living adjustments. Viands also noted that they pay more for advanced degree holders. “Hopefully it benefits you to be a more skilled educator,” she said, “The pay scale incentivizes you to stick around.”
Like many teachers, Viands’ work hours can be long. It takes time for students to learn to perform the tasks; in the meantime, she puts in extra work to keep the vegetables and animals alive. She’s also always updating lesson plans.
Viands is a big proponent of career and technical education. “If we had career and technical education for everybody in high school, even people who are definitely going to college, it would help people focus on what they want to do a lot earlier,” she said.
“I like doing this job because it’s applied sciences,” Viands said. “It’s very practical. A lot of us live life fast-paced, you know, getting food from the grocery store.”
Viands appreciates teaching young people how to grow food. “It connects people to nature,” she said. “To be outside, to get sunshine and fresh air and see green things—that’s just helpful for us.”
Susie Xu lives and writes in Chicago.