Slow Food Santa Fe Edition - August 2026

On the August 2026 edition of Slow Food Santa Fe Out Loud, co-hosts Nina Rosenberg and Lisa Johnson speak with Patricia Pontano and Greg Nessbaum, co-founders of Camino de Paz Montessori School and Farm in northern New Mexico. The conversation centers on how the farm functions as an integrated educational and agricultural system, and what visitors can expect from the upcoming farm tour on August 27th. But the deeper thread is about a philosophy of learning and production that refuses to separate head from hand, child from land, or economy from ecology.

The Farm as a Classroom for Connection

Camino de Paz was founded in 1999 on the Montessori principle that adolescents learn best when they live and work together in a community, producing real goods for real markets. Patricia Pontano, who has worked with adolescents for over 35 years, explains that the farm is not a backdrop for lessons but the lesson itself. “Connection and relationship” drive the mission—connection with the land, with each other, and with the broader community. Students don’t just read about bacteria; they work with soil, compost, and food preservation. They don’t just study math; they project the sale of eggs or calculate the yield from four beds of kale. Greg Nessbaum adds that Montessori rejected “intellectual silos of specialization,” and the farm forces a generalist approach: a single project might