Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The Work of The Careful Gardener

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Think of a middle school student like a seed hoping to grow. There is so much potential locked in that seed, but it won’t grow just anywhere. The hosta wants to grow in the shade, blueberries need acidic soil, and tomatoes want the fullest of sun.

Now imagine you are a gardener who comes upon a huge mix of seeds. There’s too many for you to sort these individually, and you don’t have the energy to spend all day planting them far and wide. So you decide to plant all these varied seeds in the same spot in garden. You figure at least some of them will grow. And indeed the seeds grow at all sorts of paces, and, now committed to your initial plan, you continue to treat them the same, giving them equal water and refusing to move any withering plants. Inevitably, some seeds will still flourish, but many will struggle. Some will still grow but bear little fruit, some will be stunted, and some will never sprout at all.

In too many places, for too long, this has been the situation for middle school girls. They find themselves planted in smaller and smaller plots in the garden. By high school some will still flourish but others will struggle, and many will feel that they are now cut off from whole areas of study.

LJA’s mission is to be a more careful gardener. Small class sizes allow us to know all of our seeds individually, and our mission ensures that they have a chance to grow in whatever part of the garden suits them.

When some people see our girl-focus or our emphasis on STEM, they seem to think that we are taking our huge bag of mixed-up seeds and just planting them all in a different part of the garden. This, of course, would simply mean that a different set of “seeds” would be flourishing and a new group would struggle.  The parts of our mission that you hear the most about--STEM, girl-focus, wellness--are there as reminder that these are the neglected spots in the garden, not the best spots. The careful gardener takes the time to sort the seeds, but even then, still spreads the seeds to various parts of the garden. She monitors them closely, adjusting to the needs of the plants and does what is required to make sure every seed has the chance to reach its potential.

“I must have cracked thousands of seeds over the years,” says biologist Hope Jahren,  “and yet the next day’s green never fails to amaze me.”   The seed waits for the right combination of light, warmth, humidity, and other conditions and makes the leap into life. There is beauty but also, utility, power, and joy in this growth.  At LJA we strive to expose students to as many conditions as possible, so that they can find the right combination for them to flourish. Or, as Jahren puts it, “Something so hard can be so easy if you just have a little help. In the right place, under the right conditions, you can finally stretch out into what you’re supposed to be.”  

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