What have lawnmowers got to do with education?

One of the things I used to love about summer-time was cutting the grass. It put me into a state of instant nostalgia; the smell of cut grass taking me back to joyful memory of long summer holidays lazing around in the garden, reading books. As a culture, we’ve somewhat idolised this particular scent of freshly mown grass and captured it as an essence of happiness. Hey, we’ve even bottled it into perfumes, washing powders and soaps to release the joy whenever needed. I even saw grass-cordial being sold in a supermarket once.

Around six or seven years ago, I took up the 'no-mow-May' idea, deliberately not mowing the lawn during the month of May to allow the abundance of pollinators to have space to do their magic.

The garden loved it – and I have never seen things grow so quicky. Within days, the lawn was an incredible yellow carpet, with dandelions, buttercups and daisies abundant and the plants and grasses were so vibrantly green, it was incredible.

I was still clinging on to that cut-grass nostalgia – and perhaps also wanting a bit of ‘order’ back in my garden so got the lawnmower out on 1st June, but felt a sudden sense of sadness. So I waited just a little longer, as I’d loved the abundance of bees and butterflies that had come to visit during that wild-abandon of Maytime. And what I noticed during that time of waiting completely changed my view of gardening and – more profoundly – completely changed my understanding of education. What I learned during those summer months were the principles of regeneration.

When life is given freedom to grow, it flourishes. Just giving the garden a bit of space and time brought such a plethora of vitality into the place, it was mind-opening. I literally saw a complete transformation within weeks: colours brightening, plants unfurling and growing strong; other plants, flowers and insects arriving that had never been there before. Just by enabling and allowing life to grow, I was witnessing its innate capacity to flourish.

A lawnmower’s blade is not discerning. It is swift, fast and final – perfectly designed to cut close to the ground and to create a clean and ordered lawn. Of course, the cutting does allow the grass to grow again but it doesn’t take into account the different speeds of growth, the different heights of what is being cut, the different growing rates of what’s there. It is a one-size fits-all model to bring everything into the same place, regardless of what each species actually needs to grow well.

Disclaimer: It’s now been five years since I’ve used a lawnmower.

I will sometimes pick the grasses where they’re excessively high but will prune different things in different ways, tending to their different needs. But the garden has totally transformed. The soil is so incredibly rich and fertile, mosses abound, dragonflies, butterflies and bees are constantly flitting around and so many exquisite flowers and plants now grow here that were never here before. I have also witnessed how resilient the garden has become during the seasons, now that I simply let it be. Whereas in the past, come August the lawn was always looking very sad, frazzled by heat and parched with thirst. Yet I notice now how the colour retains and the soil health allows everything to be quietly growing - the resilience in the soil is supporting the resilience in all that is planted within.

All you keen gardeners out there will know that the key to a healthy garden lies in the quality of the soil. If you get the soil conditions healthy, everything you plant in it has a strong chance of thriving, as you’ve created the foundational conditions for healthy growth. A school’s culture is much like the soil. Cultivating the conditions for healthy growth in our schools begins with creating a healthy culture - tending to the ‘soil’ to support all those growing within it to enable the vitality and growth of each part of that community and enable each being to flourish.

What has happened during that time has transformed my garden and transformed my work in education - allowing me to fully appreciate one of the most significant ways we can transform education to allow children to thrive. All I did was simply let life be and enabled what is innate inside to flourish.

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