| grader Josh Fortier, official spokesperson for the garden, is tagged as guide. He points out native plants such as lupine and Ponderosa pine, and explains that they attract orange-crowned warblers and black-headed grosbeaks. He describes how the students worked in groups to study soil and pH, native plants, and neotropical birds. He tells how they mapped the courtyard and wrote letters to solicit funds. He points out the circulating stream and the student-built birdhouses. And, he says, he personally watered the garden two or three times a week over the summer. |
| "This is a really hard age group," Arkes says. "Their educational
needs really do get overlooked. They have all these explosions going on inside them.
You can see the variation in size, from little tiny petite things to kids who are tall and
well developed. And their maturity levels go that full span."
| To the full-throttle flux of early adolescence add poverty and family discord, and you get an educational challenge something like shooting rapids in a canoe. Only
the most skilled teachers keep the boat upright, says Arkes.
| "You have to be good to work in this kind of school," she says. "You have to have a certain kind of commitment to be effective and not burn out. You have to be able to deal with some fairly heavy issues with students without getting yourself emotionally involved. There's a real fine balance there, instructionally." Photos for this story by Rick Stier, Lone Pine Photography, Portland, Oregon. 
|
|
This document's URL is: Home | Up & Coming | Programs & Projects: Northwest Education | People | Products & Publications | Topics © 2001 Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory
Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
|