This week I spent Tuesday opening up the garden at Lydia Hawk for my very first garden recess, and I believe the first garden recess for the students since before the pandemic. Michaela had a meeting to attend so she gave me a brief rundown of what the recess looks like. She explained that I was the first person she let jump in blind, without a day of modeling done by her. I was eager to start and have time to spend with kiddos in the garden with a free structure as opposed to the field trip lesson plans. Michaela helped me get the recess schedule and introduced me to the recess teachers and we handed them four seed packets to serve as ‘recess tickets’ to hand out to kiddos as a pass to come hang out in the garden. The plan was originally to start off with four students in the garden at a time but as more and more came over to see what was happening excited to see someone in the garden, I upped the tickets to six and let more students in at a time.
This week morels popped up in the garden beds, we believe due to the heat waves of this past summer. My first lesson plan for the recess involved exploring what was growing in the beds including the morels. I gave a brief background on mushroom harvesting and the importance of identifying and cooking mushrooms. We began to collect data to see if more would pop up and I had students go around and count all of the mushrooms they could and record the number they found. We also planted seeds and sampled different plants in the garden.I had an absolute blast during the whole day it was incredible to see the joy the students got from being outside and learning.
Towards the end of the day, I noticed that there was a student hanging around out of bounds of the school. I tried to engage the student into joining me in the garden but needed to get a recess teacher out to help. The recess teacher informed me that the student had been missing in the neighborhood and the police had been looking for them since 8 am. I heard that the number of ‘runaways’ in schools has increased dramatically. I view it as an act of rebellion against the current system that they are in. The public schools are failing children and the behavior incidents are increasing. Once I informed a recess teacher an office aide came out to stand with the runaway student, and they both stood to the side and I noticed the student observing what we were working on in the garden.
The day ended and everyone ran back into their classrooms to get ready to go home. I was cleaning up and I noticed that the student was still off to the side, unresponsive and not moving into the school to go home. I went up to them with a packet of chard seeds and asked if they could help me plant them, they nodded their heads, ‘yes’ and we went to one of the garden beds. I demonstrated how to dig a hole in the soil and cover it up and I noticed that as soon as they got their hands in the soil their entire being calmed down; it was like a deep breath of fresh air and they started to open up and talk to me. They were extremely polite and made sure that we were both doing things equally and that I had just as many seeds as they did. When we planted our seeds, I asked if they wanted to help water them, they said yes and followed me to the rain barrel. I demonstrated how to turn on and off the tap and how to not overflood the seeds. After watering the seeds we planted, we proceeded to water the other plants in the garden. The student completely opened up and felt a huge sense of accomplishment in caring for the garden. It was beautiful to watch their mood transform and see them fall in love with the garden. After we were done watering, I asked the aide with us what needed to happen next with the student and they shared that the student needed to get back into the classroom to grab their things so they could go home for the day, but was struggling to make the journey back. I got an idea and asked the student if they would be willing to help me carry some boxes of ‘garden supplies’ back into the office and they happily agreed and together the three of us entered back into the school. I thanked them for being such a big help in the garden and offered them to come back to visit me whenever they wanted. I offered them a packet of sunflower seeds as a thank you present. I have an affinity for planting sunflowers with the students as an act of solidarity for Ukraine. They accepted the seeds graciously and were able to get back into their classroom and go home for the day.
The next day, I ran into my garden friend trying to leave the school grounds again. I asked them to come to help our team in the garden and they gladly accepted the invitation. They shared with me that they planted the sunflower seeds in their front yard as soon as they got home the day before. Overall the experience really transformed and solidified my understanding of the impact that school gardens have on kids and the healing capacity of working in a garden has on humans. This is an experience that I will carry with me for the continuation of my career in Environmental Education.
This week at St. Marks, we had first graders join us for their field trips and they planted squash starts. I felt myself get back into my teaching groove during these field trips and was really reminded of the immense joy I have sharing nature with my students and being able to see through their eyes. I believe children to be innately connected with the natural world and have a deep understanding of how the world works at a level outside of adult science and logic. I learn so much from my students. It is my life mission to foster and nourish that child-like wonder and wisdom that we all possess in our early days. I hope to be someone to inspire children to hold on to that magic that the modern technological world stomps out of the connection to the natural world. I truly believe that Environmental Education and fostering deep meaningful relationships with the natural world early on in children’s lives will build generations that will care for the Earth and each other in a way that is lacking in our current society. If we let children play in the dirt and see the beauty of nourishing a seed to harvest, if we allow them to run wild and free in natural spaces and allow them to wholly themselves in nature we will foster adults who will care for the Environment.