Day 133: May 13, 2016 Community Opportunities and Wider Learning

May 13, 2016       Community Opportunities and Wider Learning
Day 133

Though this is the start of a beautiful relationship, the Wider Middle School Students said their goodbyes to their new favorite organic gardener, Erica Lavdanski. They will definitely see her again, but our five weeks of an in-depth look into an organic farmer's life ended, yesterday, in the potato field. At the B & H Organic Produce Farm, Erica and Wider pulled off a highly successful educational opportunity that shoved past conventional means and ways and headed straight into the "field". Wider's trajectory is community involvement at deeper levels and this mini project is just the beginning of a rich journey. We believe a community offers many things on so many levels and when it comes to learning it is a cornucopia of exceptional opportunities. Unfortunately, we tend to look over the fence rather than under our noses. But when we discover and engage with what is at our fingertips the result is often symbiotic and instructional. For life is the classroom.

For the past five weeks we have been captivated by Erica, one highly motivated and energized lady in our very own community, who has shared with us her wealth of organic knowledge. I am convinced that the seeds Erica has sown into each student will germinate into adults who will not knee jerk when they hear the word "organic" but allow their brains to expand with new thoughts and new ways. They now understand the benefits, limitations, successes, failures, hardships and lure of operating an organic farm. Their extended engagement with Erica has broadened their thoughts to ponder food prices, growing practices, and usage of pesticides and herbicides. For instance, they will no longer look at a field in the spring with a yellow color and think anything other than an herbicide. For Erica lent some explanation to this, "All fields in the spring should look green."

Not only did these students benefit but Erica did as well. For in a community we give to one other and it does not always look tit for tat but rather a continuous flow of gratitude. These students paid in labor for their rich educational experience. They learned about the stressors an organic farmer must face and their nonconventional ways and means while planting more than ten flats of squash, two sizable rows of broccoli and about six rows of potatoes. Both parties, the farmer and the students, were affected, impacted and changed. Every week she would show us the progress of the plants we had planted. She also led us to the asparagus patch where again she is heavily mulching with wood chips due to a video we had passed her way. She had done this before, given up and was recharged only because of this video we had encouraged her to watch. This is symbiosis at best.

To prepare for this adventure was simple. Erica and I met on a warm February day sitting on folding chairs making a bare bones list of the following: Soil Preparation, Germination, Seed handling, Planting, and Soil Conditions. My proposition to Erica was simple - I, the teacher will prepare lessons, Erica, the field teacher, was to simply talk while we were at the farm. I wanted the students to get caught into her energy, her farming vortex, her sweet spot without her being bogged down in lesson preparation.

What happened was magical. Our communities overflow with endless possibilities just waiting for us. When we engage within our community we are not following a well charted path but a path that leads to endless learning possibilities.