JOY OF NATURE PLANTED IN PUPILS' HEARTS.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

A wonderful thing is going on at a popular elementary school in Burbank - something that has a lot of people smiling as they look back, not forward into the new millennium.

Cyberspace and all that other technobabble waiting for us to finally arrive in the next century is on hold at Washington Elementary School.

The kids here are too busy getting ready to harvest their vegetables and fruits for Thanksgiving.

Now, isn't that nice to hear? They're not zombie-ing out at their computers, zipping down the information highway to join the technological revolution.

They're on their hands and knees planting seeds for at least an hour every school day - 700 kids picking vegetables and fruits, tilling the soil, smelling the flowers and learning the difference between a sow bug and a pill bug.

Great kids taking a deep breath for all of us. Reminding us that just because the calendar is about to change centuries, and soon there won't be much we can't do from our living-room easy chairs, it doesn't mean we still can't get our hands dirty.

Joan Baca looked around her school back in 1993 and didn't like what she saw: concrete and asphalt as far as the eye could see.

``We already had too many of our kids living in confined quarters in apartments in the neighborhood with no chance to get their hands around nature,'' said the principal of Washington Elementary School.

``And here they were coming to school, seeing the same thing - concrete and asphalt.'' It had to change, Baca knew.

``We dug up the asphalt on part of our playground, and the teachers, parents, staff and children dug up the old soil and mixed it with new soil,'' Baca said. ``Then we built frame boxes for our planting and rock garden.''

And that's how it all began, this unique environmental garden at Washington Elementary School, where 10 deaf and hard-of-hearing children share every classroom with 20 hearing multiethnic children.

Each class has two teachers - one signing for the deaf, the other speaking to those who can hear.

Everyday, they walk out of their classrooms together and into the environmental garden where teacher's aide Dick Moskun waits to guide them through a maze of wonders that makes anything man has invented - even Bill Gates - look puny by comparison.

No matter what technological changes await these kids in the next century, they'll be no match for what nature has already come up with, Moskun said.

``This garden offers the kids a pause, a way to enjoy the past and not rush into the new century,'' he said.

``They come in here, and you can just see them relax. They withdraw into the garden. It's a safe place for them.

``Nobody forces them to be here. It's all totally on their own initiative. But they always come.''

Come to learn about garden tools and soil preparation. Learn about harvesting and planting, about insects and native plants.

Learn about nature in a science class without walls or computers.

Tara Kleiger, 9, puts down her book and looks over at her friends, Desiree Copsin, 10, and Ashley Schwartz, 10, harvesting corn.

It is recess time at Washington, and these kids and others could be out on the playground. But they're in the garden.

``I like coming here just to read because it's so peaceful,'' said Tara, a fourth-grader. ``I just feel good here, safe - away from the streets and all the noise.''

Maybe it's not politically correct for kids heading into a new, technology-driven century to be saying this, but they enjoy the nature they've been introduced to in this environmental garden much more than the technology they're learning on their computers, the girls said.

``I don't think it's so great that everyone's talking about technology instead of nature,'' Desiree said, summing it up.

Ah, from the mouths of babes.

Yeah, all the technological changes awaiting these kids as they approach the new millennium are just going to have to wait at Washington Elementary School.

Thanksgiving's coming, and they're too busy getting ready to harvest their vegetables and fruits.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1 -- 2) As teacher's aide Dick Moskun and pupil Annie Vardanian watch, above, Herman Popoca waters plants at school. Eight-year-olds Elizabeth Groleco, left, and Shinobu Kajimoto look at a praying mantis they caught in the garden at their school.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer