Mrs. Murphy’s Sunflowers is a unit of study found in Ellsworth Collings’ 1924 edition of An Experiment With A Project Curriculum. Might this be the book used for inspiration by the Corporation For Common Core Curriculum Craziness as they constructed their test riddled unit on Early Civilizations? No, probably not.

Back in 1924 Ellsworth Collings was not driving data points into the hearts and minds of little children and he was not abusing his status as “expert” by dictating courses of study and exam content for human beings he had never met and knew nothing about.

Sure, standard subject matter was actively in the mix, but it was never weaponized to precisely and intentionally destroy student development. Collings threw the education machine into reverse and then paid close attention to what happened when human beings were guided to select activities and PURPOSE their own learning based on interesting, immediate, everyday life.

One day Carl called a group meeting of his fellow 6-8 year olds and asked why did they think Mrs. Murphy was forever growing big sunflowers at the BACK of her vegetable garden. It didn’t make any sense to him. The other kids agreed. Weren’t flowers intended for flower gardens or front lawns? Iona said she had no idea what a sunflower looked like so if they wanted her help, she would need a first-hand visit to Mrs. Murphy’s. So off they trooped armed with two questions. Why was Mrs. Murphy growing these sunflowers at the rear end of her vegetable garden? How were sunflowers different from her other flowers?

Next day, Mrs. Murphy walked everyone out back and introduced them to the color, shape and distinct seed of the sunflower. She had them inspect the stem, the leaves and explained that she planted strategically so her cucumber vines would be protected from the hot, late afternoon sun. To the children’s delight, she actually cut off the head of a big sunflower and pitched it over the fence to her chickens so the class could watch the flock devour the seeds off the flower head. “Homegrown poultry feed,” she announced matter-of-factly.

Later, back at school, of course there were paintings and drawings of beautiful sunflowers and many, detailed, written accounts. These were enhanced by reading and researching flower guide and nature study books but also by uncovering stories and poems about sunflowers in traditional texts like the Elson Readers: Book Three and several others. Lantern slides and stereograph pictures of wild flowers were also put to good use.

And what did Carl make of this adventure? Well, here is what he reported in cursive handwriting, accompanied by a detailed, scientific illustration of the sunflower.

The Sunflower

Mrs. Murphy uses her sunflowers to shade her cucumber vines. The sunflower has a big yellow flower. Mrs. Murphy’s chickens like sunflower seed. She gave us some seed to plant. Sunflowers make pretty yard flowers. I am going to grow some in my cantaloupe patch next summer to shade my cantaloupes. They grow best in a rich soil, sunshine and moisture. They are easy to grow.

Long before SCLC, SNCC or Freedom Summer, there was Esau Jenkins on Johns Island, SC.

He spoke at Mother Emmanuel A.M.E. in 1962.

We The People were introduced to Esau at the old Highlander Folk School, where he was a living legend.

In the earliest days, he operated a Citizenship School from inside a beat-up, yellow school bus which doubled as a rural peddler’s store on wheels.

That bus was a transport for remote island people and became a mobile classroom for political education back in the day when “Literacy Tests” were used to keep Black citizens from registering to vote.

Septima Clark joined him and so did Bernice Robinson, running Voter Registration classes inside Bernice’s home beauty salon.

Our Democracy is just as much in peril today as it was back in the 1950’s when Esau began “The Work”. Right now there are literally thousands of people who are volunteering weeks and months to a movement that goes much deeper than just getting someone elected to a political office. Every event flowing from the murder of George Floyd is evidence of this.

Esau, Septima and Bernice got everyone to tap into a bottomless well of courage, intelligence, practicality and commonality. 

Everyone “taught” each other. They practiced the art of talking out community problems and testing out solutions.  A rickety school bus became a co-op, became a health clinic, became a gas & grocery station, became a credit union.  The evolution never stopped. And it is not stopping now in 2020.

North, South, East and West, there are Hot Spots all over the USA with a load of this tradition still percolating in their regional and cultural DNA.  Time to tap into it. Watch it explode like a God Bless America Geyser all across the nation. Electrifying and Edifying.

Listen to a ❤️ heart beat, Take a temperature, Measure out pretend liquid meds using a calibrated dropper, Feel for a pulse, Create and use a handmade eye chart, Tap knees for reflexes, Create a patient chart with dates, times, symptoms and cure, Write a prescription, Make a Patient scheduling book, Fill empty containers with food coloring meds and use art supplies to make bottle labels, Learn the names and spellings for common medications like aspirin or eucalyptus. Fill your hours with imaginative medical investigations. Oh, and be sure to draw a detailed x-ray of a human body. Lots of bones to consider.

Hands On Floating Curriculum

In October of 2018 a group of NYC kids began the process of building a boat dubbed the Opti. Under the direction of Laura Botel, the program coordinator of Brooklyn Boatworks, a nonprofit after-school program and its volunteers met with students for two hours each week. Together they mastered new manual skills and a new vocabulary, including words like transom, daggerboard and thwart.

Schools in Crown Heights, East New York, Harlem, Washington Heights and Woodside, also built Optis that year.

In the fall at Middle School 88, the boat building process began with four unfinished sheets of marine plywood, design plans and some basic hand tools like screwdrivers, small saws and cordless drills. The idea was to build a seaworthy boat entirely by hand and then sail it in an inlet on the East River on an appointed day by the end of the school year.

The day came on June 10th. Yes it rained, but it happened. A small flotilla of Optis, each one of which had been built inside classrooms across the city, set sail, holding one student-builder and one adult. Note that it is standard procedure for Optis to be equipped with buoyancy bags.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/nyregion/optimist-sailboat-brooklyn-boatworks.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

To the Water Table Frances Took: Clean detergent squeeze bottles, old plastic medicine jars, perforated berry baskets, funnels, flexible, plastic tubing of varying length and diameter, plastic medicine droppers, poultry basters, bulb ear syringe/aspirators, corks, plastic measuring cups, plastic water jugs pint, quart, gallon, mini bike pump, battery-operated fan, clear plastic eye dropper, salt shaker, wide variety of sponges.