I taught preschool for ages 3-4 many moons ago and at the school that made me want to quit life altogether I learned an important principle for adulting. As life lessons usually go, it wasn’t clear and direct at the time, but started as a seed.
At this preschool that nearly took my soul, each classroom had an outside garden. There was no schoolwide curriculum assigned so the gardens reflected each teacher’s abilities and creativity. Basically a few looked like gardens that needed some help and a couple looked like abandoned fields. The one I inherited looked like an abandoned field. I am far from a green thumb, but I learned some very basic planting skills as a little girl.
Grandaddy was a sharecropper and did something with sorghum molasses. Daddy worked the fields with him and at least during the last 23 years of his life while he lived in the city, he wanted a little vegetable garden and talked about how different things grew and what they needed to thrive. I was the Daddy’s Girl who toggled between tomboy and princess stereotypical behavior. I watched him do everything outside and begged to help, doing my version of whatever it was right beside him. We mowed the lawn, raked the leaves, trimmed the bushes, and edged the yard – which he hated because that was not work for little girls, but that he loved because he was teaching me, and it was our time alone. And whenever he was able to plant and grow anything, I was right beside him watching and asking questions, not realizing that any of it was really sinking in – I just loved being outside with him in the grass and under the trees.
From spending that time with Daddy, I knew I could at least start by making our garden look like someone cared and figure out any specific curriculum goals for later based in what the kids showed interest. First, we cleared everything out. That was easy to let them do with their little plastic garden tools and I let them have at it with wild abandon. They couldn’t hurt a thing, could release any energy they had from being inside, and could be as involved in the dirty parts as they wanted. I began to get to know my kids quickly – I saw who didn’t like dirt, who loved dirt, and who could manage to turn anything into a weapon. I saw my leaders, my followers, and my bullies. I saw my dreamers, my builders, and my facilitators. I saw who needed more structure and who needed more freedom. It was the best way to get to know my entire class.
Then I moved on to the next phase that I knew – we needed to turn the dirt, break it up so it was soft. I was more directly involved in this phase because plastic hoes and spades can only do so much with hard ground. I wanted to limit the number of small kids with me since I was directly involved and would have a real hoe in my hand, so I split up my class in small groups taking the more energetic types out first. I needed to talk to them and get to know why they behaved the way they did and understand them as individuals. This is how you find out that your bullies are practicing learned behavior from home or are screaming because they don’t feel heard. This is when you find out that the kids who turn toys into weapons are influenced by what they see in their everyday environment or that they are your most resourceful and resilient students. And this is when you find your artists – they make beats or sing while breaking up earth which they notice aloud has many shades and textures and then their garden tools become paintbrushes or imaginary people in what looks like a play. And after some time in the dirt, we all reach a peaceful energy. All of the kids did a part of this, but this first group really did the hard physical work.
The next phase, planting, was designed for the lower-energy kids and those who by now had a lot of interest in the entire project. The ones most interested in the overall process used their tools to make grooves for planting – any tools could be used, even hands, because our ground was soft and tilled. The ones who didn’t like to get dirty were my seed planters. They held a handful of whatever seeds I found in the previous teacher’s stash and dropped them in the grooves. And those who were uninterested but who quietly obey any directive closed it up for us, gently covering the planted seeds with the dirt. Then we watered the garden. When I left work the evening we finished, I was quite proud of the appearance of our garden. It was even brown and smooth, and I couldn’t wait to see what would begin to pop up – my only goal was for something to begin to grow and I believed that we did enough to at least see some tiny sprouts whether they thrived or not.
Once our garden began to sprout, we had a lot of attention. The parents thought it was a good sign of my teaching ability – anything that looks organized or improved upon looks like there is someone in control and providing guidance. The children had varying amounts of pride of our tiny green sprouts based more on their level of interest in the garden than on their perceived levels of contribution to its growth.
But I had an unexpected reaction to that garden. It was the only place I felt any peace on that campus.
The thing that is obvious to me now that I didn’t see then is that it is important to watch something grow. I find planting makes the biggest difference for me, but it doesn’t have to be plants if that’s not your thing. Anything that lives and needs you to care for it to then grow works – puppies, fish, children. Just make sure to watch something grow.
I am Regina Lynette 