Seeds of Hope

Fifth grade students a The Pennfield School had a wonderful sustainability workshop recently in the raised bed outdoor classroom with Sustainability Educator, Mrs. Cindy Hallowell, and special guest, Mrs. Patricia Bailey.

The conversation began with seeds, and ended with talking about hope; in between was a discussion on how the two are linked.

Mrs. Hallowell began explaining the stress and anxiety that she feels when looking at the wild and weedy raised beds that are a result of neglect due to transitioning to remote learning throughout the spring and summer months. When she called in a friend, Mrs. Bailey, for a consultation, she looked and saw beauty, opportunity, and potential! We talked about the contrasts in life, and in art.

Students learned that in this stage of a plant’s life, what we see is dry, colorless, and looks like death - but this happens every year at this time. Plants are setting seeds, and as they bow their heads with respect, honor, and gratitude, they they are sowing life, and the earth will accept and nurture them. Plants have an instinctual intelligence, knowing that life goes on — and they are looking towards next year already!

Our project was to pick “paintbrushes” from the plants in the beautiful mess of a garden: grasses, seed pods, flower heads, etc. Each student chose 4 or 5 different brushes and then practiced stippling, broad brush strokes, snapping, etc. with black paint on white paper. While painting, they were charged with thinking of one sentence that means “hope” to them. Here are their thoughts:

HOPE

Hope makes the World a better place.
Hope means you have to believe in yourself.
Hope is whoever you are, whatever you are – it belongs to everyone.
Hope in Rhode Island - Rhode Islanders don’t just do, they have hope; it’s on our state flag, hope anchors you down, keeps you grounded.
Hope means to be confident and have Respect in the world and be positive.
Hope is the future.
Hope means caring, and I hope my grandparents are doing well, and that my grandma’s ok. It also means equality.
Hope is life. My painting is an astroid. When it collides it means you reach your goals; the astroid keeps going as you reach more goals.
Hope is a better understanding of a new tomorrow.
Hope is like the words we are learning: peace liberty & justice. It also is when you really want something good to happen.
If you hope hard enough your hopes will come true – my painting is kind of like a Jackson Pollock.

Hope means to have courage to go on and try again

Hope is – don’t give up.