Learning from failure By Adam Fletcher 10 SERVICELINE Fall 2005 “If more kids got to do this they would learn more and care for their school more and have more fun.” Te three girls bobbed their heads in unison. After spending the last twenty minutes volleying my questions back and forth, they had finally found a statement that everyone agreed with. After more than a year of writ- ing, and waiting, and pleading, and waiting to see their vision come to fruition, I sat down with seventh- graders Andrea Query, Suzanne Mitchell, and Brehanna Arnold to hear their story. Tis dynamic trio are all former students at Spanaway El- ementary who worked on the fabled Square Foot Garden at the school. Tis garden is planned, maintained, and cultivated by students and widely regarded by teachers at the school as a wildly effective service-learning project. Many students agree. How- ever, these three students ran into a roadblock. In November, 2004 Andrea, Suzanne, and Brehanna crafted a grant proposal for a KING 5, Wash- ington State Potato Commission and International Greenhouse Company to win a greenhouse for the school’s garden. “It was pretty cool because we wrote it ourselves and showed what we wanted,” Suzanne told me. “We knew that we needed it. We could grow seeds there in the winter and plant them in the spring.” A month later, they won the WSPC competition and received a check for $1000. Tat’s when their troubles began. After they received notification that they won the greenhouse, Spanaway’s community coordinator, Karen Marche- sini, asked the District to assist with the building permits. However, she and the students got a rude awakening when the District Office said it was a very compli- cated and time-consuming process.. “It felt like we did all that work for nothing,” Andrea sighed. But as they talked, this threesome sounded like they learned something more. “We shouldn’t give up – we need to keep going ‘til we get it done,” Brehanna reminded the group. All three students talked about learning from failure and negotiating the system. “We just need to find out what kids can do.” “I think that students should have more opportunities to do things like this for their schools,” Suzanne replied, “even if it doesn’t work out. We still learned a lot.”T e fear of failure keeps some teach- ers away from service-learning. Te fear of students learning the “wrong” lessons prevents others from letting service-learn- ing projects fail. But as Karen reminds me: “Tere are different ways to learn.” She explains that she will keep checking with the District representative who is working with Pierce County on changing the permit codes for greenhouses of this type. In the meantime, the garden keeps growing, sans greenhouse. “It could do so much better,” Brehanna says. After our interview was over, Suzanne offered one last thought: “If more people did this, kids would care for school more, and we would learn more. Tat’s why I did it.” Te lesson provided by these students is important: Planning and perseverance are important to teachers and students, but reflection can teach us even more.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 05:16:51 +0000
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