UNDERSTANDING FLOWERS

By Ms. Dinorah

It is fascinating the way each and every person may contribute to our understanding of things. Without their examinations or insights, the notion of the object in question would be incomplete. Children, especially, have a lot to say when given the opportunity to do so. Their views are fresh and enlightening. The naturalness and freedom with which they associate ideas challenge even well-supported perceptions. Yesterday, during our sharing time, when students are invited to read their creative works out loud, I suggested that the audience asked one subject-related question to the reader. (Each second grader had written a poem about a particular noun –octopus, saxophone, drums, jaguar, flower…) So after reading her/his poem to the whole class, the writer would answer one question.

Many enquired for details, information, which motivated imaginative answers and refreshing considerations. One of the students asked, “So, then, what is a flower?” The question was inspired by a poem that expressed how the writer experienced the word flower, with regards to two adjectives of her choice, a memory, three creative comparisons entailing qualities like smell, color and form, the existence (or not) of a random attribute given by me (the teacher), and two actions beautifully developed in depth by the student herself. The question, “What is a flower?” left me out of breath. Not many people have the courage –or the brilliance- to ask that question despite the fact that they don’t have a clue about what a flower is scientifically, philosophically, artistically. In the best possible scenarios, they may have conformed to the description recorded in a Botany book, or perhaps, a dictionary. Not that a book description is wrong (although sometimes it does happen to be lifeless). I read a couple of definitions of flowers here and there, and they seemed very convincing, explaining that the flower is “the seed-bearing part of a plant” or a bloom. Some of the definitions included information that made me picture the flower as a reproductive machine.

Now here is what the little writer said, “A flower is a seed that grows, with petals and leaves.” Again I was amazed. My answer wouldn’t have been so accurate. I, and possibly many adults along with me, for that matter, might have spent a long, long time pondering why I had been asked that question, what the meaning behind it was, or what could happen if my answer was not right. In just a few poetic words, she captured the lively transformational essence of a flower. She didn’t say that the flower had seeds to be spread and multiplied. No, the flower itself, with petals and leaves, is a seed that grows… The more I teach my students, the more I want to learn from them. It is so illuminating the way children see, how they find their way through science and creative expression and the novelties they come up with. Without a second grader’s view of flowers, the book description and definition still are partial and incomplete.