When Flowers Bloom

Once getting ready for a new first grade, a teacher received a gift from a kindergarten teacher of a moss garden that included a little gnome house and a darling, needle-felted gnome. In the center was an African violet. All summer long the violet bloomed and bloomed and the teacher loved the violet and told the violet that the children would love it.
Two weeks before school began, the violet stopped blooming and the teacher was very annoyed at it and thought, “What’s the use of blooming all summer in the first grade classroom when the children are not yet here?” The teacher tried persuading the violet to bloom to no avail.
School started and the first graders all loved the moss garden and the little gnome who lived in it. The class was a particularly lively class with many strong individuals in it with many learning difficulties. One little boy had spent a year in a public school first grade. This was a very dreamy little boy, a beautiful child with blond curls and big blue eyes. For this story he will be called Finbar. The boy had proven useless in spelling in his previous school. The solution used was to give the boy an extra spelling test each Friday. From that point forward Finbar ran a fever every Thursday night and could not attend school on Friday.
In the Waldorf school first grade Finbar continued to be a dreamy child, trying to decide whether he would participate or not. Sometimes he seemed present with his class and sometimes he seemed to be very far away in his thoughts. Finbar had a habit of absent-mindedly swinging his rip-stop nylon lunch box around by a very long shoulder strap. Several times he had unintentionally hurt children with this swinging juggernaut. Many conversations about not swinging the lunch box had ensued.
At lunch hour a group of children needed to get on the bus to go home on time as the bus drivers were angry and impatient if the class was late; the play group teacher who stayed with the children who did not go home at lunch hour had to make it to class on time to allow the first grade teacher to take the children to the buses. It was a high-pressure time and on this day, the playgroup teacher was late and the teacher had to get a line of children out the door and to the busses promptly.
Far on the other side of the line of children who had the teacher pinned at the door, other classmates were getting their lunches in anticipation of the arrival of the playgroup teacher. At the far end of the classroom, Finbar came sauntering down the aisle with his lunch box swinging a full, wide circle around himself. The teacher tried to get past the children waiting to leave but did not get to the boy soon enough. His whirling lunch box caught the edge of the gnome’s house and the whole moss garden toppled onto the floor upside down.
The whole class, in an uproar, shouted the child’s name many times in anger. Finbar stood staring at the ruined gnome house. The teacher climbed over the children in front of her to rush over to the boy. She quickly got down on hands and knees and began scooping up the parts of the moss garden, the soil, and gnome’s house and asked the boy to help her. The boy seemed unmoved by the results of his actions. He kneeled down next to the teacher and vaguely tried to help gather up the spilled parts of the moss garden.
The teacher was stressed and angry. She had to swallow hard to avoid speaking in that state of mind and soul. As the teacher worked to remain quiet and to repair the garden, she was taken completely by surprise by a direct sensation, received from Finbar, which landed deep inside of her. The child’s extreme remorse came from well inside of him and it hit the teacher like a physical wave. The teacher looked at the boy. His face seemed passive, yet he was flushed very red. Upon receiving the wave of remorse from somewhere inside the child, she was mightily ashamed for her anger at him.
The teacher then said in gentler tones than might have come out before this wave of communication broke upon her, “I think the gnome needed a rearrangement of his yard!” The teacher and the boy kept working and, again, the teacher experienced another wave from inside the boy, this time of gratitude. Finbar then worked more actively.
The two put the moss garden back together with the unblooming violet re-planted and the gnome sitting happily in his house again. “It looks better. Don’t you think?” the teacher asked the boy, still feeling ashamed of herself for her impatience and anger in light of this remarkable remorse she received. Finbar smiled gratefully and nodded. The teacher asked him, “Did you learn something?” He answered almost inaudibly, “I shouldn’t swing my lunch box around.”
This entire incident took, perhaps, ten minutes.
The next morning was busy and the teacher gave no thought to the moss garden. But during circle time she happened to glance at the moss garden on the window sill as she passed by it while doing an exercise with the class using hands and legs. The African violet had at least eight buds on it! In her excitement and shock, the teacher made a hasty trip around to the opposite side of the circle without losing the rhythm of the exercise till she arrived at the place where Finbar was doing the exercise. The teacher whispered, “When you go by, look at the moss garden.” It was a long distance to the garden from where the boy was situated. The teacher was convinced that he would forget by the time he got around to the moss garden.
Lo and behold! When Finbar arrived at the place near the gnome’s garden, he did look. The teacher watched while continuing with the class. The boy turned to look at the teacher and a slow smile of wonder and realization spread on the boy’ face. He had seen the buds. The teacher smiled back at the boy. She beamed warmth of heart to him in great waves of appreciation. She could tell these were received.