Nestor Ramirez, 9, cuts roses from a rose arbor students built from mulberry branches.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Gardner's Gardens
Students at Gardner Academy turn gardens into community attractions, source of pride
By Kate Carter
Photographs by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Ask a student at Gardner Academy, "How does your garden grow?" and you'll probably get another question in response: "Where?"
For the elementary school in northern Willow Glen has not just one teaching garden but four, and each represents a different environment in which different types of gardens grow.
There's a rainforest, dark and moist, with ferns and other dense foliage. There's a desert, with sand and cacti and an arid gravel riverbed. There's a California woodland, where short, leafy oaks grow along a small river. And there's a traditional vegetable and flower garden, with ripening strawberries, roses growing in profusion over an arched entrance, and, as children digging weeds noted, a wide variety of worms.
The gardens are the most visible aspect of an all-encompassing science curriculum in which every student in every grade at the school actively participates by digging, hoeing, planting and watering. The program, started in earnest about three years ago by science teacher Catherine Faulk, grows along with the children and the plants as she gradually builds on the students' growing knowledge and introduces more and more advanced ideas.
"Every year we get a little deeper and deeper with the kids," Faulk says. "Every year that they're here, they understand more and more so they can answer deeper questions. Now they can really think things through, and their enthusiasm for the environment has really grown."
As the students' enthusiasm for the project has grown, so has the community's enthusiasm for it, so much so that the program is no longer just a part of the school's curriculum but a part of the school's and neighborhood's way of life.
"It's the community, but it starts with the students," says principal Nico Flores, "because their sense of pride is spilling over. It's like the forest in the middle of the city."
Busy Bees: Gardner Academy teacher Catherine Faulk enjoys a day in the school's garden with students Isaac Brown, 9, and Dominique Madrigal, 9. They are helping her work the soil to plant and water plants.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
The green touch
Before the gardens were planted, there was little at the school that wasn't city-like, Faulk says.
"This place was pretty desolate when I came here; it was very plain and beige," she says to describe the campus' appearance about five years ago. "I hate beige. These are children--it wasn't inspiring to them. I wanted to fix that so it would look nice, just to elevate it so that it makes it a pleasant place for all of us."
The school had made an effort to become more colorful--its unique tile mosaic wall designs had already been installed, Faulk says, and there was evidence that a garden had been planted at one time next to the science lab. Although it hadn't been maintained, Faulk decided to use the resource as a starting point from which to build a program.
She applied for a grant from San Jose's Junior League and received money to create a rainforest, paint a mural and purchase supplies and curriculum software materials. With that money, her leadership and lots of little creative hands, the science wing began a trend that is still adding color to the campus.
Other classrooms and teachers got excited about the mural and painted some of their own, so now one building has a painting depicting the life cycle of a butterfly, another the life cycle of a frog and another the history of San Jose, which is yet to be completed. Faulk also incorporates a growing mural in the rainforest area--a small, dark, alley-type space between the science lab and another classroom--into her fourth-grade class. Every fourth-grade student researches a plant or animal that belongs in the rainforest, creates a painting of it and at the end of the year paints it on the rainforest wall.
"Children have a natural talent for painting and artwork," Faulk says. "Plus they're using their imaginations."
Faulk is a big fan of science, art and imagination, having a professional background in the first two and making the last an integral part of her own and her students' lives. Her classroom is full of items that can be found in a rainforest, of seedlings in small cartons, dead insects in jars and art materials--making for a dynamic and stimulating environment.
While the murals were decorating the school walls, Faulk took another look at the few green islands within the campus' gray concrete sea. She and her students set to cleaning up the vegetable garden and getting it prepared for new plants, complete with a fish pond and a third-grader-sized scarecrow.
Then she decided to do something about a corner of land overgrown with weeds near the campus' arbored eating area. It was sunny and dry, perfect for a mini desert. So she and the students cleared out the weeds, filled the area with sand, dug a trench for a rock riverbed and planted cacti and other desert plants.
Finally, a couple of years ago, one of the playground areas near the classrooms was deemed unsafe and was closed. It sat unused for about a year, until Faulk decided to open it up again to the children for planting oak trees donated by Our City Forest--one for each classroom. The children dug a trench for a river and added other plants and features.
As the environments have become more established on campus, they've also become homes for a variety of environment-specific animals and insects, Faulk says. Students have seen a lizard lounging around the desert, birds and spiders hanging about the vegetable garden, squirrels and a few bird nests in the woodland and a mole that's discovered the roots in the jungle, she says wryly.
In addition, the river in the woodlands, which Faulk describes as "imaginary" because it only fills with water when she turns it on, actually serves a purpose on campus by being a natural collector for water that can flood the central campus in the winter.
The gardens are clearly not professionally maintained--"It's not like we hired a landscape architect," Faulk says--but they are meticulously kept free of litter and are whimsically well-loved. All the work in them is done by the students--kindergartners through fifth-graders--with help and direction from Faulk.
"I've been able to use my own imagination here and let it grow," she says. "The children and I, doing things together--it gives them the idea that they can do things, they can make a difference, they can use their imaginations. I try to include them in every step of the way. They love to participate. It makes them feel so proud."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Rose Bouquet: Students from Gardner Academy show the roses they grew and picked from their school's garden.
Beauty all around
The work the children have done has made a difference in the appearance of the school and in the amount of enthusiasm they have going there--so much so that family and neighbors have noticed it as well.
The children grow plants from seed, Faulk says, but instead of transplanting them into the gardens, she lets them take the plants home.
"They like to take things home, show their mom and put it on their windowsill," she says.
But some children tell Faulk that they don't have any place at home to plant things like sunflowers and other outdoor plants. When that happens, she says, she suggests they ask a neighbor if he or she would like the plant in his or her yard.
"I try to encourage them to think of their community," Faulk says. "I like community projects. I've been that way for a long time."
If the students still can't find a home for their plants, then Faulk will help them find an appropriate spot in the gardens, she says.
As people in the community have learned about the gardens, some have donated plants for them, Faulk says, and sometimes family members will bring a small plant in.
The school has noticed that interest, Flores says, contrasting it to parents' lack of enthusiasm for other programs like curriculum and long-range planning. Flores says the school wants to encourage the involvement of as many parents as it can, and if parents want to help with the gardens, then the school will encourage that.
Entering the front of campus and heading toward the main office, one passes a section cut out of the pavement where a tree, some shrubs and many weeds grow. Flores says the school has identified that as the site of a future parents' garden, to be initially designed by a landscape architect and then maintained by interested parents.
"We want to give them something that they can feel ownership toward," he says. "It's all part of improvements in the neighborhood. You want to make sure that there's a sense of community."
Wild Beauty: Blooming desert cactus flowers in the desert habitat flourish at the gardens of Gardner Academy.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Working the ground
On a warm spring afternoon, dozens of children gather near Faulk as she pulls a wheelbarrow full of gravel, a hand cart of large rocks and some plastic bins and gardening equipment out of her classroom. The students have chores today--they must shovel the gravel into the bins and take it to the desert to finish up the dry riverbed, they have to move the large rocks to line the river in the woodland area and they have to weed the vegetable garden.
The children barely wait for instruction before grabbing a tool and getting started. They are filled with energy and move a large quantity of rocks before they are done, still asking to be assigned more tasks that they notice should be done--raking the scum from the river, laying planks over the river to create a bridge and digging a hole for no certain purpose in the garden--Faulk says hole-digging is one of their favorite activities. Luckily, Faulk has the energy to keep up with them, and she doesn't mind filling in an overenthusiastic hole or smoothing out an incomplete rock river after the children have gone home, she says.
But some children rarely want to go home after working in the gardens. Faulk says she heads out to the gardens with her students at least once a week, but some want to spend more time, and some will find any excuse to hang around after school. Faulk says she thinks that's because the gardens have helped the children see the school as a safe, fun place that they have made their own, which for some of them may not be the case at home.
Flores says the program started out being about science but has grown to be a lot more about the children's pride in themselves and the community's pride in itself. Faulk says the gardens have given the students a space of their own creation where they can continue to create, both in school and beyond.
"The gardens give them a place to go and dream," she says. "I think it's brought a lot of joy into their lives and gives them something to look forward to."
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
