Budding Gardeners Also Cultivate Culture
The sun has given a sweaty brow to fourth-grader Victor Hernandez as he proudly marches into his part of paradise at the Jackie Robinson Academy in west Long Beach.
“These,” the 9-year-old says with a regal sweep of arm, “are the Spanish gardens. There is sweet corn, chilies and our redwood tree. It’s an actual redwood tree. There are three headmasters of the Spanish garden: Raymond, Erick and me. The headmasters are the protectors of the garden,” he adds solemnly. “Come with me.”
And so begins a visit to the multicultural gardens tended by the 950 students of Jackie Robinson, a year-round school of kindergarten through eighth grade in the Long Beach Unified School District where language is the overarching focus.
On former patches of grass wedged between classroom buildings, the students of the 50-member JRA Garden Club have planted three gardens that complement the French, Japanese or Spanish they are studying. Each school day, the students plant and water, weed and mulch, pick vegetables and feed their trimmings to a compost heap. Most of the student body will have worked or studied in the garden during the year.
In addition to hands-on learning about follow-through from planting to harvest, the gardens afford outdoor time for the students, a majority of whom live in an urban landscape of west Long Beach.
“What I hope the gardens will accomplish,” said Principal Beth Flynn, “is for the children to have a cultural experience that is represented in the garden. But we also want it to be a science experience . . . and one that teaches leadership in taking care of the garden. The gardens are a perfect opportunity to show that they are making an impact.”
The magnet school near Long Beach Memorial Hospital is planted squarely in the most ethnically diverse neighborhood of a city recently deemed the most diverse in the country. Jackie Robinson was conceived and built eight years ago to play to that strength, as were its gardens.
Students are immersed in one of three languages--French, Spanish or Japanese--throughout their school day. As part of that immersion in culture, they also have gardening.
“It is a privilege,” said Francois Crannell, a teacher in the French program whose math class consists of several gardeners. The students have to apply for various jobs--the “receptionist” answers the classroom phone, for instance.
“It is an extremely good motivating tool,” Crannell said. “I have a low-performing student, and the reward of being able to go to the garden and be a part of it is so exciting for him. . . . But if a student falls behind, I take them out of the garden.”
Earlier this week, members of the Garden Club worked in 80-degree weather. Fifth-grader Dayna Rainey sprayed a fine cascade of water onto the carrots, spinach and other French garden produce.
Fourth-grader Monique Carnes, 9, knelt near some fading daisies that needed picking. Her mother is from Mexico, and Spanish is her first language, but she is in the French program, as is her brother. Another brother is in the Japanese program.
Initially, she said, she wanted to attend Jackie Robinson “because I saw it had a big playground.”
But she quickly concluded that she wanted to apply to be a gardener. The birds are there, especially hummingbirds, small like her.
Gardeners are mostly from kindergarten and fifth-grade classes, and they do more than maintain the gardens; they study there. Through science experiments, they learn about irrigation and composting. Through understanding the work that goes into a garden, they learn an appreciation of nature and why it needs protecting. The students also paint in the gardens or perch on shaded benches to write in their journals.
In the Japanese garden, structures were built out of bamboo, and a stone-lined path weaves through sandy soil, which is raked to resemble waves.
“The sand and the rocks represent the ocean. The sand is the ocean and the rocks are islands,” said Shabonne Hunt, 11, one of the Japanese gardeners. She is African American but her great-grandfather was Japanese, and Japan’s clothes and landscape have always fascinated her.
Volunteers and parents have helped cultivate the gardens. John Case, the father of a former student, is largely responsible for making them a reality. He is a frequent visitor and helper, even though his family has moved and his son attends a different school. Besides dreaming up the idea of the gardens, he has given financial support and his own labor.
“He could have put his money into a Mercedes or a yacht,” said Ruth Bobic, whose third-grade class has planted a pumpkin patch in which they hope to grow a 950-pounder by Halloween.
“But this is his way of giving to his community. John is a humble guy and he wants to teach the kids. He lets them be very creative and do their own thing.”
Parents of the gardeners say they love the program.
“It teaches them so much responsibility,” said Sheila McCoy, whose son Raymond Archuleta, 10, is learning French but works in the Spanish garden. “He actually brought me a rose home from school . . . and it was in a vase already when I got home.”
Back in the Spanish garden, Victor is continuing his tour, making it clear why the gardens need the protection of headmasters like him.
“Here is our avocado tree. The middle-schoolers ate the one avocado that we had last year. . . . Here is our fountain of very cold water. The middle-schoolers always drink out of it. They throw trash in it. . . .”
Student gardeners showed off the rosemary of the French garden, the chili varieties in the Spanish garden and the symbolism of the Japanese garden, where a wooden sign on the entrance states in Japanese: “Will to Learn Garden.”
Not all of the students work in the garden. To do so, they must first apply and explain why they would be good gardeners.
In May, the students celebrated the first anniversary of the gardens with crafts, food and music from the Philippines, Samoa and other countries to which the students have links. They also broke ground on a Native American garden they hope to transform from a slope of grass into produce and plants native to California.
Eric Shine, 7, strolled through each of the gardens, and upon passing the fragrant rosemary and fruit-bearing strawberry plants, he breathed in the aroma and sighed.
“I wish I had a garden,” he said, “but I can’t, because I live in a building. That’s why I want to work in the garden here. To plant stuff and watch stuff grow.”
