It is mental health awareness month, and this morning's homeroom lesson was on stigmas: what they are and how to avoid them, especially where mental health issues are concerned. Our conversation turned to the recent tragedy in NYC where a man with a history of mental health issues was behaving erratically on a subway and one of his fellow passengers put him in a chokehold. It was a lot for sixth graders, but they were thoughtful and respectful.
Even so, I was relieved that we had also planned to plant some seeds this morning. It was an activity I had been promising for a couple of weeks and I finally had it pulled together today. The kids were excited as we filled small paper cups with soil, and they chose from pumpkin, sunflower, cilantro, beans, and peas. Then they wrote their names on popsicle stick markers, and we watered the cups and placed them on the windowsill in the strong spring sunlight.
In the final moments of the class, we all kind of stood there looking at our plants and perhaps reflecting on that simple act of placing seed in soil.
"I think this was good for our mental health," one student said, and I couldn't have agreed with him any more.
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