TORONTO — Linda Geva – a kindergarten, Grade 1 and 2 teacher at Hamilton’s Kehila School – and her principal, Leia Ger-Rogers, were so inspired by a teaching garden workshop at the first annual Lola Stein Institute Symposium last week that they decided to plant a garden at their own school.
Linda Geva, left, and Leia Ger-Rogers, of Hamilton’s Kehila School, were inspired by a teaching garden workshop to start a garden with their own students. [Frances Kraft photos]
“It sounded very interesting and practical,” Geva told The CJN as the two-day symposium, held at the Toronto Heschel School, wound up last Wednesday afternoon.
The Lola Stein Institute, which focuses on teacher training and curriculum development, was founded in 2003 within the Toronto Heschel School.
Ellen Kessler, Heschel’s director of environmental studies and the driving force behind the school’s organic garden at its inception 14 years ago, “made it sound so easy,” Geva said.
“They just put seeds in the ground, and [plants] grew amongst the weeds.”
After attending the morning workshop – whose participants included educators from public and private schools – Ger-Rogers called Temple Anshe Shalom, where her school is housed, to request approval for the garden.
“It fits into all the different themes and units we do,” she said, citing opportunities to use math skills for measuring, as one example.
Ellen Kessler holds Queen Anne’s lace, also known as wild carrot, under Heschel teacher Jordana Mednick’s nose. The plant’s root smells like carrot.
Kessler advises that teachers have students document what they observe in a garden. As well, she noted, “the secret to getting little kids out is to have small groups and a caring adult.”
To the best of her knowledge, the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto’s northern branch, housed at the Lebovic Jewish Community Campus, is the only other local Jewish school to have on-site access to a similar garden. The Kavanah Organic Community Teaching Garden, a project of the Jewish Nature Centre of Canada: Torat HaTeva, in partnership with the Schwartz/Reisman Centre, opened there earlier this year.
Heschel is one of at least four Toronto-area Jewish day schools to be recognized as an Ontario Eco-School. Its garden activities include bird feeding, growing pumpkins that the students use to make soup and eco-art projects such as painting tires to shelter garlic plants.
“The environment is in serious need of committed educators,” said Kessler. As of this September, according to the Ontario curriculum, every grade level in every subject area should have a component of environmental studies in it, she added.
Although she enjoys having more than 2,500 square feet for the teaching garden, Kessler said that such a large space isn’t necessary.
The symposium also included a keynote address by Harvard University professor Howard Gardner. The author of more than 20 books is known for his theory of multiple intelligences, which offers a basis for educational support of diverse learning styles.
