Teacher as Garden Tender

I must be a horrible gardener. Were you to see what constitutes as a “garden” at my house, you would shudder. Weeds. Tangled plants. Squash tendrils growing with abandon into everything else. Not a whit of pruning, paring or otherwise cajoling plants into their own area. It is a mess.

I imagine that most teachers would be good gardeners. They would nourish the soil, weed, corral the ambition of the squash, pinch and pare and prune in order to produce the fullest, juiciest, most flavorful crops possible. After all, isn’t this what teaching is all about?

In school, teachers tend to their gardens in different ways. Some make sure that everything is tended to — they measure student’s growth, make adjustments when necessary. They plan things; they have seating charts. They are proactive, in this manner. This type of teacher has a reason for everything they do.

Others are different, though. They have ragged, messy lessons that seem aimless, their classes are chaotic, kids everywhere, getting in other’s ways, seemingly disrupting learning. . I would imagine a real garden of these people to be more like mine: bushy, unkempt, sprawling.

Historically, teachers who tend to their gardens are preferred. Administrators don’t bother them, nor do parents of students in their classes. Things are understood; lessons are planned, objectives are either met or not, and when they are not, measures are taken to do so. They are safe, efficient, and the “fruits” of their labor are easily sensed and enjoyed. On the other hand, those with classes where the outcome is unpredictable are an easy mark. They don’t readily have evidence of their “fruit” — they, in fact, probably have less fruit than the orderly and tended classroom. They tend to have to explain themselves more to the other shareholders in the education community. And they have a harder time doing so, as the evidence that backs up whatever they are doing isn’t there.

Or is it? Thus far, I’ve been focusing on the “fruit” that comes either from the garden or from the classroom. This fruit has been determined as the primary reason for the gardening.

The thing is, though, that the fruit is the part of the plant that serves us. Sure, obviously fruit also serves the plant; it is the reason why generations of plants have and will continue to grow on Earth. But the cultivating of a plant’s fecundity serves only us; the plant will make enough fruit and seeds to serve itself; any more is a useless energy-waster for the plant.

The plant would love to divert that energy into growing. Spreading out, shooting roots and vines and stalks higher and further out. That squash plant wants to look like a giant spider, creeping and unfettered in its ambition to take over the lawn. Fruit? Only enough to ensure survival.

Cultivation serves us. I assert that it can be seen that the “cultivation”, the good gardening that we partake of in the classroom oftentimes only serves us as well. So hellbent on us to produce students that produce for us, we forget that the student doesn’t always want to produce; they want to grow.

It may be the greatest shortcoming of the current educational system to confuse students that are producing (test scores, projects, etc.) with students that are growing.

To combat this, I suggest asking yourself the following questions:

• Is the outcome of the lesson for you, or for them? Is it making fruit, or making growth?
• How much are you encouraging growth in a specific area, or allowing for growth to/through any area?
• How much of your lesson plan is devoted to pruning?
• Do you love your classroom like you love a garden, or like you love, say, a forest?

Answer truthfully, and you too can have a disastrously verdant and happy garden like mine…!