I had my first real experience with leading a class! It wasn't an official DGS lesson, as those will start on Monday. It was the conservation class, a seventh grade elective, taught by one of the teachers involved in the study. She has graciously offered her 31 seventh graders as free labor any afternoon we need them. Before hurricane Isaac (didn't) flood the town, we had them help us cart our load of topsoil away from the storm runoff where it had been unwisely deposited. They mostly complained about how smelly it was. (Turkey litter is nasty.) This time, we had them help us build vermicomposting bins. For those of you who don't know, vermi=worms. We had gotten some cedar 1"X8"X8' boards donated from the local sawmill. Before we could set these kids loose, we had a lot of prep to do. We measured and cut all the lumber, rewrote the abysmal directions into relatively easy to follow, coherent directions, drilled lots of pilot holes, realized the directions called for some 10 inch boards, even though the budget spreadsheet only listed 8 inch boards, so we had to recut some of the boards to be 16 inches instead of 20, and gathered as many screw drivers as we could. Turns out it takes way more work to get kids involved in construction projects than if you just did it yourself.
We also only had enough lumber to complete 3 bins in this first round. Instead of having 30 kids all working on the project, we split the class up and Katherine took some of them to go finish planting the south demonstration garden. That is how I ended up being in charge of 20-some kids. The instructions I had written were about 8 steps, including gathering the materials. I thought we could surely finish them in 45 minutes, because hey, there are like three screwdrivers per group and like six kids. We got through the first three steps.... Pam, the teacher, gave me a little pep talk afterwards, saying that a) I needed to be meaner to the kids, and that b) we might need to readjust our expectations of what could get done in a class period. By being meaner, she meant I needed to stop trying to talk over the kids and really command their attention. I'm still not sure how I can get them to listen to me, if they're busy working in groups of seven kids working on a project together. I only ever talked over them to let them know I was giving out the next set of directions.... Even though it was raining on Friday, we had the kids out again to work of the worm bins. On the second go-around, I had a new game plan. Instead of trying to set them loose in between each set of instructions and then get their focus back, I had them pick a foreman for each group who would go and figure out the next step and lead their own group. I walked around giving instructions and feedback to each group separately. It worked WAY better, and besides needing to go back and tighten up most of the screws with a power drill, they finished the worm bins by the end of the period. SUCCESS!
Another success this week was submitting my first grant proposal. It was a $1,500 grant through the Arkansas Flower and Garden Association Greening of Arkansas community beautification grants. The grant had to be for at least 50% horticulture, so actual plants, and the rest could be for whatever. We proposed this outdoor classroom foodshed project. Behind our greenhouse site is this really steep grassy hill leading to a nature trail and the outdoor classroom, which is really just a cement slab with a roof and benches along three of the sides. We asked for a tool shed, trellising materials, some gardening tools, and tons of edibles and perennials. Horseradish, rhubarb, raspberries (including red, golden, and black), blueberries, thornless blackberries, strawberries, and asparagus. We'll find out if we get the grant on November 1st, so now we just have to wait.
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