Cultivating a Growth Mindset

A new Garden Curriculum in the Junior School is sprouting emotive results

IT’S NOT UNCOMMON for a tear or two to fall during a typical day in HSC’s Junior School, but on one particular fall morning, Grade 2 teacher Allison Wall witnessed something extraordinary. “I came in to find one of our students crying as he marvelled at some freshly sprouted mushrooms in the classroom garden,” she says. Why the tears? His response was one of joy and wonder that the classroom project had come to fruition—quite literally. For Junior School Curriculum Coordinator and teacher Kathleen Collins, moments like these “prove to us just how engaged and invested in the curriculum our students are.”

The curriculum Collins speaks of is modelled after Kaci Rae Christopher’s The School Garden Curriculum, an educational guidebook and comprehensive place-based science program that connects to the new Ontario science curriculum and exposes students to the natural world through gardening. Jennifer Adams, Junior School Life Coordinator, teacher and champion for eco-education, was among the faculty leads involved in bringing the program to life at HSC. “By integrating this model into our daily lesson plans,” she says, “we aim to not only teach the students how environmental systems work, but also foster an environmental ethos in the Junior School.”

The process of incorporating the program into day-to-day learning was quite seamless, and, as Adams notes, there was already great momentum towards environmental education College-wide. “We’ve been focused for a number of years on Indigenous Ways of Knowing and on getting students into nature, so this was a natural evolution of that learning journey.” She speaks of the strong ties between the Garden Curriculum’s mantra of “care for self, care for others, care for the land” and the Junior School’s own REACH framework, which focuses on five core character traits: respect, effort, attitude, control of self and honesty. “Through these lessons, students approach learning with curiosity, passion and a growth mindset with the ultimate goal of developing into confident, world-aware citizens.”

Collins says that because cross-grade collaboration is ingrained in the curriculum, students gain valuable social skills along the way. “Each class relies on other classes for various aspects of the garden lifecycle and so students learn to interact in a positive way, with empathy and respect.” From seed and bulb planting in the kindergarten classes to harvesting and taste testing in Grade 2 to worms and vermicomposting in Grade 4 and everything in between, the students take pride in sharing resources and knowledge with one another. Another big piece of the program is enhanced overall student wellbeing. Take, for example, students’ relationship to food that comes from the harvest. Collins describes seeing a shift in kids’ appreciation for new flavours and increased ability to respectfully articulate their taste (or distaste) for various foods. Through the program, students experience first-hand the energy, effort and resources that go into food production, she says. “By being active participants in the cultivation of fruits and vegetables, students have a greater appreciation for the end result and are less likely to take food for granted.” Laughing, Collins can’t help but summarize the multi-faceted benefits of the curriculum with a garden metaphor. “The students get such a wonderful basket full of yields out of the process.”