"This is lettuce!" says Saul Jaugeri a kindergartner. With Ms. Dominguez' class, he is standing by a planter box in the green schoolyard at Sherman Elementary School. Ten minutes later, his class mate Seth Adelman digs out an earth worm and shouts, "Ms Myers, can we make a worm farm and have it as a pet?" Meanwhile, Abigail Parker, same class, pulls on Ms. Myers' sleeve and asks if she can take a few leaves home for her new guinea pig. Linda Myers is the garden educator at Sherman elementary school in the Marina. An hour earlier, she was addressing a class of 4th graders by the schoolyard's water fountain. "You will be tested on your geology and you have all the rocks around you," she said of the granite, basalt and quartz boulders the 10-year-olds were sitting on. This is a green schoolyard: part classroom, part educational garden, part urban junior ranger program. However behind the postcard scene is a world of PTA meetings, endless debates, dissensions and weekend work days in the yard that require a lot of dedication. For some parents, the space would be better used as a mini soccer field. For others, it is the reason why they chose the school. What's really behind such an undertaking and does the end justify the means?
Fundings were there but the school was not ready
In 2003, Prop A set aside $2.3 million to green 16 school sites in San Francisco. Sherman E.S. received $80,000 and an idea was born. "When my son started at Sherman," says Terri Fellers, mother of a 5th grader, "there was no greenery at that point, it was just a sad sea of asphalt." Back then, the Franklin-side yard had basketball hoops and a painted basketball court, four 4-square areas, hopscotch and other painted areas. It was also used as a PTA parking lot which was convenient for parents during school events. The Gough side had three asphalt lots, two of which were connected by a set of stairs.
The school had a small parent committee for the school's greening but things were slow-going at first. "The committee was composed of a variety of people with different views on what a green schoolyard should be," says Kent David, one of the committee members. "Concerns ranged from 'where will we park for PTA functions?' to 'where will the kids run around?' to 'how will we handle the dirt?'" Whatever choices were made resulted from open discussions and dissensions and in the end, received everybody's approval. For accessibility reasons and because it was the sunniest yard getting sometimes too hot for the kids, the Franklin side was selected to become a green schoolyard. It could be designed as a green space with a ramp.
A woman's vision made it happen
Still, it took Linda Myers' arrival and the back-up of the then-principal Phyllis Matsuno to make the vision happen. Linda Myers, parent of a kindergartner, was asked by the greening committee to create a temporary garden with planter boxes on Green Street. As a parent volunteer, she organized a planting session with a kindergarten teacher. More teachers showed interest and after a critical mass was reached, they went to the principal. Jeff Miller of Miller Company Landscape Architects was called in. Trucks came in, ground was broken, tons of asphalt were removed. The first plants were planted in 2008.
The green schoolyard's water fountain got in the way
Before the schoolyard reached its present state, there was still one last - but formidable - challenge to overcome: the water fountain. Linda Myers thought a water fountain would be a great addition to the landscaped garden but water and kids usually evokes fear of drowning. Understandably, many people were opposed to the project. To overcome parents' reluctance (the faculty was all for it), the water fountain was presented as a tool to educate kids about water safety. And so it became a learning tool, as the other elements of the garden. When the idea was accepted, Jeff Miller drew a design with a waterfall, big boulders and a meditation pool based on suggestions of the comittee. The school needed to be convinced it would work.
Previously at San Francisco State University, Linda Myers had seen a boulder sculpture in the Garden of Remembrance she really liked. She took a photo and showed it to Phyllis Matsuno who exclaimed "But, that's a Ruth Asawa sculpture!" Ruth Asawa, an American artist, spent years in her childhood in WW2 Japanese internment camps on the west coast. By coincidence, Phyllis Matsuno was born in such an internment camp and Ruth Asawa was her mentor. Shortly after, cranes brought to school solid boulders that weighed between half and one and a half ton.
Looking at both boulder arrangements today, the inspiration at Sherman is pretty clear and doubles as a quiet tribute to one of the green schoolyard's founders.
Garden opponents would prefer a bigger ball-play area and a smaller garden
"I am all for gardens and trees, but kids need to play," says the parent of a 4th grader who wished to remain anonymous. "They need space to run around. If you visit the school at lunchtime, count how many kids are in the giant waste of space garden, as opposed to those runnning around on their now miniscule playground." Others echo her sentiment. "Space is limited in San Francisco," says the uncle of a 1st grader who also asked to remain anonymous, "and though the garden speaks to the progressive ideals of our city, I think it sacrifices the practicality of the playground."
Indeed, the State of California has standards for playground space per child that very few schools in San Francisco can meet for obvious space reasons.Students are usually "rotated" through instructional spaces, for example multipurpose room to yard to cafeteria. In that context, why can't the garden be viewed as a play environment too?
While there is no real research on the topic, green schoolyards provide different play opportunities. According to Sharon Danks, environmental planner with Bay Tree Design, Inc. and author of the upcoming Asphalt to Ecosystems, the overall goal should be playground diversity — giving kids choices about how they want to play. "The issue," she says, "is that right now, most schoolyards are 100% paved PE space and play structures—without provision for creative play environments that engage social interactions and imaginations." Indeed, not every child is the poster child for king or queen of the asphalt court.
"Just providing the “action- ball- kids” with activities isn’t the best solution," confirms Arden Bucklin-Sporer, executive director of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance. "You will notice in any yard that there are the alpha players – who play ball sports, running games, and are those kind of kinetic kids that need to blow off steam. But you will also find another kind of kid - who is on the sidelines, involved in some kind of observation or fantasy play, who needs to move around, but doesn’t want to be in the maelstrom of activity. A lot of kids are also waiting in lines to play ball. Standing around isn’t so great."
Six year-old Ciaran Buitrago has his own way of analyzing both yards. He says that kids behave differently in the garden than in the recess yard. They are quieter, they don't run, they don't shout and they look around more. Sometimes, Ciaran likes to just sit quietly near the water and "let his brain be quiet". Kids with sensory disorders find the green schoolyard to be a safe and calm environment to relax.
For students, the schoolyard is an extension of the classroom - and some more
The academic component of the garden is also, of course, huge. "In many ways, the garden is the grounding for all science education at the school," says Jay Tompt, father of a 4th grader. "It provides the real hands-on experience for the kids where they can participate as well as observe." Jennifer Deming recalls when Liam her 7-year old exclaimed, as they were driving past some trees, "Look at all the deciduous trees out there!" She and her husband were stumped. Liam learned it from Mrs Myers in the schoolyard. The green schoolyard is also used as a setting for poetry prompts, such as Percy's poem in 5th grade: "The flowers of the Garrya/tree drop like garlands,/swaying in the faint breeze/like strands of silk."
Jennifer Deming also loves that after having learned from Linda Myers how to pinch leaves off of the plants in the lettuce bed to taste them, both her sons took this as a green light to do this at their leisure. How often do you hear of kids actually serving themselves to vegetables? Throughout the school year, children regularly come back home with a share of the garden's harvest. "We love the summer time when we get to go and water the yard and pick tomatoes," says Martha Klinger, mother of a 3rd grader who loved plants from early on and almost flipped when she discovered that her new school would have garden classes.
The garden brought a community together
The least expected benefit of the garden, according to many parents, has been to empower and bring a community together. "Our garden is proof of what public schools can do," says Mark Bunger, parent of a 4th and 2nd grader. "Our experience creating the garden has given us the confidence to take on hundreds of other tasks at school and elsewhere, from “Family Science Movie Night” to getting active at City Hall and in Sacramento. I simply know that, with a united group of people, my energies will not be wasted." And united they are.
The green schoolyard is a place where the different communities in the school can come and learn about each other, enjoy and disagree. Mostly, the green schoolyard is a microcosm where kids can learn about bigger issues at work in the outside world - and play together.
What's in store for the future?
The Green Schoolyard Committee, led by Susan Stroman, Karyn Campbell and the school's nutritionist Leigh Rossi, obtained a PG&E grant for a solar education center with a weather station and an outdoor kitchen. A new native plants garden is also currently being planted. In view of these results and pespectives, the role of the garden educator seems like a pivotal position in the school's green schoolyard-oriented curriculum. Currently Linda Myers works a theoretical half time at the school but counts many more hours on the job to make sure things are done right. The city's unprecedented budget crisis puts jobs like hers at risk. How would the students react if their morning assembly took place indoors under artificial lights rather than in the green schoolyard?
In 2009, Sherman was toured by 12 other schools that wanted to green their yards and it was chosen as the setting for an O Organics ad. That, amongst other things, is a testament to Sherman's green schoolyard success. But the best testament comes from the little kindergartner who always wants to get to school early so he can watch the fish in the pond and collect fallen leaves from the small trees.
Comments