How Does Your Garden Grow?

How Does Your Garden Grow?

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With a fresh foot of snow still on the ground, it may not be the easiest time to visualize thriving gardens, but this post isn’t about our backyard crops. It’s about cultivating growth in our learning spaces. We can’t control the weather, but we can condition soil, protect our plants, encourage growth and reap harvests. And just like avid gardeners share and compare their tips for establishing and maintaining healthy gardens, this post looks to lessons from gardeners to help our classroom gardens grow. 

Signs of Life...

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In his book Watering Rocks, Dave Maurer cautions against “watering rocks.”  Maurer explains his leadership advice by advising, “Don’t spend too much time trying to fix something that you can’t fix.” 

While it may seem like a bit of a harsh metaphor, I’ve received that exact advice in my coaching role. It’s a warning to not exhaust your own resources with some “at the expense of your superstars.” I will admit, I have mixed feelings about Maurer’s advice. While I understand the idea of leveraging time and attention where it’s most impactful and welcome, I don’t think there are many “rocks” in our profession.  It worth mentioning, any stroll along a river’s edge or shady forest will also prove that nature finds a way to provide growth even on the roughest rocks. 

At the other end of the spectrum is Julie Wilson's description of growing bamboo. In her book, The Human Side of Changing Education: How to Lead Change With Clarity, Conviction, and Courage, she explains:

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It takes approximately three to four years for a young bamboo plant to establish a large a solid root structure underground before it starts growing significantly above ground. It would appear that not a lot is happening for a long period of time. But, after three to four years of consistent watering and care, that very same plant can grow several feet overnight. This work if changing the education system is just like the bamboo growth; it require patience and time- and it also requires faith.

This speaks my language more than the the rocks metaphor. It’s a living model of a growth mindset. There's a difference in belief, purpose, expectation, and understanding.  Wilson's book and message is all about effective leadership through compassion and courage, rather than control and compliance, certainly the right environment to cultivate healthy growth.  

Beyond the Garden Gates...

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Nature provides sunlight, soil and rain, but these are only the basics. To stretch the metaphor, our schools provide curriculum, stocked classrooms, and the tools to teach and learn. But who carries the water? These who are the cultivators, providers, nurturers all in service of growth. They don’t mind getting hands dirty, literally at ground level cultivating, weeding, and dependably watering. 

Any search for gardening tips yield list after list of recommendations and “Top 10” tips. The first search hits featured guidelines from Growingagreener world.com,  Fine Gardening, and The University of Minnesota Extension. The following topics titles (and quoted passages) are taken straight from their links.

🌱 Test Soil  

The University of Minnesota Extension explains that, "Soil is a living ecosystem—a large community of living organisms linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows." 
The better we understand our students and their unique needs, the better we can tend to their growth. 

🍃 Add Organic Material/Provide Nutrients 

Our education nutrients are that mixture of curriculum and instruction that promotes and cultivates growth. Our professional craft mixes and maintains the continued balance of nutrients to promote learning and growth. 

🍂 Keep it Covered

A critical component of our job is to create an environment that is safe and encourages new growth. Providing a “protective layer” allows us to conserve the resources that support healthy learning while sheltering from some of the more unwelcome environmental influences. 

💧 Apply the Correct Fertilizer

     Don’t overfertilize

 Just like there will always be new techniques, products, or tools to help tend to our classroom gardens, there’s no such thing as educational Miracle-Gro.  Growth rates are unique among every plant and we shouldn’t expect anything otherwise. Applying the correct fertilizer is all about selecting best practices, effective strategies and appropriate resources to support learning and “stimulate growth.”

⥁ Rotate Crops

Experienced gardeners rotate crops to allow species to share resources and nutrients. Placement, grouping and rotation respect and benefit from a diversity of crops and their unique nutrient requirements. The most effective flexible learning environments rely upon similar benefits!

🌞 Don’t crowd plants

Consider flexible learning spaces.  Thriving gardens allow room to grow, including the parts of the plant you can see and those that may be hidden beneath the soil. The same goes for our learners!

Soil compaction and disturbance such as  tillage can eliminate these important microenvironments. This makes it hard for plant roots to penetrate the soil, absorb water and nutrients, and interact with beneficial microbes.

Disturbing soil also disturbs weed seeds, exposing them to light and increasing germination—in other words, more weeds! (extension.umn.edu)

🐛 Keep an Eye on your Bugs 

      Use Patience with Pest Control

Enough said...

💦 Water Wisely

Finally, Fine Gardening says it best: Also remember that more isn’t necessarily better when giving your plants a drink.

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Don’t forget our pollinators. These are the often unseen, but critical, visitors who provide the fertilization, nutrients and supports that strengthen and reinforce steady and measurable growth. Whether we are the home gardener, the buzzing pollinator, or the busy worker tending to field after field of others gardeners’ crops, we all know our job isn’t about the harvest or yeild. We can learn (or even measure) from what our students produce, but just like gardeners tend to their soil and crops through days, weeks, and seasons, educators are in it for the long haul. We have our own growth measures that can only come with daily care and routine tending, noticing (and responding to) subtle signs of stress or capitalizing on rapid growth opportunities. 

Link to Dave Maurer podcast 

http://www.bossbuilderpodcast.com/e/22-watering-rocks-how-to-fail-and-succeed-as-a-leader-with-dave-maurer/