Teachers plant gardens

The common phrase "you learn something new every day" supports the idea of life-long learning, which is why teaching is such an important profession. As a teacher, I hope to be able to learn alongside my students. Showing students that learning never ends and that it is okay to make mistakes is an important part of school and life. Not only will I be teaching students reading and math, but I will also play an imperative role of respecting and affirming the identities of each of my students. Students, like all people, learn through experiences and connection, so I hope to foster a positive classroom community for them to do so.

 I hope for my classroom community to be built like a garden. In Jeff Duncan-Andrade’s lecture “Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete”, he compares the classroom to a micro-ecosystem in which each student is an indigenous plant. This idea embraces the differences between students and makes the classroom a just and equitable community where each students has an impact on their environment. As a teacher, I am the gardener and will tend to my students to make sure each one has their unique needs met in order to create a beautiful community. Some need little attention and grow quickly without needing much from the environment. Others need to be watered multiple times a day, sometimes multiple times in a row. Some may seek your sunlight one day and then hide the next. It may be easy to see what each organism needs or it may be that they do not even know themselves. No matter what, teachers need to treat the indigenous species in their classroom with individualized care in order for each organism grow and thrive. Duncan-Andrade states that when teachers care for the garden in our classrooms, “we might not change the world, but we can spark” and tend to “the mind that does” (Duncan-Andrade, 2010).