This is wild! I was recently having a discussion with another teacher about the similarities with gardening. One of the other helpful metaphors (for elementary teachers) is that the plants are kind of in their own world. Not that we’re not in their world at all and that we don’t relate to them, care about them, lift them up—but that I think they really just see each other when it comes down to it. Their social realm is very important to them and it’s kind of alien to us, which is just how it is.

But I also get the same feeling surveying a lush garden as I do when I step back and look at the whole class.