Longhouse School

8:00am, Lolita. In Oliver. Raining and windy, we had to cancel Track. Sorry, kids. Lori’s parents have to be at work early so she is napping here until school opens.

Yesterday could be considered The Day of the Ginkgo. First of all, I apologized to the kids for giving them the wrong spelling of the word. It’s more like a cleaning spray called “Gunk, Go Away.”

Teacher Guy actually showed a PowerPoint based on the Wikipedia Article. Whaaaat? 24 1st/2nd grade kids sitting rapt-attentively through an academic PPT lecture? What planet are they really from?

Ginkgo biloba is “a living fossil”? The tree was around when dinosaurs walked the earth during the Mesozoic era? Almost 300 millions of years ago! There are male and female trees? They asked so many questions. Yes, about species reproduction, too. Teacher Bernie fielded those when she saw Teacher Guy kinda blushing.

After lunch I got a phone call from “Nature Nancy,” our fave librarian. “Can you guys come over right away?” We hopped into the school bus and drove to town. Some of the ginkgo trees in “our” grove were surrounded on the ground by very stinky ginkgo fruits that had fallen down. “YUCK!” No, not from the kids; from me and Teacher Bernie.

On Monday we had cut out all of the “leaves” we had painted at the library into “fan” shapes resembling ginkgo leaves. One of the kids had once seen something on a family trip to the Bronx called The Wish Tree. The kids said that they wanted “hope” more than “wishes” so we decided to build a “Hope Tree.” On the back of a good hundred leaves we wrote “hope messages” some of them from the book “A Girl Who Drank the Moon” which Teacher Bernie has been reading to us. We got some fallen branches from the Perimeter Walk, fastened them to the wall, and then hung our leaves. It’s extraordinary and powerful.

“Are these the nuts from female trees? Nature Nancy, do you know how Ginkgo trees reproduce?” they asked. We were so proud of them being able to tie theory into real life. Yes, Teacher Guy was glowing instead of blushing. The kids wanted to collect some. I know that ginkgo speeds are valued in some places for medicinal purposes, but they also may have some deleterious side effects. “No, students, not for touching.” We explained why.

Nature Nancy also took us on a walk down Main Street where many ginkgos are planted. Some of them are growing tall but others have branches in very strange shapes. “Why?” the kids asked. We pointed out the electric, phone, and cable wires that were run through some trees. The Town cuts down branches that are too close to cables. “Why?” Well, if a branch blows down from the wind, it can cut the cable and people all along the line lose services. “Oh, that’s a good idea. But the ginkgo must feel so embarrassed! They decided that they wanted to write stories about that. And so they did back at the library!

Lori is awake and off to school we go. Today I am going to teach them another song from South Pacific, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair.” I know they will love it! Thanks to Kitten for sending me a piano accompaniment MP3