Why teaching and gardening are similar

Today was a much better day.  I vowed to give ALL my kids my best today and start all over ready to inspire them, care about them, and hopefully teach them a thing or two (maybe even about science.)  I started my new found recharge right from the beginning. 

On my way to work at 6am yesterday I was being tail gated big time.  I tried everything I could think of to get the person to back off.  They would for a minute then start at it again.  Today, a different person felt the need to do the same.  I just pulled over in a turn lane and let them past deciding that I could only control myself and that I could also at the same time protect my self from the stress and danger that person was putting me in. 

Really though the best part of my day was my last hour in the greenhouse listening to the gentle spring rain outside and spending quality precise time with my fragile little seedlings.  As I worked I found an inner peace that comes to me when I am immerse with my hands in the soil and giving life to each little plant that will in turn give life to my family.  Having never given "life" physically to a being of my own type, I find such an inner peace and sense of contribution with each little plant that makes it to adulthood. 

I also found myself in a deep contemplative state, allowing my brain to form analogies and make sense of my world through the lens of safe unconditional loving relationship between me and my plants.  Here are the thoughts that crossed my mind boring deep into my soul:

1.  I miss having wise elders.  I dearly miss Larry McGraw, my gardening mentor who was 80 when I met him, and "80" when he died some 5 years later.  He taught me how to train plants, that trees had temperaments and that all varieties of apples, plums, pears deserved to be saved because they had some value.  There is not a day that I don't see a raven that I don't think of him and wish that I could just ask him 100 more questions about plants and trees.  Mentors like him are few and far between in this world and I continue to ache at the absence of having a wise elder teacher such as Larry in my life. 

2.  Gardening is a lot like teaching kids for better and for worse: Here is why:::

• When preparing soil you can't just dump all the water one time into the tray and have it absorb.  You must sprinkle it with water slowly several times if you want good dirt to become moist.  This is the same if you want knowledge to sink in.  You can't drown a kid with it once then never do it again.  It will just all run through them.
• The highest maintenance plants, like kids, usually have something amazing to offer when it is all said and done.
• Transplanting little seedlings, like linking new thoughts together, must be treated with the utmost care.  You can't just transplant a news seedlings by force or else you brake the fragile but essential root hairs causing the plant to wither and die a few weeks later.  New concepts are just as fragile.
• Unfortunately, it is all to easy to justify discarding a plant or child that seems to not be thriving or is broken.  You have so many seeds, so it usually makes more sense to start a new plant, rather than go back and fix a broken plant or kid.  We have 147 million orphans for this reason (and that is just the number of kids who have lived through the system.) and way too many drop outs.
• When I transplant little seedlings to a bigger container it feels like they are moving up a grade, and like getting new students, I always am sure to plant new seeds in it's place to continue the cycle of growth. 
• Without good soil, not much else matters.  I can do everything for my plant/student, but if I plant the seeds and thoughts into garbage, they just won't grow.  Kids who don't have quality nutrition, unconditional love, adequate attention, reasonable boundaries, support, are living with lousy soil.  All the water and sun in the world, won't make up for the lousy foundation.  As parents, teachers, society, we must build up good nourishment from the bottom up. 
• We learn through trail and error.  Last year I planted 35 basil plants.  We ate and made a lot of pesto.  This year, I plan on doing less.  It took up too much space and as a result many of my tomato plants did not have enough space and I lost the plants.  Kids minds are a delicate balance between telling them, showing them and allowing them to experiment.  But ultimately if we limit their growing space, the whole child will fail to have enough space to form good roots and will wither. 
• Plants and kids are resilient.  There have been too many times I have wanted to quit on a kid or plant and I was pleasantly surprised.  We are too often taught that development is a finite science when it is just an estimate.  Trees, fruits, vegetables, and kids develop according to a huge set of variables and it is not WRONG for them to do it early or late, it is just different.  It is me that is wrong to assume that development is on a timer. My job is to keep nurturing, watering, teaching, weeding, and providing light to the things that I want to see grow, and also to enjoy them at each stage, because it rarely last for long.
• You lose some plants and kids no mater how much you try to save them.  It still stinks.
• Last but not least, when you teach a child and you grow an edible plant, they will both grow up to feed society with their gifts they have born throughout their lifetime.  It is my hope their fruit will be sweet, pure, compelling, productive, beautiful, and nourishing. 

This was a graphing project we did to demonstrate how the sunrise and sunset changes throughout the year based on latitude and season.

At the end of my dear friend Larry's life, he could no longer hear, he could not taste one of his precious apples, he could barely see.  All he could do was speak, tell his stories and share the wisdom of his years of trial and error.  He was like a plant desperately tying to carry on by offering the world the seeds of wisdom, hoping someone would water it.  As a teacher of many young minds, I guess this is my hope too, that someone will be nourished and empowered by the knowledge that I have to share.

When your all is just not enough

One of my characteristics (some might feel is a flaw) is that I seem to be plagued with hopeless optimism when it comes to my ability to make a difference in the lives of my students.  I regain this feeling every time I have a break, and usually just over the weekend.  I come back to work with this renewed energy, that fuels me to create innovative ways to inspire my students to give a rip about the subject I am teaching.  For the most part my students are amazing.  They rise up when I give them the chance and a boost here and there. 

This week I have pored my soul into the start of our unit on Space.  So much so, that I even had my students choreographing "Moon, Earth, Sun" dances showing the relationship between the three.  I felt like a good teacher and person.

 Well, this morning turned out to be the morning of "crushing souls and depleting spirits."  I can't really go into too much detail here, but what I will say is that I am not sure where and why parents get the feeling that all students are strait A kids.  I got lambasted today and my professionally questioned because a student earned a B+ in one of my classes.

What saddened me most about the whole situation is that over and over again I hear from families that their goal for their child in my room is to make an A's.  Not to learn, not to improve, not to solve a problem, or to be kind, or to develop their skills, or really anything other than getting an A. 

An "A" in my room is above and beyond.  It means that you did much more that I asked of you.  You can read between the lines, you put extra touches on a project that I did not ask, you sent your lab conclusion about the health of the river to the Mayor.  That is A work, and quite frankly by the time a kid gets in middle school it is very unlikely they can pull that off in every subject every time.  Guess what, most people are not A+ people in everything they do.  One more little secret is that that is OK. 

I grew up in a non traditional academic environment where I was taught to push my self, and that the content and application of that content was the goal.   My father did not stress about letter grades and in fact he would show disappointment in me if I got all A's rather than taking advanced classes and getting C's. 

What is hard though is knowing that a kid is learning and that they are improving and to have to sit in a room for 45 minutes having my skills and professionality questioned because of 1% point, because I ruined someone strait A status.  To me it seems like that would be similar to be ticked off your kid only makes $999,999 a year rather than $1 million. 

It just felt lousy for so many reasons.  Tomorrow is a new day, and I am sure my optimism will return soon.  I will continue to push and pull my students and hopefully inspire them to take their work above and beyond what is required and stretch their imagination to seeing success as many more letters that one. 

problem or difference

First off, sorry for my lack of writing this last week.  We had a great spring vacation, but unfortunately (or possibly a blessing in disguise) there was no Internet where we stayed.  Secondly, I realized I left many of you hanging about how Emerson's discussion with his teacher went.  He actually did not do it the next day, because he got to pick a friend towards the beginning.  But, the next day he was not picked, so he talked to the teacher.  She explained how the picking went, and that some days someone would have a friend for center time and sometimes that would not happen.  The good news is that he felt OK with her answer and less sad about the situation.  All in all, this felt good for all of us, because he got the information directly and seemed to handle it better because it came from a trusted source who knew the whole situation.

Next on the list of revelations for break was a book I read called Smart Moves.  It explores how the brain works and takes in information, but is also discusses how "learning is not all in the head."  It was a great book to read right after finishing The Out of Sync Child.  Smart Moves taught me a ton about how the brain processes, maps, recalls and organizes information.  It also clarified a lot for me about Emerson's struggles.  For those who don't know, Emerson was born weighing 1lb 7oz.  He then spent the next 3 months in an incubator as an orphan with limited to no stimulation. Then he went to an orphanage situation with no one on one attention, limited nutrition and interactive experiences for the next 3.5 months.  For such a rough beginning, he really is doing great in almost all areas.  The one he still struggles with is his underdeveloped nervous system.  Boys in general develop the insulation(mylan sheathing) on their nerves later than girls, but when boys are born so premature it can take years for their nervous system to create meaningful and efficient information paths that are well paved (or insulated). 

As a result, Emerson takes the world in, all of it, at high intensity.  He does not shift gears well, he has poor posture, sitting still is a rarely, new foods are too intense for him, when he hugs, he drags the person down, he can't be alone or without physical contact, he leaps from great heights, revels in the water and trips on air.  To be honest, we didn't realize for a long time that these things were not "normal."  Now that Isaac is coming into his own boy, we are noticing the differences more and more. 

The biggest differences I am noticing have come from the two books I have just read.  One, Emerson is a sensory seeker in all areas but food.  Two, it is extremely difficult for him to do activities that require to cross brain hemispheres.  For example, he can not rotate arms in a pool to do free style, he can't peddle a bike, he cannot go down stairs with both feet (he always steps down with his left foot, never the right.) 

So I learned all about Brain Gym activities to help develop his connection between the right brain and left brain.  It was clear I had found the big issue.  He could not do it.  I would ask him to take his left hand and touch his right toes.  Without my physically doing it for him, he could not for the life of him cross over.  The good news is, that after I help him do 3-4 he can do the next 5 on his own, then he goes back to doing it laterally.  It has opened up a world for help for my little man and now I have some ideas of how to be proactive. 

Fast forward to today.  I realize with a panic that I have homework.  I have been given forms to complete for Emerson's IEP evaluation.  One of the forms is for ADHD.  We have had Emerson evaluated for this, and he is anything but deficient in his ability to pay attention.  Yes, he is hyper, yes he is impulsive, but inattentive he is not.  He will be a doosey to teach with out doing things differently, but I am starting to realize that he is a different bird, and just like trying to teach a left handed kid to write just like a right handed kid won't work, and asking Emerson to follow a set of directions that don't match he way of functioning, then nobody is going to get anywhere. 

I think what left me feeling frustrated and slightly angry was the last question on the evaluation form:  "What specific interventions have been attempted to treat the person's problems?"  This language just seems so backwards.  Special education is supposed to be just that, a program that recognizes that my son does not learn like everyone else and needs a specialized program to maximize his learning potential, not just see him as a problem that can be fixed.  Sadly, all too often, most kids in the classroom learn differently than they are instructed.  Does that make them all a problem, or does it make the system problematic because it can't recognize and value the differences of our students, then figure out how to treat them with respect and dignity so they can thrive. 

Being a Parent and a Teacher

So, I teach in the same district where my kids go to school.  I love my kids teachers and I am very impressed with all they have accomplished with both boys.  And, as a teacher, I know that we teachers have the worst reputation for jumping too quick when something seems amiss at school with our own children.  Maybe this is because we thing we know best because we are in the profession, or we think "I would do this, this way."  Regardless or why teachers are really bad about this when it comes to our own kids, I have vowed not to be "that parent." 

I know, I know, rules that we make for ourselves are really just becoming to be broken.  Well here is the issue, and here is what I am going to try so that I don't inevitably become "that parent."  Emerson, my extreme extrovert, who can be quite pushy about having people play with him, seems to be having center time all by himself.  Mind you, I know I am only getting his perception of the story.  At school when they have center time, they pick a friend then pick a center.  Well, according to Emerson he is not getting picked by anyone, so he goes off to play at the computer by himself.  This concerns me on two levels.  One, I believe the biggest things students learn in school is the ability to appropriately interact with their peers.  This is one reason we have him in the class he is in.  Secondly, Emerson has major technology addiction issues.  I am not sure how I feel about him getting even more screen time each day.  Now, from a teacher's perspective, I get it.  Emerson is an angle in front of a screen, but he is not learning the skills he needs to learn.  Not to mention this exclusion from his peers makes him very sad. 

My mama bear instinct was to immediately send a long winded e-mail to his teacher telling her that, maybe Emerson should get to pick a friend towards the beginingof the choice rather than being left over.  But then I am one of "those parents" telling my son's teacher how to do her job (which by the way she is excellent at.)  So, we had a long talk with Emerson about how he needs to talk to the teacher before we will intervene.  We explained that the teacher can't know that this makes him sad, unless he takes the time to let her know. 

I feel good about this.  Our little ones won't be little forever.  I want them to learn now how to advocate for themselves and learn to listen to the suggestions.  We shall see how it goes. 

Take the time to do things right

I have been mussing all morning about what direction to go with this blog post.  There is so much that happened in the way of quirky this weekend, that I feel scattered in my thoughts. So if I appear to be rambling, I am. 

Let, me start with yesterday's documentary debacle.  John and I received word a few weeks ago that we had been selected to be part of a documentary featuring creative and innovative small businesses in the South.  Pretty cool we think.  A few days ago, they give us a call, and say, we will be at your place around 2pm to film and do interviews.  Great, we think. 

Then we spend a lot of time cleaning up the property, the house, the gardens.  John tells 4 clients they need to wait because he has a group coming to film on Sunday, so he can't deliver on Sunday (one of our busiest days.)  We slightly ignore the kids as we frantically try to get ready. 

Then at 1:53, they call and ask for our address.   When they see that we are not downtown, they panic and say, well we were going to meet with y'all from 2:00-3:00 and then we have another appointment at 3:00 so I guess we just can't do it.  Really!  John talks to them, does a little creative problem solving and we manage to work it out where we will wake our boys up from a nap, take them to my mom's (Thank You), then race downtown to meet these folks. 

We manage all this, meet them on a porch downtown where they ask questions on the fly, clearly without having done much homework on who we are and what we do, while lamenting about their very busy schedule.  Don't get me wrong, they were nice people, but very reflective of the "I just got out of college and now I get to hit the road running and the world is waiting on me to make a difference" sort of generation. 

They were young, and in Eastern Oregon, we would have called them Green Broke (AKA inexperienced.)  All this is OK as long as people learn from the journey.  Heck, how else can we really learn.  Basically they started off with a good premise.  Go to 13 cities throughout the SE and interview a set list of people along the way.  Then they decided to start calling and setting up interviews with the people that the people they were interviewing mentioned.  This quickly spiraled them into doing 10-15 1 hour interviews a day.  Sadly, if there were all as in-depth (insert sarcasm here) as our, then they are heading for a world of quick sound bites and no depth. 

Here is where I am struggling.  I, as a teacher, in a public school, feel like I am contributing to this young generations, sound bite, do it quick and easy attitude.  Our students think they can set the stage however they want, and what many of them want is easy and no homework.  I will say, if these folks had done their homework, a lot of time and effort could have been better spent for them and for us.  Spontaneity is fun, but not necessarily productive or inspiring for anyone else.  I also feel like I am contributing to this quick and dirty approach of more is more.  This just isn't true.  You can't really get to any level of depth in 45 min to an hour, especially when you take the idea (raised bed gardens) out of context (to a front porch in downtown Birmingham.)  But, as teachers we do this to our kids for 13 years.  No wonder they thought it was Ok. 

When I ask my students about the units I teach or the projects we do, every time the two things they consistently want are :  1. More time   2.  More depth.  I have never had a student tell me they wish we went quicker or shallower, that they wanted to know less.  Yet, I watched this young film crew, scramble to find creativity and innovation quickly through many people.  As if the masaija of creativity would appear to them and make a great film, if they just interviewed enough people. 

I wanted to take them aside, and kindly tell them to slow it down.  Look at things for more than a quick glance, be present with each person, business, work of art.  I know this pace typically comes with age, but it was hard to watch them scramble, and not know why they were flailing.  Hopefully there spirits will be resilient and they will try again, and next time with more depth and time and less, so that they might truly see, that the biggest stifler of creativity and innovation is our society's longing for "moreness." 

Resourceful Chickens

So I always have felt that dogs make the best pets. I still think I am right, but our chickens are running out to be the most interesting. John was up late last night working in the sun room. As he retold me the events from last night over breakfast this morning I nearly spewed my coffee all over the place.

Apparently, as he was working, he kept feeling like he was being watched. He looked around only to see two frantic chickens pecking at the door and clucking away. John is pretty perplexed at this point, he is pretty sure he locked them in the coop. He scratches his head, talks out loud to them, and tells him it will be a minute. It is like they heard hi, because their pecking and clucking became even more persistent, as if saying "listen hear you human, we are in this together, and we don't ask a lot of you, but right now we need you cluck cluck!!"

John gets it, puts what he is working on down and goes to put them back in the coop. He gets close, and they stopped following. He tried cajoling them.  They clucked and cooked their heads as if to say "no way buddy!". John then looks in the coop, only to find one ticked off feisty possum.

If you have been reading a while you will know, that John is good at talking about killing things, but when it comes down to it he can't quite bring himself to following through with the threat. So logically he goes to get a bucket. He goes bucket baiting for an angry possum in a small coop for 20 min. before he realizes, that this is not a good plan.

  So, now the smack talking begins, he goes, get his gun and loads it. Yes, ladies and gentleman, possums and pack rats bring out the redneck in my husband where he becomes inclined to shoot things inside. He goes into the coop with the shotgun. No joke the possum looks at John with the shotgun, looks at the bucket, looks back at the gun, and jumped right into the bucket.  John and the possum narrowly avoid a messy situation for both of them, thanks to this choice.

  Then, like a good chicken owner exhausted at 1am, John tries once again to get the chickens back in the coop. NO deal! He must carry both of them in there to show them around before they will go to bed. All in all, I am pretty sure these are the two smartest chickens around. At least they are resourceful.

This morning after John tells me this story, he relocated the possum and then explained that he met a farmer when a barn with lots of old manure.  He says this with glee and excitement.  Yes, this is our exciting life, but hey, it is cheep fun. 

What A Fun Week

This week I finally feel "On."  I must admit, the last few I felt like I was coasting on auto pilot, just sort of going through the motions, not being present, and just in a general blaze daze.  I didn't like it, but I also didn't have the energy or the drive to get out of my slump.  This week however, I feel like I am coming around and I am back to being a sightly interesting (all be it bazaar) and useful person in the world. 

I like list, so I think for my mental downloading please I am going to make a list of the things in my life that have helped me feel more alive and genuine this past week. 

1.  At school I have switched from teaching about oceans to freshwater systems.  While I find the ocean interesting, I have little personal or scientific background that makes me passionate about the subject.  I feel flat when I teach it.  When I teach about rivers, I become passionate about their protection, I am fascinated by their intricacies and behaviors and how humans interact with their watershed.  As I teach this unit, we have a lab almost every day and I build the students knowledge to the point of application and real world experiences.  It is exhausting, but gratifying.

Yeah I know it is upside down, but I can't figure out how to flip it

2.  Let there be light.  My favorite holiday of the year is coming up, but I can already feel its effects.  Day light savings time is almost here, and the more light the merrier.  I love being outside, I love eating outside, I love playing in my greenhouse and garden.  I love now that our refrigerator is empty, but our gardens are full of all sorts of goodies. 

3.  Quality time with my family.  This miraculous thing happened, I think three whole times this week.  We all four spent quality time just playing, goofing off, or watching a movie together.  It was nice, it felt more normal, it felt nurturing to melt into the moment rather than force it.  Just last night, when I noticed Isaac slipping into baby mode, I happily rocked and sang to him while we laughed together at my silly songs. 

4.  I am learning new things.  I just finished the book The Out of Sync Child and I feel like I have been given a field guide to Emerson.  I now at least know why he is doing the things he is doing.  It is not a choice but a processing issue.  I feel empowered now to take the necessary steps forward, rather than the victim of the vicious tantrum and colossal meltdowns. 

5.  A little recognition goes a long way.  Don't worry fellow teachers who are reading this, parents, students or administrators have not starting saying thank you, or good job.  The praise is coming for my other life/business.  The business that John and I run is called The Backyard Pantry, and we specialize in building, delivering and installing ready to plant raised garden beds.  We also do a variety of other things to assist our clients in edible gardening adventures.  Basically our goal is to provide all the necessary ingredients for our gardening clients.  Well, this weekend we are having a documentary crew come to our place because we have been selected as one of 13 innovative/creative businesses in the South East.  We did not apply for this, or even know it existed (since we don't have TV we miss out on a lot) but instead we were recommend for it by a leader in Birmingham.  Pretty cool to know that someone noticed us and what we do.  Now how it all goes on Sunday will probably be a big factor in my mood next week.

6.  More work to do in the garden.  When I started gardening to grow food for my family, I read this great book called The 60 Minute Gardener The premise of the book was that once you had a good system going, you only needed one hour a week in the garden to feed your family.  Last year, I remember me and my sister laughing at that title thinking "no way."  Now it is true.  I only NEED to garden about an hour a week, and quite frankly that makes me a bit sad.  Fortunately now that spring is around the corner, there are a few big projects I need to work on that give me more time outside with my plants. 

7.  Spring break is coming up.  Not much explanation needed here:) 

I think that sums up the big game changers in my mentality.  All in all, I am just thankful to feel awake again, even if I am still tired.  At least now I am tired from doing so much, and not from being so blaaa. 

Funny Quirks and neat connections

The other day the boys and I were cuddling on the couch getting ready for story time.  Emerson has his favorite blankie in town and Isaac has his puppy (really now it is a litter of stuffed puppies) and I am in the middle.  The boys were talking about their special comfort items, so I shared with them that when I was a little girl, I had both a stuffed puppy and a blankie that I loved.  Emerson then shouts out, "Mom, I made a connection!  Our family matches, because you had both a puppy and a blankie and now you adopted the two of us, and we each have one of those things.  We really were meant to be together."  He them goes on to explain that his favorite color is blue and Isaac's is read and mine is purple. 

For those who are not adoptive parents, this random connection thing might seem a little silly.  But for us, our kids don't have our hair, or our eyes, or our walk, this comes from the unknown for all of us.  Our connections come in some very little and silly ways, but also ones that are powerful in helping our boys know that while their road to us was a bit rough, it was still the best road for them to be on given their other options. 

So this was a special little time in our weekend, just cuddling, being together, playing, experimenting and enjoying the simplicity of the moment.  The other part of our weekend was going to the park.  We chose, on Sunday, to meet up with my brother-in-law and the boys' cousin Leo.  This was a nearby playground filled with lovely suburban families.  It was great at first, because there was no one there.  Then there was just us and family.  Then came the "cool kids"  with skate boards and attitudes.  Granted Emerson is enamored with skate boards and has a tendency to gravitate towards them.  He does this all the time at railroad park downtown and we have yet to have a problem.  But alas, these kids (all of 7 years old) don't want anything to do with Emerson.  They want him to go away, they run away, they call him names and tease him, he cries and cries, the name calling is worse.  Now I can see if from both sides.  They are older, they came together and they want to play together.  I can also see that Emerson, will not let it go, he will not back off when they ask him to go away.  Something in his wiring does not pick up that he should find someone more appropriate to play with.  Then there is the other side, that when you go to a playground you are there to play.  If you don't want to make new friends invite someone over to your house. 

Emerson was so hurt by the whole thing he just came home and went strait to bed for nap time before having lunch.  My little boy was so wounded by this interaction.  It happens way too often, the birthday party, the playground, school.  What I am learning about him, is that he is a sensory seeker, who is always on overload.  It is almost as if he is trying so hard to stay focused on one thing, that he becomes obsessive to the point of obnoxious.  It is his struggle, it is our struggle and there is lots to learn in the mean time.