Maybe We Need Gardens As Much As We Need iPad Carts

I arrive to the classroom ready to see the field trip (to the farm) through a lens of metaphor. Maybe I'll think about growth and seeds and how that contrasts with the industrial method of education. Maybe I'll tweet out something about authentic learning. Maybe I'll say that the most innovative thing is the most vintage. Then it hits me. I have an agenda. I have talking points. And I lose that the moment that we begin picking out Swiss Chard (which, being Swiss, must mean it's neutral). The boys in my group pepper me with questions and I ask them a few of my own. We laugh. We learn. We stop speaking entirely and lose ourselves in the dirt and the plants and the connection to the land. Even now, alone with my thoughts, I'm still not thinking about an agenda. I'm just trying to find the best turnip available. Toward the end of the field trip, a boy in my group turns to Micah and points to his bag of vegetables, "What are we supposed to do with those?" "I think we'll mash the turnips up like mash potatoes and we'll use the lettuce for a salad," Micah responds. "But it's dirty," the boy says. "That's why you wash it." "But bugs have pooped on it," he says. "Bugs probably poop in the popsicle sticks before they make popsicles," Micah responds. And it is in this moment that I realize how badly our schools need gardens. Perhaps as much as we need iPad carts. Note: I see the inherent contradiction. I'm taking a photo of my son using my iPod Touch, filtering it through Instagram and then writing a post on Blogger, that I will likely post to Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook. It's why I used the term "as much" rather than "more than." I don't hate devices. I just think our hands should touch the dirt as often as they touch a screen.