Earthworms—and a gentle voice—work wonders

Quiet attention replaces classroom chaos

By Katie Olender

It was late fall, and I had just walked into a classroom of students to help a guest lead a lesson. Though I had spent years in various schools and had witnessed all sorts of behavior, I had never before seen students so blatantly disobey a teacher.

“Sit down in your seat!” the teacher said firmly, hands on her hips, to one student who was sitting in the window cove, looking outside. He turned, looked her straight in the eye and said, “No. You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mom.” Then he slouched down, turned his head toward the window and put his feet up high on the window frame.

Another student jumped out of his seat and ran through the rows of desks, weaving between some and jumping over others. The teacher tried to get him to sit down, and as soon as she started chasing him another student jumped out of his chair and sprinted into the hallway. Another threw pencil erasers toward the chalkboard, and another refused to take his feet off his desk.

I stood there, awestruck. I had absolutely no idea how to control this classroom and clearly even the teacher, with her years of training and experience in classroom management, was having trouble. I was out of my league, and I began questioning if I should include such unruly students in garden activities at all. If they couldn’t follow directions in the confines of the schools walls, how could they focus in the garden, I wondered? But, that day, the “Worm Man” visited the classroom and I witnessed a change in student behavior that still intrigues me to this day.

The Worm Man: Patience and respect go a long way in teaching kids about nature.

The Worm Man travels from school to school and teaches students about worm composting (vermicomposting) and the environment through hands-on lessons with live red worms. He is an older gentleman with grey hair who regularly asks students to speak up because he cannot hear as well as he used to. In some schools he and the students build large outdoor vermicomposting operations for school garden and cafeteria scraps, and in other schools he helps students build small, classroom-size indoor worm “bins.” Kids adore him, partly because he is just as excited about worms as they are, and partly because of his gentle, quiet manner.

The Worm Man walked through the open classroom door and casually strolled to the front of the room, rolling a large bin behind him on a luggage cart. The rowdiness of the students didn’t faze him as he set colorful worm posters on the chalkboard ledge, leaned a giant book featuring a huge worm against the wall, and placed his bin on a desk at the front of the classroom. Noticing the stranger, some students calmed down enough to be herded back to their chairs by the teacher and me. One remained in the window cove and a few others mulled around in the back of the room, but most of the students were curious about the visitor and the contents of the large, plastic bin with air holes.

The Worm Man ignored the students who were not paying attention, and instead started speaking very softly to the students who were in their seats and facing him. “I have something alive here in my bin,” he said, tapping the lid, and then pausing for effect as he looked at each focused student. “I’m going to need your help, but I can only have people who are being quiet help,” he continued. He moved slowly, yet his pace seemed more a tactic for engaging students than from physical necessity. As he continued, the students became more and more interested in the Worm Man and in his mysterious bin, and even more returned to their seats. The one in the window cove was eyeing him and the bin cautiously, now sitting still and attentive.

The Worm Man began to teach the students about the digestive tract of the worm using a poster, and then read them a story. Next, he explained how worms eat garbage and how important they are to our environment and to the students’ school garden. He discussed how to tell if a worm is young or is an adult, and he told students that, as long as they sat calmly in their seat, they would soon have the opportunity to examine an actual worm themselves. Then, he passed out paper towels. He dampened each one with a spray bottle.

The anticipation in the room was building, and by now all students sat properly in their seat. Their eyes were on the Worm Man. They were quiet. The Worm Man continued, speaking so softly that it was almost difficult to hear him from the back of the room. He talked about how fragile the worms are, and how he knew the students could be responsible enough to handle them carefully.

Then, he placed a worm on each student’s paper towel. I couldn’t believe I was watching the same students who, less than an hour earlier, were absolutely out of control. Suddenly, they were careful, gentle and deliberate as they handled and examined their worms. They raised their hands and asked meaningful, thoughtful questions of the Worm Man. They worked cooperatively with each other and the Worm Man to create a worm bin for their classroom, and every time the Worm Man spoke they listened and made eye contact. I was awestruck again, but this time it was because I had never seen students behave so well in a classroom!

The day the Worm Man visited, he taught two lessons. The students learned that worms are cool – plain and simple. They understandably fascinate students and are a great classroom learning tool. Equally important, worms can foster students’ development as gentle people and as stewards of our earth. Worms are living creatures that are small and safe enough to hold in the students’ own hands and examine up close. For these urban kids especially, who are less likely than some other kids to experience raw wilderness, direct interaction with such a fragile part of nature encourages them to respect all living things, including the earth itself.

The Worm Man also taught me an important lesson that day, and my lesson helped me to become a better teacher. I saw that the Worm Man was gentle, considerate and respectful of the students. He didn’t question whether rowdy students were deserving of a lesson, but instead treated them like he treats students in every other classroom. He spoke to the students like they had worth – they were students whose help he needed to create a brand new worm bin, and students who were responsible enough to be trusted with caring for worms of their own. And it worked.

In my years of observing teachers, leading activities in hundreds of classes and introducing students to all kinds of nature’s wonders, I have never witnessed anything quite like how a worm (or genuine respect) can transform a child.

Note: The Worm Man works through Urban Options, a nonprofit community agency that works to improve the environmental quality of urban spaces. See www.urbanoptions.org for more information on the Worm Man (Jim Meyerle) and Urban Options programs.

Katie Olender is the former Food Systems Project Coordinator at the NorthWest Initiative, a community development nonprofit organization based in Lansing, Michigan. She is active in the local food movement, and is particularly focused on urban gardening as a means to food security for low-income communities. She recently moved to Philadelphia to teach nutrition at urban schools.