Photosynthesis

With the end of the blessed rainy day and the beginning of the early days of the eight month of the lunar calendar, a few students have sown some more seeds in their gardens- such as bean, coriander, radish, spinach and lettuce.

The continuous rain water from the last few days has nurtured the soil making it favorable for seed’s growth, in this young season- FALL!

This time of  year is good for sowing spinach, bean, coriander, radish etc. For some vegetables we weren’t quit sure of the perfect time to plant - like egg plant, pumpkin etc- but we have decided to experiment with their growth in our garden by planting them now.

Working in the garden is a great opportunity for the students to learn with their hands. Right from the start of the garden work- digging an earth, holding a spade and pick axe and manually using one’s energy to unfurl the soil- there are many lessons being learned and many calculations being done mentally, but unconsciously.

The student’s decision to use a pick axe instead of  spade to open the soil has its own science behind it. The students are their own architects in the garden, shaping their own beds, calculating, measuring, and designing them in whatever way they desire. The depth, width and the line that they keep track of while sowing seeds are an estimation and math concept in themselves.

While there are so many things students can learn from the garden classes, the focus  in the last session was on finding an area and perimeter of their own beds. The students have used measuring tape to find the length and breadth of the beds. After they have collected their respective bed’s basic data they were ready to calculate and found the actual area of their beds. It was quite interesting to see the students measure and take their own responsibilities in their learning by doing from the context. I have also seen them cooperate with friends in finding the measurements.

From the previous planting we have now green sprouts of bean and squash that have grown from six to eight centimeters tall from the ground. The spinach and coriander have sprouted a centimeter above the bed, exposing their two leaves of early growth, ready for photosynthesis.

We all are waiting to see the gradual growth of our vegetables.

Sowing the seed

A squash sprout

It’s late in the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and Tshering Phuntsho, Pema Dorji and Leki Dorji have sown bean, spinach, and squash seeds in their gardens to experiment with the growth of different vegetables. 

The sowing of the seeds was accompanied by question marks in their head about the right time for planting in Dewathang. A few students have said that the sowing season in Dewathang is after the celebration of the Blessed Rainy Day or sometime in the eighth month of  the lunar calendar. However, we have decided to sow the seeds and check their growth. After three days of sowing seeds, we have checked the garden and to our excitement we found fresh squash, bean and spinach sprouts emerging out from the soil.

There are hopes from our students that these vegetables will grow, nevertheless rainy season in Dewathang is not yet completely stopped. Some students are concerned about the last heavy rain for the summer yet to fall, which would hamper the new vegetable sprouts in their gardens.

Samdrup Tshering and Leki Dorji transplanting cabbage sprouts.

On the other hand Leki Dorji and Samdrup Tshering have transplanted their cabbage sprouts in their beds. They have brought two bunches of the sprouts from the neighbor’s to plant in their gardens. Both of them were quite positive with their transplantings and were looking forward to productive growth. 

A bean sprout

Karma Phunstho has sown the lettuce seeds in his small bed and he was confident that his lettuce growth will be successful. A few students are willing to wait for the last heavy rain to go away before they sow their seeds and they are working to extend and add more new beds.

Karma Phuntsho's Lettuce garden 

The calculator on the finger tips- Math trick

There is very convenient Math Trick to easily multiply the numbers from 6 to 10 using ones own fingers. We call this, calculator on the finger tip. It is used to teach children to learn tricks about multiplication time tables without any external resources. It also provides our students an opportunity to perfect it, anywhere and anytime just playing with their fingers after learning the trick.  

After teaching this trick in the class, most of the students who have struggled to memorize the times tables before, have admitted it to be very easy for them to calculate. It was amazing to see how handy the fingers are to calculate, besides providing mental calculation opportunity for an individual.

I remember how my students struggled to memorize the times table, especially starting from 6 to 9.  For some, they even took so long to memorize up to 5. Besides, it was of less practical memorizing, when there are gaps of few weeks and few months. The students keep on forgetting and they have to rememorize again (however not so difficult this time).    

So, in the following paragraph I am going to show you the trick. Well, first put your both hands in front of you and ascribe values from 6 to 10 to each finger starting from little finger to thumb. So, the values of  little fingers are 6, 7 for ring fingers, 8 for middle fingers, 9 for forefingers and 10 for thumbs.

How to multiply?

Step 1: Choose the numbers to multiply. For Example: 7x8   

Ste      2: Put together the fingers, whose values you want to multiply. Here, it is ring finger of the left hand and middle finger of the right hand.

Step 3: Now, count the touching fingers and the ones below them. Each of this finger will have the value of 10. So, if there are 5 fingers then the values are five times ten (5*10), which is equal to 50. Mentally retain this number in your head. 

Step 4: Now, multiply the fingers above the ones touching fingers. So, multiply 3 on left hand side with 2 on right hand side. We will get (3*2) 6.

Now mentally add 50 and 6 (50+6), the answer will be 56.

We can use this trick to calculate the times table of 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, what amongst are the most difficult to calculate and memorize for almost all the students.

 

Garden

On last two Saturdays, our twenty students were drenched in sweat to make a vegetable garden and compost pit beside the residence of Drubgyud Tenzin Rinpoche. Rinpoche was very kind to offer his garden to the class as a learning space for the students. The continued monsoon rain in Dewathang has loosened the soil and it was quite easy for us to dig the earth. So far we have dug 20 small beds and we are getting set to sow seeds in a few weeks of time.

It’s been quite some time, waiting for a bright and dry day to begin work in the new vegetable garden. We will be experimenting in the garden with growing different seeds that are locally grown in Dewathang and also few other seeds from other place.

It was quite surprising for us to come up with long list of vegetables that can be grown in Dewathang: potato, eggplant, coriander, spinach, bean, pumpkin, squash, spring onion, cabbage, cauliflower, ginger, cucumber, tomato, radish, carrot, turnip, lettuce, etc. The list goes on. There are abundant vegetables we can grow in our garden.  

We also discussed about the right time to sow seeds in Dewathang. Students have pointed out that the summer season is usually not a good time for sowing seeds because of heavy rain fall. A few of them said we can sow seeds after blessed rainy day (which falls sometime in late September). Tshering Samdrup, a student from our class has called his parents, to ask about sowing seasons and few others have enquired to villagers. I'm happy to see how they take their responsibilities in learning.

It was quite a challenging for all of us, especially to make a bed on steep slope and leveling it, however with joined effort and cooperation we could managed to make the beds. The students have used unwanted logs and planks to make a supporting wall for the beds and to make it hold in a position they have used strong pegs.

Now, jointly we have agreed to sow seeds after the blessed rainy day. The beds are yet to finalize this weekend.