Sunday morning musings

​ We have family for lunch today and my wife, who was preparing lunch, told me to  cut the grass. So I did and given the metaphorical discussion this week I mused over my grass. I have a lot of it but apart from cutting it I do nothing for it. It grows well because of the environment its in - well drained chalky soils, mild wet weather, sunshine, and all the animal life that lives on it and in it. At the moment its thick and green because of the coincidence of optimum conditions. My contribution is simply to cut it every few weeks. In inhibiting its growth it tends to grow more.

If we were to apply this to education then its about creating the optimum conditions for people to grow and that is more than feeding people with the metaphorical water. But in cutting my grass I am making it comply with my ambition to have a nice neat lawn. By analogy much of education does the same thing through standardised content, delivery and assessment. We need an educational system that encourages people to flourish without the continuous need to comply.

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​I have a rough area of grass which is not lawn it's more like meadow.. I often leave it for several years before I cut and it behaves in a very different way. It supports a very different ecology, lots of different grasses and wild flowers, lots of things that we call weeds including brambles and even small trees when I leave it for several years. The point is, the same environmental conditions, without the constant cutting, creates diversity which ultimately is more resilient and more sustainable. So what does this mean for standardised education?

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