Perhaps this is a trap I thought, “Was he setting me up to fail?”
My principal called me in one week in January. He said, “I want you to do a school garden.” This was a surprise considering earlier in the year he was not exactly a fan of my unorthodox approach in the name of engagement and interest for my students. Perhaps this is a trap I thought, “Was he setting me up to fail?” He knew from my resume that I had done Seed Wayne at Wayne State (A community garden project to feed people in need), but why this sudden enthusiasm for a garden? I had lots of questions, but instead of asking them, I just agreed out of fear. It was my first year teaching, and I was eager to “strut my stuff.” besides, how hard can a garden project be?
Never make an announcement without knowing what you’re doing is the first lesson I learned! Of course I told all the kids and their families, and of course they asked a ton of questions, and of course I replied, “You’ll get a letter when it’s ready!” So, apparently you need supplies to make a school garden, and with that, apparently you need money to get the supplies! I had neither. Luckily for me the grant writer for the school steered me towards a grant for gardens in urban districts, and I got a fat thousand dollar check for that garden! Oh the things I bought for that garden! 12 of everything! I spent that money like my life depended on it!
I had all these grand ideas of the kids helping me build everything, plant everything and harvest everything. Great idea in my brain, yet in reality, not so much. So many kids hammered their fingers, dropped 8′ x 2″ boards on their toes, and one kid found a way for his pants to get screwed to the board, just to name a few examples. When it came to planting, I showed them how to plan, plot, and grid out where all the seeds are going for the 12+ garden beds. Apparently these middle school kids didn’t have much experience with seeds and planting. Those seeds were all over the place; some were a foot deep, others were mixed together and scattered about. I felt like they were playing a game of dice on the gardens! You know, I stayed until dark a few nights in a row finding, organizing and re-planting all of those seeds.
At this point this “little school garden” was huge! Than the maintenance man for the school told me he had a rooter-teller to tear up more land! At this point the “little school garden,” was about two hundred feet long by 100 feet wide with an additional 12 class garden beds. Crap that’s a big garden!
“Are you the science teacher or the landscaper? How are you going to do both?!”
The Principal probably had the best response, “Are you the science teacher or the landscaper? How are you going to do both?!” Oy-vey, what did I get myself into? I calmed myself down by stating, “All they have to do now is water.” I picked a couple kids one morning to water the garden, as I stayed in to watch over breakfast. You know those kids hosed themselves down! Oh, and not just them, about twelve of them got into a water fight! Kids were bypassing the breakfast area and heading straight to that garden. This happened so many times over the next couple of months! Whether it was middle school or lower grades, whether I was out there or not!
A couple months go by, and I was “randomly” selected to be a part of summer school, and the kids knew that the first harvest was coming in. I said, “Hey we should invite some parents to come get the food!” to the Principal. The next day about three dozen parents showed up with their bags. After about 1 hour of tearing, pinching, clipping and snatching; that garden looked like a tornado tore through it! Later the kids came to summer school, hoping to get some of the harvest. Heartbreak. They were so disappointed, and there was nothing I could do about it. Never break the hope of the students.
Toward the end of the year with the 8th graders, I provided each of them a to-do list of how to make your own garden, as extra credit. A couple of them started doing it for their neighbors at home, and some others convinced their families to volunteer time with the Greening of Detroit Project which specializes in creating sustainable food in the community with food gardens.
Glorious messes are not a bad thing. They are the seeds of feedback, the sprouting of inspiration, and the harvesting of hope.
Glorious messes are not a bad thing. They are the seeds of feedback, the sprouting of inspiration, and the harvesting of hope. Glorious messes. Far too often we as teachers plan the hell out of everything as if we are preparing for every single breath and scope. In many ways this is ok, and even required in many other forms and I don’t recommend steering away from this. What I will recommend is to find a way to start a true project from scratch with your students. Allow the opportunity for glorious messes to take place with them. Allow them to see what perseverance looks like, what dedication looks like, what learning from failures look like, what planning and re-planning and re-re-planning looks like, and most of all what success looks like. Allow them to see us teachers work through challenges and how to smile when things go “wrong.”