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Green thumbs, green ribbons: Walker County's Gilber Elementary honored for outdoors, environmental-focused education
LAFAYETTE, Ga. - In the forest off South Burnt Mill Road, one boy straddled an arching tree Tuesday morning, boasting about the $1 he got for each of his four missing teeth. Behind him, another boy said something about his going rate: $10 per tooth.
And behind them, tucked between some other trees, a girl in a purple shirt and purple skirt and purple shoes hollered out something about honeysuckle. And in front of her, a boy snatched a caterpillar from a tree and marched toward his teacher.
"It's fresh," said the boy, a blond kindergartner named Cole, eyeing the insect like a Tootsie Roll.
Thus was the scene at one of the finest hubs of young scientific learning in the country. Last week, the U.S. Department of Education named Gilbert Elementary School one of its Green Ribbon award winners, an honor for innovative environmental, nutrition and sustainability teaching.
Gilbert Elementary is one of 45 schools in the nation to receive the award - and one of three in Georgia.
The school's principal, Matt Harris, said the honor is a byproduct of day-to-day work there, as opposed to a concerted effort to receive national attention. In his seven years as principal, he and some teachers have rolled out new programs, year after year, hoping to make their students more active and give them more hands-on education.
Harris didn't know much about the U.S. Department of Education's honor until he heard about it in January. He looked at the qualifications and figured Gilbert Elementary would be a good candidate. So he filled out the application paperwork and didn't think much else of it.
"We put no effort into it whatsoever," he said of the application process. "And it's like, 'Hey, we're one of three schools [to receive the honor in Georgia].' I didn't expect it, but that's good."
In its description, the Department of Education praised Gilbert Elementary for its "authentic STEM research" throughout the year. Some children help raise chickens in a coop behind the school building. Others plant milkweed and tag plants that will attract pollinators. Others maintain a composting program.
And of the four kindergarten classes, half spend hours in the forest behind the school every day. They write in journals while plopped against trees. They do math by counting and comparing the different pieces of natural materials they can find. And they have recess, running around and climbing on trees and looking for plants.
Harris said parents decide whether they want their children in the forest kindergarten or the standard class. This year, he said, the class sizes happened to work out pretty evenly.
Harris said he wanted to bring to the elementary school the feeling of environmentally focused charter and private schools. So he and the teachers built a garden and aquaponics lab. And with time, he said, the outdoors program has grown, deep into the forest behind the school.
For his first six months as principal, Harris said, he was miserable. Too many people to please. But he decided to try something different, something he thought would be fun for the students. And he said he hasn't worried much about the politics of education since.
It didn't hurt that the school's scores have remained solid under his leadership, going from a 71.3 on the College and Career Ready Performance Index in 2012 to a 79 last year.
"Everything that the school does, I'll attribute to the teachers," Harris said. "But the one thing I did is I said, 'I really don't care if I get fired or not.' Just saying that, you got a lot more freedom."
Ray McWhorter, who teaches the school's gifted students, said the push for more hands-on programs has spread among teachers here. While some were used to classroom-only, textbook-based courses, they began to try to keep up with their co-workers.
"The positive peer pressure is going to come into play," McWhorter said Tuesday, over the buzz of a sander. A couple of fifth-grade girls were preparing a pallet for their victory garden.
"Kids are so much more engaged in doing these kind of things," he said.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.