That’s certainly a good question!

I’m also thinking of monoculture vs. polyculture. Monocultures produce a higher short-term yield, but are not sustainable; in the worst case, they contribute to situations like the potato famine in Ireland. (I know that capitalism and greed formed another significant cause of the suffering in Ireland, as English landowners were, obscenely, exporting crops for a profit while people starved; but the failure of the potato crop can be attributed to the monocultural farming practices.)

In the U.S. K-12 system, we are dominated by “monoculture” policies. We may stress the importance of differentiation, but this is differentiation to allow students to reach the same goal; no diversity of aims is sanctioned. Creativity is quite often hacked down by the scythe, in the hands of well-intentioned educators, in the interest of producing neat rows of zucchini. There are pockets of biodiversity, but these are the exception rather than the rule; these gardens tend to exist in spite of the prevailing attitudes and policies.

By the way, I’m not trying to pick on zucchini, which I love – my grandpa used to bake delicious zucchini bread with the plants he grew in his yard. 🙂