Episode 1.2 Transcript
Say Something Kind to A Seed: SEL in the School Garden
Welcome to Farm to School Northeast, a podcast where we explore the creative ways that local food is getting into school cafeterias and how food system education is playing out in classrooms and school gardens across the northeast. Today we have an opportunity to sit down with Fatima Sack. Fatima manages a school garden at the Mel King South End Academy in Boston, Massachusetts. She’s entering her third season as a school gardener at Mel King and is a proponent of school gardens being a hub for social emotional learning and cultural education. Her farm to school wish is that school gardens are integrated deeply into school cultures beyond science, education to therapeutic services, arts and humanities, teacher leadership, education and more. Welcome Fatima.
Fatima: Thank you so much for having me. I’m very grateful to be here.
Dinah: Alright, so Fatima, can you introduce yourself to the listeners and in particular share how your work and interests are connected to farm to school?
Fatima: Absolutely. My name is Fatima Seck. I come to Urban Agriculture and School Garden Education after having worked in arts education through museums and also in early childhood education. So I bring a kind of strong background in what museums education is all about, which is really about exchange and ideas through art, cultural exchange, cultural history, and then what early childhood education is all about, which is social emotional learning. And with the littles, the really littles, are really thinking about how can we teach them to build awareness about their own emotional lives and how to communicate it. So those were kind of my building blocks of coming into working at a school garden where I started off actually just as a volunteer and I just really fell in love with working for the very first time actually managing a school garden. So you don’t need experience to do it if that’s something that’s interesting to you.
I’m now coming into my third season at the school garden, which was founded originally by the science teachers and over time has been handed off into someone who’s into me in a full-time role and a couple of other people in between. But I’m really interested in bridging all of the things that I mentioned together. So bringing this arts, education, cultural perspective to school garden education. I think sometimes we can really corner school garden education really into the science fields. And I’m really big on how can we connect this to literature, how can we connect this to the humanities, to history, to arts and music education. And we grow like Paul Robeson tomatoes and we can learn all about jazz in the garden, for example. And also really thinking about how school gardens can be a really valuable tool for learning social emotional skills. It’s kind of built into the pedagogy of learning into a garden, learning in a garden. So there’s my background.
Dinah: So you have a passion for using the school garden as a place for social emotional learning. Can you first describe for our listeners what social emotional learning is and then speak to why gardens, whether they’re indoors or outdoors, are important places for social emotional growth?
Fatima: Absolutely. Great question. For me, social emotional learning, or what it means to have strong social emotional knowledge is basically it’s about your skills and your ability to kind of manage the weather of life. So managing your emotions, knowing how to regulate them, how to confront and face things that frustrate you, how to confront and face things that are challenging to you, deciding what’s important to you. Practicing skills like discernment. I think a sign of strong social emotional knowledge is a student’s ability to have some level of resilience to the things that are inevitable in life and also an ability to deeply appreciate the things that are also inevitable in life that are beautiful. So you know, we talk a lot about things like emotional regulation, learning how to manage sensory overload, learning how to communicate and both listen better, but also communicate our internal worlds a little bit better. So I think communication and emotional regulation are really fundamental skills, but also so are other more inward facing things like patience, and managing frustration and things like that. Our goals as educators in trying to really create or raise students who have strong social emotional skills is a student who can meet life with resilience, with an openness without shutting themselves down and is able to communicate through it. And I think the reason that a garden is a great place to develop that type of education is because it kind of makes you, it’s full of metaphors for life. It’s kind of a little arena, like a little version of what we experience in the larger world. And I think through a school garden, through the act of planting a tomato, if you want to eat that tomato, you just got to wait for it. There’s really just no way around it.
So through this education, I think more so than other kinds of education, which might involve standardization, might involve assessment and testing. There’s no testing in a garden, there’s no assessment. So it’s really about learning life skills. There’s no other thing to do and it’s really about, I think play is also a really big part of social emotional learning. I think play–the ability to play is a big sign of strong social emotional skills, but also play can help us access stronger social emotional learning skills because play is also an arena where conflict happens and we need to practice patience and learn how to express ourselves and communicate. But in a garden, I think if we can really as educators really walk young people through how just in the small act of planting a seed and the small act of doing something like weeding, weeding is about the skill of discernment. How do you make a decision in your life? What is important, what it’s not. Crop planning is about value systems. Crop planning is about what’s important and how do we create balance, be the different things that are important to us. So if we as educators and as people, if we can find the bigger picture and really make meaning through working in the garden, we can really tap into a lot of potential for amazing social emotional education.
Dinah: Can you share a few examples of maybe some students who you have seen have significant personal growth in a garden and what were some signs you saw of this positive change?
Fatima: Yeah, I can think of a couple different examples. I think one skill that I felt really grateful to see and happy to see in a young person in the garden, this is a student who has kind of grown a fondness for being in the garden and for being in the garden space. And I think with that fondness is really invested in it and feels it’s a space where they have agency, where they have helped create it. I think a lot of young people don’t feel a sense of agency in their lives. And so another thing that a school garden can offer is this opportunity to say I grew something or I painted something at my school, in a similar way that an art classroom can do. And this student is someone who’s learning to practice emotional regulation, especially around anger. And I think it was interesting to watch them over time be able to manage their anger, especially in the garden in a way that didn’t involve any kind of physical aggression in the space. So we talk a lot about how everything is, everything is life, everything really is a little, even this little plant, this little weed that we have to be discerning around is still life that we have to respect and honor. And I think there’s this experience of watching a young person choose to go to the garden to regulate themselves and choose to go to the garden to cool down, but not act out, not to destroy, not to lash out, but really to just cool down for me demonstrated that how a school garden can be a really vital part of creating a culture of emotional regulation for students. Sometimes we do just need to exit a situation and I think through the kind of investment that working in a school garden with a school gardener or a science teacher or an art teacher can do for a young person, and it also creates a sense of investment where they can regulate themselves in a peaceful way, which is a very important skill in life.We need to know how to regulate ourselves in a way that doesn’t inflict harm to others.
Other examples I can think of is a practice that we try to adopt, which is practicing gratitude when it comes to growing food and planting things and recognizing life and watching the young people take on these habits. We say a lot, especially with middle schoolers, that we’re just planting seeds that we hope can last over time. And I think in this act of– you know, it begins as something that is external, it’s asked of their teacher. This is a practice that I set up of, we always give thanks or we say a kind word is what we do when we plant our seeds in, but over time they kind of take it up on their own and it becomes a little bit of a mental habit. And we can hope that, I think for me, when we talk about saying something kind to the seed, I’m trying to teach the skill of set deliberate intentions, set mindful intentions, and so we can hope that that skill can translate over time. So those are a couple examples of how we can see students both choose to use the garden to regulate, make it a part of their emotional life in a way and their emotional life at the school, but also how the little habits that we try to instill at the garden at the smaller scale over time, they take on these habits as much as they begin as something from the teacher.
Dinah: So you’re giving students so much, you’re giving them an opportunity to invest in something external to themselves that they maybe haven’t had that opportunity, giving them agency, empowering them to kind of cooperatively take care of this space in the school.
Fatima: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite scenes or favorite moments in the garden is so everything we grow goes directly to the soup kitchen next door and specifically the food pantry next door. And it was just really amazing after we had to spend a little time learning these different skills of how to harvest, how to wash things, how to bundle them up and make them presentable to give to someone. And initially I’m there kind of managing a lot or teaching new skills, but there was this moment where I could just step back and they were just this wonderful collaborative ecosystem of I will harvest this, you’ll wash this, I will bundle this and I will hand this over. They were able to place their personalities where they would thrive best. The less, the more introverted students were on harvesting duty, the more extroverted students were super happy to hand people cilantro over the fence. And so yes, I love that you noted that it becomes this really collaborative environment and they do get to feel a sense of being a part of something larger than themselves, which boosts confidence, the feeling of really giving to someone. And we talked earlier about this idea of patience. It’s one thing to be patient for your own piece of cilantro, but I think the feeling of I planted this really being able to make this connection between I planted this seed and when I was in sixth grade and now I’m in seventh grade and I’m giving a bundle of vegetables to someone who will tell me that this is the only reason she could get these vegetables this time. I think that creates a sense of it’s worth the wait sometimes, which is a skill we are teaching many people and also really helps with their sense of self-worth.
Dinah: So we know that educators and counselors and school staff are very busy with their standards, with the curriculum they have. And so that sometimes keeps people from getting to participate if they have another role in the building. And I think that another thing is that some people just don’t know how to get started. They might really want to participate, but they’re just not sure. So I know you have so many, but could you share a few of your favorite go-to activities in the garden that might feel like an easy lift for someone who is new at this?
Fatima: Absolutely. Well, I’ll also say that you can learn actually very similar kind of skills from house plants and that can be kind of a good halfway medium. If an outdoor school garden, there might not be capacity for that or even herbs on a window sill. There can be these kind of smaller, just starting small really. You know you can really…right now what we’re doing this year is having each class really just work with one garden bed. So I would really recommend just starting really small. You don’t have to start with a whole garden. Everything we have to say about a garden can be expressed on one bed. You still have to weed one bed, you still have to prune tomatoes on one bed and you can actually grow a really interesting constellation and ecosystem of crops in just one garden bed. So I would absolutely suggest starting small, starting with herbs and things that grow quickly and can be harvested quickly and used in very many different ways.
I think there’s something really rewarding about fruit, but it takes a fruit, including things like peppers and tomatoes, but they take a lot more time and labor to grow and sometimes a good access point, especially when you’re thinking about how to get young people excited about bringing these ingredients into their actual diets. I can find sometimes a tomato is like they’ll try it, but scallion cream cheese, they will eat all of it, so we can kind of start there. So I think starting really small and working with other teachers to really make the lift lighter. I think to go back to what we were talking about earlier of how this is a really, this can be an interdisciplinary effort. So instead of all of it falling on a science teacher, I think if the science teacher and the art teacher and the English teacher get together and each do a third, then we can work together that way.
So in terms of activities in the garden, for me, I’m a big fan of this concept of parallel play and this idea of just doing the work, doing what needs to be. I don’t often have separate activities for them, but it’s like here’s what I’m going to do today and I’m going to bring you into how you can do this with me. So it’s really about practicing a pedagogy that is constantly bringing them into the fold of the work you’re already doing and then they feel a sense of authority in the garden. We have done things like crafts I think are always a great way, decorating garden beds. Sometimes we’ll plant crops in the shape of different veggies, so we can kind of tie that into math a little bit. But through parallel play and through just having young people accompany us and the work we would’ve already done it really.
This is also kind of a Montessori framework a little bit, too, of accessing play through real life scenarios. Recently we planted actually seeds like Aunt Lou’s tomatoes or seeds, actually they’re from the Underground Railroad and they just did that with me and we talked as we planted, we talked a little bit about what do you remember of the Underground Railroad, what have you learned about that and what does it mean to hold these seeds? We talk a lot about what it means to be holding these seeds as the people that we are and now being in this garden and what do we want to say toward this person who made it possible for us to hold this seed? So I think through parallel play and being willing to work in conjunction with the young people, and I think that’s another way to be able to access some of that labor and kind of relieve some of the lift so it doesn’t feel like the garden has to be perfect and then you bring the young people in to do an activity. It’s more like, oh, we have a ton of weeding to do, so I guess we’re all going to weed together and here’s how we’re going to make a game out of it.
Dinah: What’s your experience with students who might be really reluctant? How do you get them to overcome that reluctance or that fear or that worry?
Fatima: Yeah, I’ll say when it comes to bringing young people into the fold, I think that’s also what’s so exciting about a garden is that there’s just so much to do. And I’ll always acknowledge that sometimes touching dirt can just be a sensory issue, but then we can get gloves and then there’s a great workaround. I think having multiple events happening at the same time can be really helpful. I think sometimes even we were talking earlier about how to create an atmosphere of social emotional learning, how to create an atmosphere of play. It’s also about acknowledging that not all kids play the same way. So one activity that might be really meaningful and generative and exciting and fun and stimulating to one person will just be absolutely not for another. So how can we create an environment where many things are happening at once? And what’s amazing about a garden is that there’s always different things to do. So one young person who might really want to…it’s rare when you meet this young person, but some young people love to weed. They just love it. So you meet that person and you have them on weeding duty. Some of them really love to water, that can be a really fun, sensory activity. Others, I always keep an empty bed that’s just for digging. And I find that digging is actually a really wonderful access point for everyone because you don’t have to get your hands dirty, but you can still be engaging in this incredible, or experiencing this incredible world of earth and soil and finding worms. And I find we can, up to older middle school boys can really play in the dirt for a really long time, which is just quite gorgeous to see actually it doesn’t just stop. We sometimes stop sandbox play after a certain age, but it’s really amazing to see these boys can be into 13, 14 and really want to dig for worms, and it’s an amazing activity for them.
So I think it’s about practicing kind of an open pedagogy, one that you can be a little bit flexible, you can triage people, triage young people, triage students. Trying to have multiple activities at the same time I think can be really beneficial, and allowing and teaching the young people the skill of how to communicate that they don’t want to do something. So I think if we just shut down young people who are getting frustrated because they don’t want to do something or they don’t feel able to do something. Remember sometimes when a young person is acting defensively, sometimes there’s a real fear or real anxiety or real insecurity in there and it’s coming out as jokes and distracting others, but they’re really deeply anxious maybe. So I try to extend grace. Something I always come back to is that a garden is not meant to be a classroom.
It doesn’t have to have the same expectations. There’s no assessment at any point, so I’m not going to force you to do stuff. It’s okay. You really don’t want to weed right now. I don’t want to weed some days when it’s really hot…sometimes I just want to water or just spend time with the butterflies. I think that’s very fair. So extending that grace, creating an atmosphere of openness, but also making sure that the garden is still about pleasure in the end, I think we can have boundaries and expectations, but it should be fun. It should be fun. And if I’m not making it fun for you, I don’t think it’s as easy for a young person to access this potential social emotional learning opportunities if they’re just associating it with something that they have to do or where they have to be in situations that give them anxiety or give them sensory discomfort. So I think practicing that flexibility, but really stressing the value of communication. And it teaches young people that when you communicate, you do get what you need. So I think we have to really build that skill and remind them that communication is really a very powerful tool in our lives.
Dinah: I love that you set the tone for the garden as fun and exploration. That doesn’t have an assessment attached. It doesn’t have an end result. And what do you think in you are the personality traits that enable you to let go in the garden and make it fun?
Fatima: I’m an art teacher. I’m an art teacher. I feel like the domain of, or the space of things that someone else can look at it and say, there’s no point or there’s no assessment at the end. No, but of course there is a point, there’s a monumental point which is being alive and doing something creative and doing something that is a beautiful experience for you and then a beautiful, something you can gift to someone else. I think this is why gardens are so ripe for social emotional learning similar to art because they’re not about anything other than just being people and being alive and finding our way through the things that were required, the skills we need to be able to do the things well and fully. So I think that because my background is in art, which is really about meaning making, is about creativity is about play and fun, I feel like what we were doing on a small scale on a piece of paper is what we’re just doing on a bigger scale in the garden. It’s interesting because most garden education is very science-based, but I’m not super science. I come from this art space. So I was very like, wow, we can grow these amazing cultural crops. We can grow color, we can make so many, there’s endless crafts to make in a garden. Speaking of engaging students who are not feeling the actual plant side, then you can really engage them through art. You can make garden gnomes, you can paint beds. It’s all kinds of things to be done. But what I’ll say is that having a deliberate space for play and non-assessed learning during the school day helps over time. It helps them be able to participate more fully in these more slightly more disciplinary forms of learning over time, which I think are still valuable and have their role. But I think this is when it’s really valuable to lean into the play that we can do in the garden, lean in, we can really embrace it here and then it can help be a tool for the classroom because you can say that is garden behavior, this is not classroom. There’s a difference. And you can really do garden behavior in the garden, especially because something I always say is that there is age appropriate behavior that is not always classroom appropriate, climbing things, shouting that’s very age appropriate until really late middle school, but it belongs a little bit better outside and a little better in the garden. So I think really embracing the ethic of play, embracing the ethic of creativity, which is also I think the nature of working with the land. There’s so much you can’t control and there’s so much, I mean, you can plant all the beautiful tomatoes you want and then if those South End bunnies want to get to– your rabbits, that’s it. There’s just nothing you can do. So you kind of have to have a little bit of a, and then you can teach young people with those experiences of like, oh, how I feel disappointed. I really was looking forward to those tomatoes. Or I feel really upset and angry because a rabbit ate all my sunflower plants. So what am I going to do about this? You can model that behavior. So gardens aren’t even built well for being places of standardization. There’s so much spontaneity, so much that’s not in our control that we can just surrender to that and make it a play-based space.
Dinah: I love it that you got the South End bunnies. What do you want everyone to know about farm to school?
Fatima: Oh, it’s such a place of expansion for young people. The classroom is so important, but bringing whatever conversation we can create between the outdoors and students learning, it’s that thing similar to art where it’s kind of…it’s not about assessments or standardization, it’s really about just being a human being. And I think sometimes when education and direction of education becomes a little bit more about standardized testing, we kind of lose this very important part of raising children, which is just really teaching them to flourish in their humanity and flourish in their individuality. And that’s what Farm to School education is about. For me, I used to work with preschoolers outdoors and forest schools, they just play and they’re so large, it’s not really about controlling, control or getting certain behavior. It’s really just about who are you? It’s about discovery. Food is such an amazing connector. I think one of my favorite things is when a young person can make a connection. We were growing Vietnamese peppers and a student can make a connection between that and something that they saw in their Auntie’s house, or then they start telling stories of being at their parents or grandparents island and, oh my gosh, I remember these plants…Or they go home, they tell their parents, we grew basil today. And their parent or their caregiver is like, oh my gosh, bring home some basil. It’s such an amazing connector. So it also really, it helps young people feel more connected to their world and their families and their past. And it feels like it kind of transcends something that some of learning doesn’t always.
So when I think about farm to school, I think of it as such a huge area of just true expansion and connection in young people’s lives, and just those experiences that kind of just stay with you. My students might not have a school garden for their whole, they maybe go somewhere different for high school or even for middle school. But I think you kind of remember your school garden. I didn’t have a school garden growing up, but I think one of my most memorable early childhood experiences was going on a forest walk. I grew up in a city and I just went on this forest walk and I remember the tour. I was maybe three or four, and the person gave me an earthworm and put it in my hand, and I think that might be one of my earliest memories. So I think these things really stay with us, and I think that’s what we can want as educators experiences that really stay with our young people.
Dinah: Well, thank you so much, Fatima. Your energy is just so positive and creative and you’re clearly an artist and I can’t wait. Personally, I’d love to get out to see your garden and to see you an action in it, because I can already tell what kind of leader you are and facilitator you are for those lucky middle schoolers. Thank you so much.
Fatima: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Dinah: This podcast is a production of the Northeast Farm to School Collaborative. For more information about this podcast or farm to school in the northeast, go to northeastfarmto school.org.
Phone: (413) 253-3844
Email: info@massfarmtoschool.org
