Learnings From the Orchard

This past Tuesday, our middle schoolers spent the whole day outdoors. Fifth and sixth graders traveled north together to Inwood Hill Park — which I learned (from them) is home to the last old-growth forest on the island of Manhattan and to the Shorakapkok Preserve, a place where humans have been stopping to be present for nearly 700 years and whose name in the Munsee Lenape language means "the sitting place." Meanwhile, our 7th- and 8th-graders made their way to the North Woods and Conservatory Gardens in Central Park, a magical area of the park unknown to many of our students (and New Yorkers more generally).

These trips are part of PARDES, a signature program of our Chativah that includes a full-day, nature-based excursion every month or so. The program's name is an acronym: Place, Adventure, Responsibility, Discovery, and Environmental Stewardship. It is also, of course, the Hebrew word for orchard. Anyone familiar with the Aggadic story of four great rabbis entering the "Pardes," knows that the word "pardes" evokes a place beyond the physical, a place of layered meaning where we go to learn what cannot be learned from the surface alone. These PARDES fieldtrips are not a break from learning. They are integral to learning, a part of the curriculum that the classroom cannot provide. They are opportunities to walk into the unknown, knowing that you will come back different somehow.

Part of what PARDES teaches is that every place has endless layers to explore, and endless opportunities for discovery, as long as you look closely enough you will find those hidden gems. Students generally also discover that most places have a secret language if you know how to read it. In Central Park, our 7th and 8th-graders learned to decode the lampposts, each one bearing a number that tells you exactly where you are in the park's otherwise winding, off-the-grid paths. A city that looks like organized chaos turns out, underneath, to be a system of signs. Our older students also sat by the Pool for a discussion of Central Park's history: the vision of Olmsted and Vaux, the eminent domain that displaced Seneca Village and other communities, and the foresight of city planners who fought to keep the park public. Then, they moved through the Ravine in mindful pairs with a teacher-led "literary scavenger hunt," hiked the North Woods, scrambled up to the Blockhouse — the oldest structure in the park, a remnant of the War of 1812 — and ended the afternoon in the Conservatory Gardens, where one of our educators led a watercolor and haiku writing activity, before the group paused together for what one teacher described as the "highlight of the trip," the afternoon prayer, Mincha. At Inwood, our 5th and 6th graders decoded something older — the Lenape history of a landscape that has been tended, named, and loved for centuries, honoring those stewards with a peace circle before making their way home through the forest.

I want to share something specific that happened during the Inwood Park trip. I heard about this from a few different teachers and students, and I keep returning to

At some point during the hike, students were given the option to climb a particularly challenging tree. Most of them did. Then it was the last pair's turn. They made it up — and froze. Both of them, together on the limb, unable to move forward or back. The kind of freeze that is purely physical, the nervous system doing exactly what it's designed to do when the body perceives real risk.

Students came running. "Can we help? Do you want us to go up? Someone tell them how to move their foot." One student, from below, guided them step by step. Another said, "Take a deep breath — that's how you bring logic back to your body".

The two came down. And were immediately surrounded — their classmates hugging them, high-fiving, celebrating. Then, right before birkat hamazon, the group paused for compliments and appreciations. What came out was so sincere, so specific, so tender that it became a kind of processing of the whole experience together.

I have been thinking about the phrase, "that's how you bring logic back to your body," which comes directly from our health curriculum. A twelve-year-old, in the woods, articulating something that takes most adults years of therapy or meditation practice to understand: in a moment of panic, reason alone won't save you. You have to breathe first. The body leads. Our educators built PARDES because they deeply understand that some knowledge only arrives through the body — through doing something hard, through watching friends freeze and choosing to stay close, through learning from a lamppost number or a Lenape place name that every landscape holds a code worth cracking and that the cracking of it changes you.

Experiential learning, especially learning that carries emotional weight, integrates differently from information received passively. It sticks because it is felt. The student who called up from below will remember what she said for a long time. The two on that limb will remember it longer.

That is what our kids carried home on Tuesday. Not notes. Not a worksheet. A memory of who showed up for them, and the understanding — not intellectual but embodied — that they are held.

I go into Shabbat praying for all children to grow from challenges that end positively. I pray that all children can count on the on-the-ground support that gives them the confidence to climb a tree.