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Grab a backpack — and maybe a pair of garden gloves — and head to homeroom at Oakley Elementary School, where learning often looks more like a farm than a traditional classroom.

Chickens cluck as students rush to collect eggs. Butter churns as children chant encouragement. Sometimes, there isn't a classroom at all — just fresh air, soil under fingernails, and lessons rooted in real life.

At the center of it all is Tomanekka Irving, the school's STEM-agriculture teacher, whose class has become so popular that administrators say families have moved into the district specifically to enroll their children.

"Everybody wants to be a part of her class at some point," said Uche Ngoddy, the school's principal. "She is a child whisperer. You don't deal with discipline in her class because the kids love to be here."

Irving's approach blends science, agriculture, and hands-on discovery. Students garden, keep bees, and care for animals, learning through trial and error as much as through success.

"They're learning success, but they're also learning failure," Irving said. "We plant things and they don't grow. They're like, 'What happened?' So they're learning to keep going, keep persevering."

https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/a-south-fulton-stem-agriculture-teachers-hands-on-approach-boosts-student-confidence-reduces-discipline/

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