CULTIVATING MINDS : NURSERY SCHOOL TEACHER USES GARDEN TO PREPARE CHILDREN FOR LIFE.

``I think it is important for children to plant seeds in the ground and see the results grow over time - important that they realize not everything comes instantly at the push of a button.''

- Jody Guerrero

The nursery school teacher teaches old-world lessons in a high-tech age - teaches patience and nurturing on his knees in a garden, not split-second results and instant access from a computer keyboard.

Jody Guerrero teaches his class of kindergartners at First Step Nursery School in Woodland Hills the lessons he learned as a boy from his own father in a different time - before computers shrunk the world and speeded it up.

``My father, Manuel, worked long hours in the fields of Mexico picking crops as a boy and young man,'' Guerrero says. ``Now, he is retired, and still works the land in his garden all day. It is in his blood.

``We would sit and talk for hours about the land, about how you must be patient and respectful because you cannot rush nature,'' he said.

About how if you listen, you learn. Because it's all there in the soil, Guerrero tells his kindergarten students.

The lessons of life and many of its most beautiful wonders.

All it takes to learn is getting your hands a little dirty - and time.

You can't push a button and grow food or a beautiful flower.

The kid's arm shot up in the air almost as soon as Guerrero finished reading his class the story about a scarecrow.

``Why don't we have a scarecrow in our garden to scare away the birds and 2-year-olds?'' the kid asked.

Not a bad idea, Guerrero thought, asking for a show of hands. The 12 students in his class, all 5-year-olds, unanimously voted for the scarecrow.

They were tired of chasing the birds and 2-year-old preschoolers out of their garden.

So, with Guerrero's guidance, the kids built their own scarecrow, sticking it in the middle of their 10-foot-by-3-foot garden, just around the corner from the rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks and chickens.

Then, they waited patiently for weeks, checking in each day to witness the wildflowers and sunflowers slowly burst through the soil and reach for the sky - kept safe from the birds and 2-year-olds by the scarecrow they had built.

With the wildflowers came the butterflies perching on their petals, prompting caterpillar-butterfly study week in class.

Allowing Jody Guerrero's kids to learn firsthand about another one of nature's most interesting and beautiful wonders that no amount of super technology and computer programming can give us.

Only time can do that.

In a few more months, the kids were busy baking sunflower seeds from sunflowers that grew 10 feet tall and harvesting lush, red tomatoes to bring home to their parents.

Gifts from the garden where Guerrero teaches his kids that there are still some things you can't get by pushing a button.

So, slow down and learn - get your hands dirty.

From her office, Marilyn Llanos, director of the school, looks out into the garden and smiles. Another year is wrapping up. A good year.

In a few days, these kids will graduate from nursery school and move on next year to public or private schools. They'll begin an education geared to give them the tools they'll need to survive and, hopefully, succeed in the 21st century - tools that are changing so fast that it's tough to know where we're going.

That's why this garden is so important. It never changes. Its harvests have been lessons for hundreds of the school's children in the past, and it will be lessons for hundreds more in the future.

Simple lessons handed down from a Mexican crop picker to his son, a nursery school teacher.

Lessons you learn by getting your hands dirty and taking the time - not by pushing a button.

MEMO: Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

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3 Photos

PHOTO (1) Kids discover nature in the garden.

(2) A gard en and children at First Step Nursery School are growing under the care of teacher Jody Guerrero.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News