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- The students learning from the natural environment.

When a school puts the students and the environment first, things get turned upside down – or perhaps, finally right side up.

SHERYN DEAN grows more than 200 productive trees in her central Waikato lifestyle block. She also researches, writes and consults for others wanting to grow their own.

Alastair Kerr, with the help of a group of students, planted them between the classroom and the fence of Rhode Street School in Hamilton. He kept on planting with the students who came and went. Now, 15 years later, the school entrance is flanked with raised garden beds, raspberries and blueberries; tomatoes front the classrooms; the yard is lined with planter boxes; the school fence is camouflaged with thousands of native plants; the swimming pool (cracked beyond repair) is now the foundation for a tunnelhouse and hydroponic unit; and, in what he admits is almost a sacrilege, the rugby field has been turned into an ecological island. (He did point out there is a large park next door for ball games.)

Alastair is a quiet, modest man with a passion for science, a love of teaching and a gift for gardening. His green thumb was inherited from parents who grew experimental crops and treasured heritage fruit trees. Alastair initially worked in a laboratory, turned to teaching and then, at what most consider retirement age, combined his skills into the overlapping roles of Enviroschool teacher and property manager of Rhode Street School.

He credits the conversion of the school grounds to the students themselves. “The kids come up with the ideas, do their own project on it, presenting it in their own way – finding their own style of learning – and they take ownership of it. I just facilitate the happening of it,” he says.

For example, a recent waste analysis project led to their food boxes being compostable cardboard. Worms turn these into fertiliser, Alastair turns that into produce, cooks turn the produce into healthy breakfast, lunch and after-school snacks for the students, the chickens turn the scraps into eggs. And the students initiate, participate, and benefit from it all.

Alastair says the goal is not perfection, but participation. Each class chooses the seeds to go in their designated vege beds. The winter crops of carrots, beetroot and spinach have self-seeded parsley and fennel amongst them. Some classes choose flowers for the insects and aesthetics. A sensory garden is under development, students are researching ideas for a butterfly garden and proposing a massive tree hut – a whare in the sky – in the pin oak in the front yard.

The students are as diverse as the flowers and fruit trees and herbs and veges and vines and natives that flourish under their care. Twelve pou (poles) celebrate the different ethnicities of the ākonga (students), a number of whom come from the surrounding emergency housing. The school role is transient with an average enrolment period of just two years, but the attendance rate is 87% – 20% above average. The children want to come to the school that revolves around them and the environment they have created.

The philosophy of planting the seed, nurturing it, and allowing it to flourish naturally is applied to both the students and the plants. Alastair rarely uses sprays – an occasional copper cleanup spray and the odd application of neem oil in the hydroponics unit when necessary – both plants and students are encouraged to develop organically.

Lots of mulch is used and bug houses, weta motels, pest tunnels, and a student-designed water feature complement the ecosystem that has numerous massive swan “trees” interspersed throughout.

Students are talked to about chemicals and life cycles and consequences. Gardening, according to Alastair, is a mix of science and art.

Alastair encourages the students to pick and crush, and smell the herbs, but leave the fruit until it is ripe. Plants are respected. Imperfections are accepted. Now, over 60 fruit trees, from figs to feijoas, are interspersed amongst the intensively planted and highly productive four-hectare grounds. At harvest time, what isn’t eaten fresh by the students is delivered to the kitchen – “buckets and buckets of it,” laughs the kitchen staff. Students help process and preserve it and plan delicious treats for their kai festival (raspberry sorbet was a major hit).

It all seems natural and relaxed with the children sitting under the bushes, climbing the trees, sucking on a lemon, and gathering together for a courgette, beetroot and carrotladen spaghetti bolognese for lunch, but like all successful systems, it takes teamwork, planning, and patience.

Alastair is the green-fingered facilitator who brings it all together, makes it happen and maintains it, but he makes light of the work involved. “There are lots of willing helpers, and lots of wheelbarrows,” he says.

It started, as these things often do, with a few fruit trees on the side. Some apples, a couple of pears, a reliable plum, an orange, a lemon and a persimmon.

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2022-08-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmagazines.pressreader.com/article/282999698583861

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