Seeds, Storms and Transitions

[TexasTowelie]

by Carol Morgan

Almost five years ago, I sold my home of twenty-six years, a huge quirky mid-century place that required constant maintenance and a lot of sweat and toil. It was the place where I raised my son alone and weathered the myriad of storms and changes in my life.

My new home was vacant and neglected for three years, the yard untended and wild, dry and full of weeds. I set to work. After four years of various interventions, fertilizers and soil conditioners, wildflower seeds and plants, I sadly resigned myself to the fact that nothing could possibly grow in this garden. It was a waste of effort.

-snip-

In April of this year, beautiful flowers of every color and kind peeked through the soil, scattered and random, under rocks and even in the grass. How was I to know that the seeds I’d planted two, three, and even four years ago, the very ones I’d given up on, would suddenly spring to life?

Planting seeds is a perfect metaphor for our efforts in life. We should be ever mindful of that metaphor in the cultivation of our future; especially in dealing with young people. We should realize that it applies to social and political change as well.

Continued at http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2013-06-01/seeds-storms-and-transitions

[HiPointDem]

1. recently read of some hundreds-year-old seeds frozen in the arctic (or somewhere cold) that

had produced plants, just from normal growing techniques.

seeds are hardy.

[TexasTowelie]

2. I think that our students are pretty hardy also.

I came from a lower middle class background and was fortunate to have someone see the potential that I had to offer. His foundation supported me with a scholarship when I went to college.

I want to believe that those same opportunities are available for hard working students so that they receive the support and nurturing that I received about three decades ago.

A salute to all of the educators out there.

[savebigbird]

3. I enjoyed reading that.

Students are humans: always growing, always malleable. Who they are and who they will become are a reflection of what they are exposed to. If it is constant drill and testing, I fear what they will become. I really do.

And yes, the statisticians will never fully grasp human development. They are attempting to represent something which is dynamic and qualitative as quantitative data. It is not accurate.