Lilah Abrams

I was born in San Francisco, California, but spent most of my childhood up in Oregon (in both Eugene and Portland), so feel the most comfortable when around a sea of evergreen trees. I moved down to Los Angeles for my undergraduate degree at Occidental before heading east to Nashville in 2021! I’ve been here ever since, with the exception of an extended season farming up in Washington state in 2023. 

My name is semi-ancestral — derived largely from that of my great-grandmother, Lillian — but also chosen for its translation in Hebrew, meaning night. I like to think my mother chose it while looking up at the stars! 

I’ve been teaching tangentially throughout my life (working in the writing center and health education-focused community organizations in college), but formally entered the sphere of education through garden-focused work with Plant the Seed in 2022. There, I remembered how expansive the world is made to feel when learning in community and recognized the bounds of ability to effectively instruct — encouraging me to pursue my Masters of Elementary Education at Vanderbilt this past year. 

I am teaching 1st grade.

The farmers who can grow large things from small seeds and I use this metaphor for life’s lessons.

My perception of myself and the world has changed so dramatically and often in the past few years as I listen to and learn from those I meet, but I think much of it has come from practicing how to observe and question! 

I love to be outside — whether tending to my small patch of vegetables in my backyard, climbing, running in Shelby Bottoms, or chatting with those I love on my front porch. 

I am learning the language of the seasons, degrees of ripeness and temperature.

Fresh vegetables! I feel pretty excited about the innumerable ways people grow, cook, and share food…but I do get especially excited when summer tomatoes start to ripen. 

My favorite color seems to change with the season, and as I write this the flowers in my yard are making a strong case for the color yellow.

As I continue meeting more and more brilliant musicians in town, I’ve developed a not-yet pursued desire to learn the piano…

I feel enlivened by the act of learning with and from students and dedicated to the role education can play in developing our sense of curiosity and connectivity to the world around us!