Wow! I took a risk and upgraded my basement hydroponics yesterday with an LED plant light. It was $280 for a light that covers a 2×4 foot area. Today I will add a Mylar reflecting foil to the sides so it maximizes the light hitting the plants. It was quite a shock because the light is mostly blue and red-very difficult on the eyes. In fact, after working around the light for 5 minutes everything seemed to have a green.
My basement is now illuminated with an eerie purplish glow. It kind of reminds me of the story “A Wrinkle in Time” when It was trying to hypnotize Meg and Charles Wallace with a throbbing light. I wonder what my neighbors are thinking.
Some of the things I do are really “out of the box” and it is difficult for some of my neighbors because we live in a condo. Residents in a condo are not exactly amenable to strange ideas, like when I grew hydroponic broccoli on my back porch last summer. Change and new ideas are hard to adjust to for some people. But to me that is the excitement of living. To try new things, to experiment, to continuously learn. Isn’t that what we want in our classrooms? Doesn’t curiosity drive learning?
We also need to be willing to make mistakes and learn from them. We have to view failure not as the end, but a brief pause in learning. Somehow our children get the idea that failure is bad, maybe it’s that we put too much emphasis on grades.
We need to grow curiosity, take risks, encourage children to try new things, to experiment. I believe if you, as a classroom teacher, cultivate these traits, your children will begin to emulate you.
I will keep you updated on my hydroponic garden and I will turn off the LED light before I work on my plants!
