Aphids are destroying my brussels sprouts. Something is devouring my broccoli. If you've ever tried to grow organic vegetables, you feel my pain. I have a few years of gardening under my belt. Sometimes it strikes me as sort of an 'old person' thing to do with my time. Other times, like last tonight when I ate a bunch of tomatoes I grew from seed for dinner, it strikes me as something you'd have to be crazy not to do. There's something very honest about digging the earth. But man is it hard to please all of the plants out there.
Gardens are a microcosm of life in a lot of ways. You won't get much out of them without putting a lot into them. It takes a lifetime of experimentation and observation before you start to feel like you've mastered it (so I'm told...). Occasionally there's a big turd hidden in there, waiting to be stepped on.
After a few years of trying, with many failures and a handful of successes, you get an appreciation for what 'cultivation' really means. As educators, our task is to turn students inside out - we start as the gardener, but ultimately we are working to teach students to tend their own gardens. In order to do that, they have to gain an appreciation of what it means to cultivate. It requires patience and persistence, but most of all, vision.
Vision is a seed. It can be planted deliberately, or it can be dropped seemingly carelessly into soil ready to receive it. If you haven't tried growing anything from seed since you grew those beans on the classroom windowsill in 3rd grade, I recommend giving it a shot. Reflect on it; the world of education is there in miniature.
