If you have a school full of growing children, why not fill it with growing plants? Many Dalat teachers and staff have found value in bringing vegetation into their classrooms.
“They make the classroom more welcoming,” noted middle school language arts teacher Mrs. Catherine Bekker. “I think they purify the air, and personally, I just love plants.”
High school English teacher Mr. Jens Hieber, whose classroom is considered by students as one of the coziest in the school, noted their plants’ potential to create a positive atmosphere: “There’s something about having living things in a space that makes it better,” he stated. “When humans enter a place that’s totally sterile, with no living things at all—I don’t think that’s the best for them.”
A semblance of nature, however, doesn’t have the same effect as the real thing, as evidenced by Mr. Joshua Anderson, who wasn’t aware of the plants in his classroom—precisely because they were fake. “We have plastic plants?” the high school Bible teacher exclaimed. “Wow, I never noticed them before.”
Not just teachers, but also Dalat staff enjoy keeping various flora close to them. “I have this one, and this one…” explained Mr. Zachary Khoo (Advancement Department) as he rearranged the plants that were keeping his camera case company. “Oh, this one is fake,” he said disappointedly as he fingered the one plastic imitation among his collection.
“Do you know about the garden in the parking lot?” Mr. Khoo continued. “One of the maintenance guys told me about it. He passed me one day and just told me, ‘I started a garden in the corner of the parking lot!’” Mr. Khoo then led the way out of the front office to a traffic island bordering the fence between Dalat and the Rainbow Paradise Hotel. “He’d been working here for many years, and after a while, he started planting all of these,” Mr. Khoo explained, motioning to a well-tended lipstick palm and Chinese Arborvitae. A neat path of white stones encircled the two trees. The whole garden, only a few square meters, was nestled within a ring of low-cut shrubs.
It would take intentionality to spot these gems. Look a bit closer, for example, at the large planter to the right of the Harbor steps. Several potted pothos vines sit on the edge of the planter and stretch their tendrils towards the sun. Their caretaker: the janitor named Parimaladevi explains, “They are from my house,” she smiled. “My house has many plants.” Parimaladvei waters these vines only once every two days, and they still thrive. “You know the plants in the boys’ bathroom?” she asked. “They are from my house, also!” Dalat boys have Parimaladevi to thank for keeping the oxygen in their bathroom at a healthy level.
Slowing down to appreciate nature reveals a multitude of secret gardens to observers, from the towering trees surrounding the central field, to the garden island in the parking lot, to the potted plants of teachers and staff. Dalat’s campus embraces greenery—and is the better for it.
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