This article is the second installment of a two-part part series where I’m mapping out a process you could use to start a program like Classical Roots at your school. As I said before, it’s not the only methodology you could use and it’s not coming from a background of professional horticulture or program development. But it’s worked for us and could work for you, too!
In the future, I may add to or modify this list to make it more useful. If I make any major changes, I’ll let you know!
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6. Appeal to the Youth
If you’re lucky enough to be working in a K-12 or Middle and High School setting, don’t neglect to get younger kids involved in your program. For one thing, children who help plant and grow food are far likelier to eat healthier diets as adults. For another, grammar school science curriculums are often crammed with little projects and even whole field trips which involve things that are already going on in your garden: insect life, seeds, germination, plant life cycles, and ecology. Why not give the kids the chance to observe some of those processes right on campus?
In my experience, almost all children are drawn naturally to gardens. They relish the chance to get away from their school desks and participate in the tactile work of weeding, watering, and pruning. With a huge weight of research telling us that play-oriented childhoods are far healthier for our personal, social, and intellectual development, most informed teachers of young children will also be chomping at the bit to make use of your garden. Moments like these don’t have to be complicated or a burden on anyone involved. They can be impromptu, relatively short, and even organized by your student volunteers. But do your best to make sure that they happen, because the impact of gardening is magnified the younger you get.
7. Connect With Curriculums
Informal moments like the ones I mentioned above, where a second or third-grade class stops by to harvest some radishes, are well and good. But what if your garden could serve a more robust curricular purpose? It sits on the campus of a school, after all. And most schools are not only full of lab equipment, sinks, and other tools that can be very useful for a gardener, they are also full of teachers who want to give their students a chance to apply knowledge in the field. Such teachers will make excellent partners in your enterprise.
In my experience, science teachers should probably be your first point of contact for this sort of thing. What biology or life science teacher wouldn’t love to have their students conduct a biodiversity audit in your garden, or track the life cycles of the insects that have started to live there, or perform soil quality tests in the garden beds, or dissect bell peppers at their various stages of growth? Given a little time and curricular wiggle room, whole units could be reliably linked to your garden with relatively little effort. The effect such a routine can have on students is profound, because it counteracts the disembodiment of learning. School could be not only the place where they learn about biology; it could also be the place where they apply that learning to the direct benefit of the campus. That way, their science classes become an avenue not just of gaining something, but of giving something back.
8. Educate Yourself
You obviously like gardening, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. But it’s unlikely that you’re trained in agriculture or horticulture, and that’s alright. The nice thing about creating a garden as an educational space is that there’s no burden for the crops or the plants to be successful. You’re not trying to maximize your yield or expand your profit margins; you’re trying to teach students something and to connect them to the natural world. In that sense, mistakes can be even more beneficial than successes, because we learn best from mistakes.
Embrace the messy nature of this enterprise. Experiment. Get things wrong. But don’t be content to learn everything by trial and error. Instead, check out some good books on gardening in your region, watch informative television shows (BBC’s Gardener’s World is the gold standard) and, most of all, talk to more experienced gardeners. Their knowledge and advice will be invaluable to you as you seek to grow, both literally and metaphorically. There are endless things to learn about the art and science of helping things grow. It’s a rewarding process to throw yourself into. Don’t be afraid of your inexperience, but don’t be content with it either. Students learn better when they’re not doing so in isolation. Have the wisdom and vulnerability to be a learner alongside them. There’s no test at the end of all this but, with luck and time, there might be a good harvest.
9. Expand Slowly
If your garden is met with enthusiasm, you might be tempted to add a second one very quickly—perhaps as early as the second year. And who am I to limit your ambitions? If the timing is right and the momentum is good, have at it by all means. But a word of caution: there’s such a thing as biting off more than you can chew. You are a busy adult with lots of responsibilities. It’s also likely that you take some portion of the summers off. Family volunteer program notwithstanding, you probably want to maintain a version of your life that allows for some rest and relaxation between school years. Beware of burnout, and avoid it by expanding your program slowly.
A related point is that there’s something particularly bleak about an abandoned school garden. I pass by one of these every time I take my son to spring soccer practice at the local public grammar school, and it depresses me in a unique and special way. There’s no way to be sure, but I’d be willing to bet money that it went to weeds because some well-meaning educator’s enthusiasm turned too quickly to regret. There is no shame in modest expansion, but there’s a great deal of it in total collapse. Count the cost of each new aspect of your program. Try to operate under the principle that you should only create a new growing space when you’re asked to. That way, you can be the one who’s giving something to your community, instead of being the one who’s asking them a favor.
10. Take Good Records
Here is the moment where I am absolutely giving out advice that I don’t follow. It was far too long after the founding of Classical Roots that I realized how useful it would have been to document what we planted, when we renovated certain spaces, and which classrooms had asked to be part of the composting program (Mrs. Lawrenz’ first-grade class: I’m sorry for that stinky compost bucket).
Good record-keeping is a virtuous and useful habit for any gardener, but with a school program, it’s especially vital because it gives you concrete data to reference during important conversations. How long has the program been going on? How many students are involved? How many slots are left in the summer volunteer program? How many new species have appeared on campus since we put in the garden? What parents and even potential donors have frequently visited? Having data like this at your fingertips will not only make you more effective when it comes to growing things, it will also make you a good steward of your program. After all, this is not just a garden, it’s an organization. And organizations only succeed if their leaders are well-informed.
This list is painfully short but, if you’re considering starting a program like Classical Roots, it will make for a good starting place. If you follow these principles, you will probably be surprised by your success. In fact, the most consistent delight about The Classical Roots Program is that I’ve never had to ask people to be involved. Once they see the gardens, they tend to come to me. So it’s not a matter of forcing anyone’s hand or evangelizing the program, it’s a matter of quiet, consistent watering. It may seem like a small thing, but the problem isn’t the potential harvest—which is great—it’s that the laborers are too few. Perhaps it’s time for you to join us?
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