Are you a teacher, parent or student wondering how permaculture can be related to school? Listen in to this episode, where I welcome Rebecca Leek – an educator weaving permaculture into school systems across England.
Permaculture is commonly associated with gardening, but Rebecca shows how it can help our approach to education too.
From producing no waste to valuing the marginal, the principles embedded in permaculture can really help shape our schools into places of genuine connection and emergence.
What if we looked at our education system as permaculture? How can we create composting systems in our social worlds? Tune in to explore.
You can read Rebecca’s article in the Guardian.
To explore more, listen to Episode 12: Education with Satish Kumar.
This podcast is an initiative of the Permaculture Education Institute.
Our way of sharing our love for this planet and for life, is by teaching permaculture teachers who are locally adapting this around the world – finding ways to apply the planet care ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. We host global conversations and learning communities on 6 continents.
We teach permaculture teachers, host permaculture courses, host Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film club and masterclass.
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Hello I’m morira Gamble and welcome to this episode of sens making interner changing World podcast join me each week in conversation with leading permaculture related Educators thinkers activists authors designers and practitioners to explore the kind of thinking and action we need to navigate a positive and regenerative way forward
To melate possibilities and share ideas of what a thriving One Planet way of life could look like my guests offer voice of clarity and common sense in this episode I’m joined by Rebecca Leck an educational leader who has found an Innovative way to apply a permaculture lens to school education and supporting
Educational leaders she has been a special needs teacher head teacher School CEO and school Governor she’s currently the executive director of the suffk primary headteachers Association and her ideas have been published in the guardian she’s an Educational Systems thinker and innovator and her practice as as a permaculturist informs much of
What she does and in particular the principles of valuing diversity and the marginal I really love this chat with Rebecca come on in for listen but let me begin first by acknowledging that I’m recording this episode from my handbuilt solar power Studio here on beautiful Gabby Gabby country I’m surrounded here
By my permaculture design Gardens in a permaculture Eco Village the sense making the changing World podcast is a project of the permaculture Education Institute we teach permaculture design teaching and livelihood skills online to people on six continents who in turn localize and enrich it and find appropriate ways to apply the planet
Care ethics of Earth care people care and fair share wherever they are before we jump in I’d love to invite you to subscribe to sense making a changing World podcast on your favorite app and to share it freely and also leave us a five star review and a lovely comment
Because it honestly really does help the little Bots find this podcast all righty well let’s turn to this great chat with Rebecca link permaculture informs your practice and the conversation that we’re going to open up here today is really about how do you permaculture education rather than what
Is permaculture education or what is the kind of permaculture gardening in schools it’s how do your permaculture the education system so welcome so much to the show Rebecca thank you thanks so much for having me I’d like to begin of asking you that sort of introductory question of how did permaculture Meander
Its way into your life and work I’ve always been a bit of a grower which I I maybe didn’t you don’t notice patterns in your life and then you look back and you you you notice them and my dad always had um an alotment and he would
Grow food and he was a GP so he was a a doctor and he used to help with the L’s allotment next to hers and you know that kind of were little little Edge bit of our little subculture in our in our life was always there and then when I was at
University um I went to Oxford and I don’t know how common it is at universities but um I was quite unusual in first of all I had a boyfriend who had an alotment and I just loved it so much and then I got one in my final year
That’s always been an undercurrent I think I’ve also always sought a kind of a spiritual side to things and I I realized I was a Quaker uh in my 20s late 20s uh you know the the importance of just having a sit and a listen and a
Wait and I think those two things combined have then meant that whenever I came across anything permaculture related it all makes complete sense eventually moved to a a permaculture design Farm almost by chance I just we let the currents take us over here in the east of England and
That’s when I really married together the the professional life I was developing as a teacher with gardening and food production and and business and kind of tying it all together and and it all started making a lot of sense uh and speaking to each other so yeah you know
It’s interesting isn’t it how the simple idea of an allotment can run so deeply in our veins that it manifests things it’s like this fertile ground isn’t it it’s not just about a little plot to vegetables it’s a plot to grow awareness to grow Community before we dive into education how is the
Allotment movement in the UK these days have you got much connection with it is it they more growing or is you know how’s it happening uh I see lots of allotments um and there are them around and you see uh people desperate to get one and so there must be some demand my
Brother has one he lives in Maidstone um in Kent which is quite a builtup town and he he really cherish is here is what’s I think really hard is people that want to go a little bit larger scale and what’s really difficult is getting yourself an acre that’s really
Tough so but there does seem to be quite good protection they’re they’re definitely Alive and Kicking allotments from from my experience yeah that’s fantastic it’s it’s rapidly growing here in Australia I know that um we’ve been deeply inspired when I first started the city Farm in Brisbane we were it was the
First one in Australia well that part of queens and there was a couple of other in Australia but we were definitely looking to actually what was going on in the UK because there was already a flourishing Urban agriculture movement there before it came to Australia so
Yeah I I think they’re very little tiny micro pockets of urban agriculture here I live in a little flat we have a big bit of land but we also have a little flat and my flat had has astro turf on its that’s green all year round isn’t it yeah
It’s I’ve now got a worm B out there which is causing great conation I think with my uh neighbors and because I rent it I’m not really supposed to remove the Astro so I’m going to gradually have to kind of destroy it in some form but there are let’s head across into the
World of Education could you just describe a little bit about where you are in the world of Education because you’ve been a teacher a head teacher where are you now where where’s your place of of working in the education system I haven’t had a particularly conventional uh pathway I’ve always done
A few things that the same time and so did kind of Community Arts projects with music alongside developing as a classroom teacher so I’ve taught by virtue of being a woman dipping in and out of maternity uh and having to um duck and dive a bit um you know Latin
And English and secondary schools and psychology and then you know primary school classroom teacher art and music and that kind of thing as well as standard everything um and then I was handed the Seno role which is what we have in this country which is special educational needs coordinator it was was
Just so wonderful to be responsible for the most uh remarkable humans in the classrooms it kind of opened up my eyes really to diversity the strength of difference how much attention we need to pay to those unusual humans that are telling us so much that many of us don’t
Even notice they’re the ones that notice all things um and also you end up having to be a system thinker because you’re within a school that’s having to run everyday lessons for the middle group of children and you’re suddenly having to be kind of innovative and go how can I
Make all these classrooms work just for this one or that one or this one or that one and if you land it all on individual teachers place they can’t they can’t deal with it so you have to start developing systems and kind of um think about how you can work rise matically
Maybe kind of sideways and and and you know into different classrooms and you find your allies and you find the teachers that can do it and you know all those kinds of things and it gave me that kind of insight into systems thinking I think as well as the The
Riches of humanity and so it just it really spoke to me so I ended up being a Seno in a primary school and then I was a Seno in a secondary school and then end up being a a system leader for send over a kind of cluster of schools which
Is how charitable trusts work in this country with schools they called multi-academy trusts and seeing that perspective across different schools as well was such a great um perspective and then I ended up doing a similar role in suffet when we moved and and ended up
Being a head teacher for a few years um which was the most glorious thing now I’m about to be the executive director of the suffk primary head Teachers Association an enriching organization that’s there to support head teachers who have such a difficult but brilliant job so how many schools in that region
That you’re I think it’s between two and 300 primary schools so I’m not in any way responsible for their performance it’s say it’s a professional association which cuts across um we’ve got quite a disjointed education sector in this country where we’ve got schools that are still under the control of the local
Authority I could go on forever all the schools that have become part of independent trusts and and it’s kind of a bit messy and fractured um but what’s so lovely about this Association is is it’s it’s for all the head teachers of primary schools yeah that’s amazing so
You have the possibility then to be offering programs and thinking and support across this whole region and to like you’re saying my or do this connective threads between between them in different because you kind of like got this bird’s eye view of what’s Happening yeah yeah and and I was kind
Of asked in my well it wasn’t really an interview because it’s a it’s a freelance job actually so you know I was asked when we were talking about the role with the committee um you know what do you think you’ll do I said well I’ll have to do lots of listening won’t
Sometimes do lots of observing and listening and finding out because uh everything changes so quickly as well and we’ve come out of covid and what the organization did before is not necessarily what the organization now needs to be doing but what is really needed is support for head teachers it’s
A really this in this country you know there’s it’s very very hard um leading a school there’s the the stakes of getting something wrong are so high that it makes we’re very we get very stressed in the education sector when some statutory policy has changed and and no wonder
Everyone gets very stressed about it and then almost over over complicates it because because if you get it wrong in an inspection then it’s it’s really high stake so yeah so yeah helping with all that given all of that and what you know with permaculture how are you conceptualizing this idea of permac
Culturing Education how do you permaculture and education system and how does permaculture thinking support you in this R so one very topical example at the moment I wrote an article about being edgy if you like with with the way that you look at your behavior systems within your school that you’re
Ahead of I mean I have to be careful because I don’t like I don’t like to criticize head teachers and approaches because there are often reasons why things are there and and we will all know as per culturist you don’t change everything all at once so if there’s
Something that’s there that is maybe a bit old school or not necessarily perfect it’s probably it may be because they well they’re doing something else first and then they’ll get onto that so you get Behavior systems in schools don’t you which are the you know good to
Be green Behavior system so if the child is good they put their name on the green bit and if they get something wrong they go on the Amber bit and if they’re really bad they go in the red and if you know about trauma in formed practice and
If you know about ADHD and the way that um that that kind of um public even if it’s quietly done is got is so it has such sharp talons as what I say for some particular children and they’re often the children that need the Behavior Support rather than the 85% who don’t
Need any of this system at all and so it you know it was an article that was saying well if you’re if your system is actually only serving the middle group that don’t need the system well then it’s a useless system whereas if you think about your behavior systems go
Well who’s it for well then let’s start with designing it around those children and you’ll probably find that all those silly putting Bits of Paper In Pockets on the side of classroom is just a complete waste and and concentrate on getting it right for the for the outliers for for
Want of a better word and it all sounds incredibly obvious when you say it but it is using that well it’s valuing the marginal it’s saying it’s it’s saying you know they’re the ones that are telling me what I need to think about I’m going to start with them build my
System around them and do you know what beautiful beautiful uh restorative practice or low arousal kind of environment where it’s much calmer and it’s more systematic so children who are autistic and you know they they will find School much easier if it’s got low sensory lower from a sensory perspective
Less shouting much Karma more routine a bit of space physical space less words in their face and suddenly everything calms down and and thanks to them if we if we actually listen to them um so so that’s one example I think of how it can work really well that’s good for
Everyone then you know yeah and then and then yeah and then and then one benefits which is often what happens is good send practice if you if you start thinking about that you know dyslexia friendly ways of teaching not having so much text on the screen not asking people to look
Up and down from a slide up to a pad back down again you know if you start doing all the things that that these wonderful humans that have got you know these quirks so to speak if that are telling us well we end up doing a much
Better job if we would only listen to them and and appreciate what they what they’re showing us actually yeah and so what kind of response are you getting by describing these ideas in in the public realm this one in particular has really caught on lots of people have replied
And gone this actually one one person said gosh this this is so good record this can be applied in so many ways so many settings I was like yes funny that um um and and all the kind of neurodiverse advocacy Charities and things like that would would read it and
And say oh this is exactly what we need um and and you just have to trust that that it that these little waves that you make end up getting through and often you don’t know what you’ve what impact you’ve had and and occasionally somebody will come to you won’t they a couple of
Years and they go gosh I’ve got to tell you that when you said that that meant that I did that and you just have to trust but but a lot of but they generally do seem to be going down quite well so and I I I think it is a
Different way of seeing that maybe people haven’t thought thought about in education in the education sector I I I I think it might be a little bit of a I think it is a little bit of a different way of thinking about things that that has made people uh sit up and listen
There’s a lot in this country as well about coaching and mentoring that kind of more Humane side of management and Leadership and and and I think that that you know that’s that’s that that all sits together with with it all as well so I think we as school leaders are really interested in
Seen that happen in their school and they suddenly go God it’s a village that’s working I that makes sense to lots of people as well when we talk about that and there is that already I think um in in in the more Forward Thinking corners of Education I think
Definitely yeah taking these ideas and these perspectives and understanding schools and teachers what I know from here in Australia already feel the pressure of so many different things to conform to they’ve got all their you know their kpis they’ve got all their t Target where’s the edge between this a
New approach of of thinking and the kind of structure where does the change happen where where do you start to open up the possibility for new possibilities as a leader in this space I mean I’ve seen it happen as a head teacher because you get you get time you
Know you have to go through a couple of years of cycle and so when I stepped in at a school about a year later I gave a talk actually on by nurturing them not breaking them because there has been a bit you know you step into a school and
You think oh this has got to be all redone and I’m right that’s it I’m gonna try and get rid of this member of staff and that member of staff and it all goes bit ridiculous and Maverick rather going well let’s give it let’s give it six
Months and and observe and and and build relationships and I called it the green manure phase actually you you do a few little things uh because I think that’s what’s so lovely about green manure isn’t it is that you actually see some life uh even though it might not give
You your dinner it’s incredibly hardening in that you you know you get given some land that is not going to do much and it looks a bit miserable um and so you just give it something and you go oh look it’s alive it is alive um and so
You just do a few little bits and Bobs and you see these little green sheets you go right I’ve got this now once you spent that time and really what what that really means is is building those relation building lots of relationships with star and families and listening to the
Children and helping rolling your sleeves up finding the music player for the Halloween party you know and then seeing you’re there and you’re really interested in that Community growing and that everyone has a place around your table so to speak um as a head teacher and then once you’ve got that well then
You then then you you have a platform and then you you start talking and then you don’t do everything at once you know you do some things um and you change some things and I think one of a really powerful thing for people to see is is
Systems that work so for example if there were um meetings that happen um and this is a no waste thing because there are so there are so many meetings that are such a waste of time and so you know you you have your well to have a Tuesday meeting and a Thursday meeting
And this one is an hour and a half and that one’s two hours and everyone sits around and and you know there it’s a booklook meeting and so all these piles of books come in and we all look at the children’s books and kind of decide
Something or other and write it down on a piece of paper and just going hold on a minute why are we doing this you know there may be a tiny reason why you’re doing it you go like well should we just make sure we’re doing that bit then we
Just get rid of everything else and so I might not be I don’t NE I’m not saying all this is a permaculture thing so may maybe I should a bit more just putting into practice those you know those those principles that say well where’s the waste here in this system and and how
Can I get rid of rid of the waste and really get back to what’s really needed so that we’re trying to make a healthy thing happen um and and and I don’t want to say there’s a lot of waste in schools because the government say that a bit
From a from a and it gives them a reason to not Finance us properly so I’m not saying there’s those of waste so to speak but I think it’s more about that kind of stacking function and we can get more out of things that we do there
Certainly isn’t lots of money but but there’s a lot kind of Baff and and extra layers and you were talking about your teachers and kpis and kicking ticking them all off etc etc and sometimes just going do we have to do this or do we not have to do
This and that that can be really transformative I’m connecting what you’re saying now with what you’re saying before about time because if you’re doing that now way strategy and stacking functions and then it opens up that space that that’s where the new possibilities can emerge from from where
That new lifing can happen where those pioneer species can start to find root because there’s enough space and light for them to actually grow it’s that’s that’s exactly it so so uh I’m I’m I’m a bit I will always whenever I start anywhere or advise anyone is how do you
Cluster your emails so one example is it goes there’s an email on a Thursday and if it can wait till the Thursday email it’s going on the Thursday email and as you say as the workloads starts becoming more sensible and purposeful then you start seeing teachers that go Ash I can
Run a drama club and oh Rebecca I was wondering if whereas before there’s overwhelm yeah and then suddenly they go oh no well I don’t need to worry about that because I’ve done the Google form and it’s just happened so now I can actually get on with the fun it is that
Definitely and I heard you say before that you were originally trained in in music and did Community Arts the thing you just mentioned Arts my mind went there and I i’ would love to hear about how Community Arts and education and permaculture could all combine yeah I don’t know is the answer
To that because it’s quite long a long time ago for me so I I went to music school and did you know I went on a bit of a route of I’m a capable musician at the age of 13 and did my grade eight and
All that kind of thing and you end up being swept into that uh because you get into an orchestra and they say oh you’re a fluke player and you just kind of do what you’re told from a temperament perspective I don’t think it was particularly the right thing for me but
Um but when I left the Guild Hall I did a Masters At The Guild in kind of Community Music really which involved a bit of composition a bit of performance and collaborating with you know the the drama students and doing some on stage music with drama production that kind of
Cross Arts thing and so then when I was living in a place called leworth which which is a quite an interesting Town it was a Garden City I kind of ended up with a community interest company that had an art gallery um and we would have an artist residency every month and they
Would get a wool that they would have to kind of do something cool with as well as having an exhibition of their work but it was also a cafe so that we could pay the rent and then in the evenings it would have things like folky shmokey was
One of the evenings where people would come in like jam and play folk music and it was used as a little bit of a venue sometimes it was a bit of a um interstitial point if you like of crossover of creatives we had creatives breakfast that was good fun people would
Come who were maybe setting up a new business or in the Arts and you know a writer or a choreographer or something like that and and we have a breakfast and some of those conversations you know you don’t know where they went what you knew that there were some fireworks
Really somewhere little little fizzers that would go off and then some things would grow out of it and using the outdoor space I really learned about that because we had a tiny Gallery we did move to a bigger space we had a really tiny one but we were on this
Little um pedestrianized street with cherry trees outside and the C the kind of what we had to do creatively to have kind of little art festivals we did one with um there’s a book called rabbitin by Joe empson which is a beautiful book about about losing somebody actually in
Grief um and there’s the artwork in it these like digy do actually and painted trees and it’s all very splashy paint and music and everything and we we wrapped the trees in paper and the children over the day painted the the trees so so yeah I kind of did all that
Too so that kind of creative cross cross fertilization of of of people that want to create something beautiful just for the sake of it it was very enriching yeah and so a key part of a permaculture approach is too about this making connections and building relationships between things rather than having like
An element and an element and so if you’re thinking about oh there’s a school here and a school here and a theater there and this it’s like how do they you know Garden how do they come together so I wonder you know you’ve talked a lot about relationship building
And you know being in the role that you are now like how might that approach of creating a container for that meeting to happen how do you envisage being able to bring people together to imagine the possibilities that they have rather than you imagine the possibilities but you
Know we know that it’s not until they also Imagine the possibilities that it’s going to go out so tangibly how do you think because I’m imagining for teachers listening to this they’re going yes but how do we do it what do we do what are we doing Rebecca I do have some ideas
But I’m haven’t quite started the job yet so you know but uh one of one of the things that’s fantastic about suffk and I will say this because I’m a trustee but that it is a brilliant organization it’s the suffk libraries and suff liaries is not run by
The local Authority like a lot of our library models so what happened 10 years ago is that there was a bit of a question over the future of the libraries and a group of very pioneering people said Well what we’ll do is we’ll set up a charitable company and we will
Commission the local authorities and we will take your money that is maybe not enough but we’ll do our best with it and run the library service and that was 10 years ago and it’s been incredibly successful and I’m very privileged to be a trustee and so you know one potential
Is that um there are 40 odd libraries across suffk there are 250 primary schools I’ve made both those numbers up slightly but they’re roughly speaking um and to create Partnerships between um genuine Partnerships so there’s kind of you know links and maybees and everything but but genuinely make connections between these libraries
That are that they’re such an amazing resource and they’re very intergenerational as well libraries already some Arts you know lovely Arts projects and they’re starting to use their outdoor spaces as well in the Li lies um and one of them permaculture designed actually in in Stow market so
If you’re near Stow Market in suff it’s definitely worth a visit with and that was a big collaborative project with artists as well and then that really feeds into a healthy Community the the libraries genuinely support healthy community in their towns and their little hubs that they put up and so to
If the primary schools or if a or a couple of primary schools were kind of twinned or genuinely there was a partnership in arts or outdoor growing partnership which then became intergeneration uh as well I think something like that would be so exciting and and the other
Thing is it you know all schools are different and they have different things in their locality so the school where I was head teacher over the road uh so lucky there was a bows club and there’s the most incredibly beautiful Town Park called holy Wells park with the mature
Trees and water and everything absolutely amazing I think one of the projects might real genuine Community connection between what’s so alive right there on the edge of the school um and just helping facilitate you know I I I’m certainly not going to be in a position
To tell teach head teachers what to do or what to do with their school but to highlight and entangle is the word that keeps coming back to me at the moment is kind of facilitate some entanglement um on the on their edges you know who are their neighbors and and
What’s right there and I think there’s huge potential uh and and and often often we find people uh go oh I know let’s make a community Hub uh and there’s already one so there’s the library already so it’s having that local knowledge and really being on top of that and making sure I’m
Connected and know what’s going on to then go do you know what you just need to connect with them and then and then off we go I would hope anyway I’m in a hopeful phase of that one yeah that’s so wonderful and I think exactly what you’re saying too is it it being
Extremely localized that by being observant and and connecting with what’s in place that there’s not a one size fits all I guess is what I’m trying to say that it is about being deeply connected and observing about what’s going on around you and and I love how
You describe that with that what’s alive what where is that aliveness in and around where you are and how do you how do you nurture and feed and compost that entanglement in in a way that it it does keep growing new sprouts and and keep composting itself you know becoming a
Composting system yeah and and once the community is engaged with the school and that there’s faith when the faith is there from the parents then then then that’s when Health really the school becomes really healthy and it then becomes self-generating so the school that I was at the head that I was the
Head of um I really wanted um somebody to be trained in Forest schools and because of well for lots of reasons not just me you know there were other individuals and people that came to me but you know because of the relationships of the openness to professional development that had
Developed as a culture you know they came to me they said oh i’ I’d really like to train as a for school teacher and it’s like there’s an opportunity and now the one of the governors who was also happened to have been training as a for school teacher make that connection
Boom boom boom and so the the the site has really developed since I’ve been there actually they’ve really run with it and now there’s a preschool group that that runs a forest school preschool group on a Thursday or something you know at 2 o’clock which that’s that’s
The health of a school Community going oh there’s a gap there oh I can just fill that and then somebody and then somebody and it just starts it’s the unleashing of the life of a of a kind of a re a real live community that That’s
So exciting yeah so it sounds you know there are some core principles and practices that can support the work that you’re doing and I wonder will you be doing sort of like professional development ecoliteracy thinking permaculture thinking systems thinking with the teachers or is it just just
Kind of like dropping Little Seeds here and there well if they’ll have me and if they’ll listen then yes I would love to I’ve got I’ve got a little book on the boil possibly called something like perac culture un muddied which is about using almost disapplied per you know
Kind of going back to the real principles of perum culture and and seeing how it can inform organizational leadership and and that and Community Development probably for head teachers so maybe someone will read that maybe I’ll write it maybe some read it but yes I mean I already speak at some
Conferences and it’ll it always crops up governance because we’ve got whole governance around schools and when do you check and when do you leave it and that kind of thing is another really interesting one so yes I’m in a I’m in a bit of a limbo State because I don’t
Quite know what I’ll be able to do but uh if anyone ever wants me then I I’ll always uh do it and I am increasingly being asked to talk to you know groups of head teachers and and that kind of thing about about how to harness the
Power actually what they’ve got in their school and and what you can do with it once you get that interwoven strength that starts kind of looking after itself is can be very exciting I think one of the things is if you if you I would say
To anyone listening to this that I think is really important it will depend on where you live in on the planet but but certainly here we’re very seasonal just in my communications with my parents and my teachers and things I I’m always talking about the seasons uh with the children you know
It’s the solstice what’s the Equinox look what’s growing look how the trees have changed and I just think that’s the smallest thing you can do that that can have a massive impact that people actually start noticing because people don’t notice trees people just don’t notice they don’t they don’t notice just you know
There’s a tree outside your school look is there um and so I I think that’s a really powerful tiny thing so if anyone wants to do anything more please can you and your Weekly Newsletter or whatever just go oh I really enjoyed seeing the Cherry Tree Blossom this year in the
Garden you know because if you don’t point it out to people they they’re just so we’re so detached from from nature and a lot of us live in quite Urban situations where we don’t see very many plants and and the you know the Shadows growing longer and and all those kinds
Of things I think it’s a really easy thing to integrate into your Communications your assemblies your meetings and and then suddenly people might just start noticing the real world that’s there rather than the concrete I’m glad you said that because I was just about to ask you that if you’re if
You’re a teacher Within These school systems and you’re bursting with energy to do something like how would you find your way to speak out to your school Community or if you’re a head teacher and you’re wanting to start to apply this I mean just what you said then is
That perfect place to start in the noticing and in the communication of that noticing and in also bringing back that concept of time and you know planting seed by seed not trying to like you said do sweeping changes and say I’ve got a much better idea than how
This system is working you know that’s just going to bring up the wall straight away isn’t it it’s about planting seeds in the in the different cracks and finding the spaces and calming down the system so that you can actually allow a new system to grow out of that and
You’ve answered all of that along the way um and I just thought I wonder if there’s any sort of final kind of thoughts that you can offer to teachers or to head teachers about how to move forward with this if they don’t have a Rebecca at their side to help push them
Along well in a school on the noticing is you must walk around it all the time and you must I’m sorry I don’t like telling people what they must do I always don’t like doing that but anyway but in terms of a strong recommendation is um walk around the school all the time
And talk to the people that you instinctively don’t want to have a conversation with so if in the playground you you just naturally go oh there’s a parent that I could have a nice chat with obviously say hello to them but check yourself and talk to somebody else because otherwise you’re
Going to miss out um and the same with the children I noticed um we did a project around girls and boys and stereotyping and gendering and and all around that and we all had to you know I did it too with the staff and one of and
The we all had to make a it’s kind of action research in education but you know make a commitment to make a change that that looks like it’s kind of evidence informed from some of the literature or some research that’s happened um and my one was to talk to
The boys more so walking around the playground as the head teacher often the girls would come up and go oh Miss Lee can show me their Acorn or something and the boys would be playing football and I you know and that is a scenario that that often happen so I didn’t talk to
The boys as much and so I had to my little thing was to well I must I must make sure I have conversations with boys and it was incredibly valuable and I learned more about the school because I didn’t just talk to the girls um so walking around making a really conscious
Effort to talk to the whole Community listening to all and if I may just add in as well from a distance so stand at the the school gate and step away and look at the patterns of people coming in and coming out I really love standing up in
The first floor I haven’t have a school on two stories not all schools are on two stories and watching the playground from the second level and then you really start noticing what’s going on yeah so looking and and engaging with everyone I mean and and I what I would
Say to teachers as well or people who are leaders or early leaders or for want of a best expression you know early career is is trust me everyone has a has a value you might not know what it is but everyone on your team will be incredibly important and you just
Sometimes don’t know it yet so make sure you look up you connect with everyone there was an LSA um at at one of my schools and she maybe wasn’t the most she wasn’t that great at spelling um and she wasn’t that great at forming articulate sentences let’s say um and so
People weren’t necessarily supportive of her being an LSA what they didn’t know is that she was the LSA that would often reply to my whole staff emails and would often say thank you so much for your email it’s really made a difference to my day or I really I really understood
What you said there thank you and so what they don’t know is as a head teacher I needed her I really needed her and yes she did need to make sure that she spelled things correctly if she was helping some children spell and that’s that’s that’s
That’s something that we can work on but I needed her because she gave gave me a bit of feedback that I needed and there so there’s a reason for everyone yeah the qualities and the value of everyone yeah and building the relationship well I certainly hope that
You write this book this book that’s on the boil un muddied absolutely necessary because you know not only for for schools and head teachers but this approach of taking the way of thinking of the permaculture way of thinking and applying it as a lens to where whatever
Context that you’re in and so being able to conceptually in a way decouple it from the gardening to seeing it as this systems view of life I think is really absolutely critical so please do it okay well thank you so much for joining me today Rebecca I wish you all the best
In in your new role Rippling out that and planting lots of seeds melting these ideas and connecting people in ways that they never knew possible before I’m very excited it’s January so this is a kind of bubbling phase so we shall see thank you for tuning in to this episode of
Sense making in a changing World a podcast of the permac co Education Institute check out the show notes below to find the link to Rebecca leag and also check out the notes for where to find details of all of our permaculture courses our YouTube blog free master
Classes and film class and make sure you signed up to hear news and updates and come and join us here at the permaco Education Institute to learn practical skills for Designing and teaching permaculture and making a good livelihood while living a permaculture inspired One Planet way of life take
Care I look forward to your company again next Time
1 Comment
Daoism and Permaculture topic idea