The Wrong Part of the Carrot

Early on in my teaching career I discovered the power of growing things. Struggling through that difficult first year of teaching, one of the few things my middle schoolers responded to (other than food and Snoop Doggy Dog) was a unit on plants. I couldn’t afford to feed them treats every day, and under no circumstances was I going to “bust out a rhyme”, but I could sure share my love of gardening with them. We propagated plants, did an in depth tree study, joined the Arbor Day Foundation, and planted trees around the campus. Those desperation lessons were all about crowd control in the beginning, but as my teaching has evolved, so have the lessons.

At some point I figured out how to combine the appeal of food with my lessons on plants and we began planting lettuce, carrots, and radishes. I’m always amazed at how excited the kids get when they see those first sprouts, and how, invariably, at least one (usually several) are surprised to learn that carrots and radishes grow underground. One kid this year really freaked and kept insisting that we can’t eat the “wrong” part of the carrot.

One of the most exciting things about Givhans Farms is working with content area experts and seeing how other teachers use the same materials and ideas in wildly different ways. Because of my training in the field of emotional disabilities, I always think in terms of a project’s functionality and its impact on behavior. I know for sure that concrete, real world work makes a difference for kids, especially for those who struggle academically. It is a treat to see a kid find his or her niche and really shine. The same student who just can’t make sense of y=mx+b or can’t write a cohesive paragraph might work wonders in the soil.

So what happens if we start with the hands on stuff first, and then build on that in the classroom? Will the Fertile Crescent make more sense if its on a timeline with our very own farm? Will y=mx+b be more meaningful if we use it to graph lettuce production or sales figures? Will a persuasive writing assignment have more relevance if the student is writing to a senator asking them to vote one way or another on a farm bill? Will it ever be ok to eat the wrong part of the carrot? My guess is yes.