Education and Social Justice

The Gardener’s Dilemma or Why Seemingly Untalented Kids Need Support

They all deserve a fair chance and some of them are just late bloomers

Imagine you decide to become self-sustainable and you plan to grow your own tomatoes. You plat the seeds into a substrate and in a week or two, they sprout. What a joy to see new life!

But then you notice something curious. Even though the seeds come from the same batch and had exactly the same starting conditions some grow big and vigorous and some barely stand. There is no better demonstration of good or bad predispositions than this. It might not be all genetic (perhaps physical characteristics of individual seed matter too), but certainly, some had an advantage that has nothing to do with the environment.

OK, now you need to pant those seedlings onto your garden bed. You have 9 of them. Three are vigorous, three are average and three are barely alive (but still growing).

You also prepared 9 places in your garden bed. Tomato plants like a lot of sun and dry air and you notice that out of those nine places three have excellent conditions, three are OK, and three are shady and humid, but still somewhat acceptable.