Earlier this year, Freedom High School teacher Carlos Wallace’s students learned about soil testing and the pumpkin life cycle as they grew their own pumpkin patch in the Prince William County school’s greenhouse.
Wallace, who’s a teacher of student’s intellectual disabilities and autism, said that experience left them craving more.
“Our students gave me the incentive to plant the poinsettias,” Wallace said. “They said, ‘Mr. Wallace, why don’t we plant the holiday plants?’”
So, that’s what the group of Prince William County students with disabilities did. They spent weeks nurturing and fertilizing the plants, learning how to take the pH balances of the soil and transport the holiday plant from one pot to another.
For a few days during lunch, the students are collecting donations in exchange for the red plants that both their peers and teachers are eager to bring home.
“They’ve been growing because we’ve been doing a lot of work, putting effort into it,” said Nathaniel, who’s a junior at the school. “Making sure they grow, that they have water, and make sure that they get enough sunlight.”
Wallace’s group calls the greenhouse the “G House,” and the lessons built around the facility behind the school’s main building aim to prepare students for jobs after high school.
In addition to the students putting together the pumpkin patch, they’ve also learned how to mow the lawns.
“What we focus on at Freedom High School, which is one of my classes, is job skills, social skills,” Wallace said. “We have our work adjustment training, so those hands-on experiences will actually groom our students when they exit Freedom High School and going into the workforce.”
In addition to learning how to care for the red holiday plants, the students are gaining experience in how to manage money while collecting donations in the cafeteria, Wallace said.
The experience is also helping them “show a lot of charisma and build their social skills up with individuals in the general population,” he said.
The donations will benefit financially underprivileged students at Freedom. Over the next few days some students will get gift cards, and the funding will also be used to help the school offer free yearbooks and prom tickets in the spring.
“These poinsettias, they represent good cheer and community spirit,” Wallace said. “That good cheer and community spirit is synonymous with Freedom High School’s positive energy and virtues.”
Kiandra, one of the students collecting donations during Wednesday’s lunch, said, “The plant is really pretty, and they’re really nice.”
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