Everybody Grows: A Community Partnership

As part of the 6th grade community engagement focus on Food Justice, we forged a partnership with Everybody Grows:

At Everybody Grows, our mission is to inspire and equip people to grow fresh, healthy food by bringing the home garden to everybody, wherever home may be.

We serve communities across the Washington DC area by making growing food possible regardless of location, age, income or mobility.  Our work brings families and communities closer through sharing the life-sustaining joy of growing food.

Inspiration Gardens are built in partnership with the DC Fire Department, local churches and nursing homes. These community-focused gardens provide an opportunity for people from all walks of life to plant together, harvest together and to learn how to grow their own vegetable gardens.

Jake is the Executive Director and an alum of SFS.  He had been looking for opportunities to bring his work as a landscape designer and gardener back to his alma mater.  Brad Ogilvie, long time SFS consultant connected us and this partnership was born.  This first we launched a seed growing initiative.  All of the students planted and tended over 700 seedlings.  Some died but some were donated and planted in DC community gardens.  As we solidify this partnership over the next year, we hope to soon have all 6th grade students going out into neighborhoods and helping with the gardens as well.  

Seed growing and soil quality are part of the 6th grade science curriculum so we will continue to deepen that connection.  We have found literary connections to Seedfolks and The Green Book, which I will teach this year.  It also connects to discussions about farming in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  It complements the OxFam Hunger Banquet and Global Village experience since it exposes students to the difficulties of actually growing food to eat, something our American privilege and culture separates us from.  

My coworker Stewart and I had the opportunity to present these ideas at the Private Schools for Public Purpose conference. Here is our presentation called Sowing Seeds.

Transparent and Organized Math Instruction

A puzzle for my math teaching this year was how to make our learning goals transparent and how to organize class work so that it could be easily coalated into a portfolio at the end of the year.  Then I learned about a resource called Betterlesson.com.  They hire master teachers to submit lessons in a variety of topics.  I liked one teacher's work in particular, especially the way her lessons featured student notes.

I appreciated the way she focused on her learning goals, both questions and mandated standards.  The "I will be able to" statements allowed students to understand what they were responsible for learning. The "Do Now" offered a way to kick off activities or to do mini-assessments.  The notes can contain information, activities, links, or resources.  It is easy to attach class or homework to them.  

I adapted this model for my own class and felt much more organized this year.  It was easy to integrate essential questions into our every day lessons.  It is also a useful system for differentiation as each student can get an individualized set of activities attached to the notes.   Students continued to need reminders to keep up with the notes and to use the notes to study for tests, but the system was in place for them to do so.  It was also useful during conversations with parents, as my expectations were clearly articulated in the student materials.  Here are some samples:

Solid Figure Notes

Integer Notes