Community School Visits Mrs. Murphy's Sunflowers

Mrs. Murphy's Sunflowers is a unit of study found in Ellsworth Collings' 1924 edition of An Experiment With A Project Curriculum.  Might this be the book used for inspiration by the Corporation For Common Core Curriculum Craziness as they constructed their test riddled unit on Early Civilizations?  No, probably not.

Back in 1924 Ellsworth Collings was not driving data points into the hearts and minds of little children and he was not abusing his status as "expert" by dictating courses of study and exam content for human beings he had never met and knew nothing about.

Sure, standard subject matter was actively in the mix, but it was never weaponized to precisely and intentionally destroy student development. Collings threw the education machine into reverse and then paid close attention to what happened when human beings were guided to select activities and PURPOSE their own learning based on interesting, immediate, everyday life.

One day Carl called a group meeting of his fellow 6-8 year olds and asked why did they think Mrs. Murphy was forever growing big sunflowers at the BACK of her vegetable garden.  It didn't make any sense to him.  The other kids agreed.  Weren't flowers intended for flower gardens or front lawns?  Iona said she had no idea what a sunflower looked like so if they wanted her help, she would need a first-hand visit to Mrs. Murphy's.  So off they trooped armed with two questions.  Why was Mrs. Murphy growing these sunflowers at the rear end of her vegetable garden?  How were sunflowers different from her other flowers?

Next day, Mrs. Murphy walked everyone out back and introduced them to the color, shape and distinct seed of the sunflower. She had them inspect the stem, the leaves and explained that she planted strategically so her cucumber vines would be protected from the hot, late afternoon sun.  To the children's delight, she actually cut off the head of a big sunflower and pitched it over the fence to her chickens so the class could watch the flock devour the seeds off the flower head.  "Homegrown poultry feed," she announced matter-of-factly.

Later, back at school, of course there were paintings and drawings of beautiful sunflowers and many, detailed, written accounts.  These were enhanced by reading and researching flower guide and nature study books but also by uncovering stories and poems about sunflowers in traditional texts like the Elson Readers: Book Three and several others. Lantern slides and stereograph pictures of wild flowers were also put to good use.

And what did Carl make of this adventure?  Well, here is what he reported in cursive handwriting, accompanied by a detailed, scientific illustration of the sunflower.

The Sunflower

Mrs. Murphy uses her sunflowers to shade her cucumber vines.  The sunflower has a big yellow flower.  Mrs. Murphy's chickens like sunflower seed.  She gave us some seed to plant. Sunflowers make pretty yard flowers.  I am going to grow some in my cantaloupe patch next summer to shade my cantaloupes.  They grow best in a rich soil, sunshine and moisture.  They are easy to grow.

Community School Bathe The Baby

In another time and place, curriculum and NOT incarceration was the prescription for what ailed us.

Dezzy was one, out-of-control bundle of beautiful.  When she smiled the entire world illuminated and a hyper-vigilant intelligence beamed from her deep brown eyes.  But she was Dezzy and that spelled upset most of the time.  The uncharted, non-standardized curriculum adventure was to find interests that became the absorbing object of her attention, anything that sustained concentration was a starting point for this three year old.

            Her world really was a Ghetto, a violent one where she embodied the trauma and vibrated from repeated, parental power struggles which inevitably melted down into screaming, yanking, spankings and puddles of hot tears.  Naturally, her reflex was to reproduce the drama but this dynamic did not serve either her growth or her gifts.  Birth order was a big problem as she longed to be an only child but instead was wedged between an older sister and a toddler brother.  Attachment between daughter and mother was tenuous and the tug and pull of wills was something to behold. However, our darling girl loved babies and baby dolls and desperately wanted to be viewed as competent and to be complimented on her skill set. So, no surprise that one of her favorite roles became that of reliable caretaker, otherwise known as Queen of the Baby Minders.

          Queen Baby Minder was equally regal and bossy. The other children rightfully objected when she seized the community water table ordering everyone about, hence the purchase of a bathing basin where she ran the show without interference. Ours was not a Baby Beluga requiring fathoms of deep, blue sea so Dez learned to measure safe amounts using a calibrated plastic lab beaker.  Were we boiling potatoes or replicating the Polar Ice Cap?  Of course not, so which number on the thermometer constituted a moderate lukewarm?

          Babies need accessories, lots of them and the use of each item helped Dezzy comprehend the household economy of cost, care and conservation.  Our Bathing Cabinet eventually included sponges, infant soap, shampoo, oil, washcloths, hooded towels, diapers, powder, wipes, baby scale, bulb ear and nose aspirator and an oral medicine syringe.  Each item had a name with a vast universe of language and experience attached to it. Over time, this Three acquired a much more sophisticated vocabulary than the unrelated, alphabetized list of reform-driven sight words that the Special Treatment children rebelled against regurgitating every single morning on their Kinder carpet.

            Bathing the Baby allowed Dez to soothe herself, to behave lovingly, to memorize the lyrical emotions of bath and bedtime lullabies and to practice the gentleness that she was too often denied in her own stress-filled family.  Slowly, her fragmented self became integrated enough to join groups of others who welcomed her into their learning and their play.  Tantrums vanished as social negotiation emerged.  Exclusion or banishment to an isolation tank would have made her estrangement that much more acute, reproducing her affliction but not remedying it.  She became a student of life by remaining in the company of others and acquainted with herself while in pursuit of what interested her.  

Community School Investigates Special Treatment!

We have been told that this student is not legally entitled to any more “Special Treatment” so we are returning him to Kindergarten.  At this Title I school, a four month sentence in administrative isolation is called Special Treatment.  J-Block is what they call it in the adult prison system.

SPECIAL TREATMENT

A five year old boy shut up in a tiny room from November to March.  Imagine!  Each and every day meant no recess, no Circle Time, no eating at a big table with other children.  The simple, socializing joys that he so urgently needed were extinguished before ever being experienced.   

His special treatment was a purgatory called In School Suspension where he was cycled through the same worksheets day after day, memorizing how to count and color Pilgrims, Native Americans, cornstalks and hay bales.  On a b&w gingerbread house, he graphed crayon-coded gumdrops, candy canes, sugar plums and butterscotch wafers.  He cut and pasted columns of numerals in ascending and descending order.  Over time, he got very good at this flat work. 

In the early days of his confinement, he defied the ruling junta by grabbing a chunky-chubby black crayon and scribbling over every detail with such ferocity that he shone with perspiration before finishing.  One day I pried the frustration from his fingers and smoothed his determined grip into a relaxed receptivity.  “Let’s start again and make one of these beautiful.”

We began by taking turns, bent over and absorbed as if collaborating on a paint-by-number, John Henry Man Versus Machine. We chatted away like the most synchronized of study buddies.  “I think I’ll make my sky mostly blue with some white mixed in.  May I borrow the green when you’re finished with it?  If we cut right along the big, fat line I think the teacher will be able to read the numeral.  And remember we’re only using baby dots of glue.  Baby Dots Not Glops! That’s our motto.” 

This was satisfying work, repetitive but civilizing and the only preparation there was for a return.  It took all of November to gentle him and after that he followed every rule of customary deportment but still was not permitted to even visit the Kingdom of Kindergarten until the end of February and only then with me as bodyguard. 

But then came the March Declaration of Special Treatment when he was abruptly dropped behind enemy lines, told to sink or swim, and forced to jump with no back-up parachute.  It was a perilous insertion.  I would hear him wailing in protest across the vast, central rotunda., screaming and kicking in protest as he was drug, adult escorts on either side, always back like a boomerang, no matter how successful the launching. 

I can safely say that he remained in this disruptive dance until May. Another boy from the same grade level remained in ISS from November until June, a total of six months. No field day for this one, no end-of-year picnic, no parade through the hallway with happy noisemakers and hip-hop music to celebrate the going home.  The piped in soundtrack was joyous and my young sidekick sparkled with an excited grin as he showed me his talented dance moves while dutifully stationed in his chair. 

Most importantly, this was all off-the-books.  The district software repository for registration data, grades, attendance records and disciplinary infractions revealed that none of the in-school months of classroom separation were ever recorded for official eyes. Intentionally, the long haul was virtually untraceable by state and federal authorities.  No one will ever know that no one knows what they are doing.

This organization hurts children.  It retards growth and it injures spirits. The logical conclusion of its terrible trajectory is a chaotic country full of incapacitated citizens.  But the reality is that situations like this are scattered across poor neighborhoods throughout the United States.  Led by CEO's/Chief Education Officers and propped up by well-paid corporate consultants, policy wonks and super-rationalized schematics for "school reform", these folks don’t intend to be re-fashioned or fixed.   In fact they financially benefit in a very personal way from funding formulas that follow their failure. Here, terrible is profitable and a good way to go. 

We can whenever, and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need, in order to do this. Whether we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.
Ron Edmonds Telling It Like It Was And Like It Is!