The Idea

I enjoy teaching, but I love growing things. From my garden, to my basement, to the urban farm some friends and I started last year; growing vegetables is my passion. It is what I think about while I am laying in bed at night and it is often what I am thinking about as I eat my cereal in the morning. So I had an idea that maybe I could somehow combine my passion with my job. The reasons for me wanting to do this are more than my selfish dream to do what I love at school. I believed that if I could do this I could grow engagement in students. I will talk about this more later, but to me it is the missing piece in all the new educational experts plan for reforming schools. I believe that learning only comes from engagement. That is how it was when I was a kid. If my teacher engaged me I learned and I loved to learn, but if he/she didn't I went through the motions yet I didn't really learn. At my school I see the majority of the kids going through the motions. Many of them have motivations to do well in class, some are motivated by their parents, some by the desire to get a grade and some by peers, but I do not see many students that are motivated by their desire to learn. Why? Have kids changed that much since I was a kid? Or has school changed that much since I was a kid? I sometimes wonder if between all the objectives and testing we have cut out the stuff that leads to curiosity and discovery. Anyways I approached my vice principal with the idea that instead of me teaching study hall next semester maybe I could teach an urban agriculture class, where kids would be encouraged to explore and discover the beauty of food and growing things. He liked the idea (I love working for people who trust me) and we started the process. I told the students about it and created an application that had to be filled out in order to be in the class. I wanted to have no more than 20 people but I had 23 applicants that qualified (based on classes they need to take yet,) so next week I start my journey of teaching urban agriculture to middle schoolers, everyday from 2:15 to 3:00. I have ideas for what I hope will happen but I am going to try to enter this with an open mind and let the kids lead us to where they want to take it. That is what this blog will be about. A journey...I can not wait to start.