The trees behind the classroom

An original imagined letter to a school magazine.

Dear Editor,

Behind our classroom stand several trees which have spent years answering to “those trees”. We can identify the badge on a passing car before it reaches the gate. The large living shapes outside our own window are apparently permitted one collective name.

I am not proposing an examination at every leaf. I would like an introduction. A name gives attention a place to begin. Once two trees are no longer interchangeable background, a difference in their branches or the arrival of their leaves can become something a person notices on the way to a lesson.

At present, the grounds enter our writing most often as green space. That phrase is wonderfully efficient. It can fit an entire place into the same small drawer as every other place we have not bothered to examine. A garden, a playing field and a strip beside the road become equally green and equally silent.

We could begin with the trees nearest the classroom, ask someone knowledgeable to help and make a short guide which explains rather than merely labels. I do not expect one walk to turn us into experts. I expect it might make the next walk less anonymous.

There is room in a school day for learning that the view outside is made of particular things. The trees have been standing close enough to introduce themselves for years. Perhaps we could finally do our part of the conversation.

Yours faithfully,

A student by the window

Examine the methods the writer uses to argue for closer attention to the school grounds.