The Orchid

For whatever reason – proximity to the door, its initial flowering beauty, its reasonable price point – I have received an orchid many years from students as a Teacher Appreciation gift. And they are beautiful. They are so delicate and frankly, so unusual in their growth needs, that they have a first-impression appeal for sure.

The fact that I receive them year after year does not translate into a windowsill full of beautiful orchids, however. I have a few of the little plants left, with huge green leaves, but in all my years, I have never once successfully gotten an orchid to rebloom. Not once. In fact, there are years when I have struggled to keep mine alive.

Until now.

I have absolutely no explanation for it. I didn’t do anything different with the pot, the lighting, the growing material. I didn’t sing to it, or speak in soft whispers. I didn’t change my watering habits or place it in a particularly well-lit area. But a couple weeks ago, I noticed a different sort of stem growing up out of it, and sure enough, buds! Now, today, I have beautiful orchid blossoms.

I took a moment to take a picture. I emailed the student who gave it to me (I happen to remember this particular one specifically) and shared the exciting news. (I am certain, being a middle-schooler now, that she was not in the least impressed or caring, but still.) And I have thought about it all day long.

Looking around my classroom, I feel similarly about some of my students. There are days when it seems like the lightbulbs are just going off all around. Or sometimes it’s just one particular student who seems to “suddenly” get a concept that has previously been quite a struggle. I oftentimes have no idea what was particularly different about my instruction, the materials, the environment, the supports, – any of it – that made the lightbulb go off. But I’m always so thankful that it did.

And now, at the end of the day, when the lights are being turned off, and the classroom door closes behind me, I look back and see the orchid in the window with its white blooms and I wonder if today I did anything to make a child bloom. Was today a day when I had the water, the light and the soil just right that someone grew as a learner? Was today a day when I said it just so, or wrote it out in a new way, or modeled or explained or provided a new example that made a student grasp something they didn’t before?

I sure hope so. I sure hope the lightbulb moments in my room are not nearly as rare as my re-flowering orchids. I may never really know, but I’ll continue to provide the best lighting, just enough water and a new pot when this one gets too small and I will hope and pray that my students will continue to grow and blossom like this little plant.