Planting trees to fund a new form of education
by John Baker
Introduction
West Cork Sudbury School (WCSS) is not a mainstream organisation.
We do not follow conventional business models and our underlying ethics and motivating principles are unusual in the modern world.
Profit and competition are not our primary motivators.
We subscribe instead to principles that include co-operation and the common good.
You might be surprised by how difficult this makes things for us...or...if you have ever attempted something similar, you will not be at all surprised!
Since our inception we have had to dig deep to come up with ways to keep ourselves financed and resourced while staying true to these principles.
One innovative project is the Plant a Tree - Grow a School project.
This is the brain child of Peter Little, school parent and husband of one of WCSS's founding members Jessica Mason, and Mattie Keane of Future Forests, parent of two former students.
This project asks members of the public to sponsor a native Irish tree while at the same time directly supporting self-directed, democratic education at WCSS. The school community, parents, students and staff work together to plant the trees on land donated to the purpose.
As of today WCSS looks after 3 planting sites with more planned for this season. Become a part of the legacy and donate a tree here!
Why plant a tree?
As someone with a professional and personal interest in tree planting and ecological regeneration I find this extremely interesting.
Trees, obviously, live a lot longer than we do and the act of planting and establishing a woodland stretches out one’s sense of time in a culture that is increasingly driven by speed and the hunger for quick results at all costs.
There are many reasons to plant trees:
For timber for building
For fuel
For fibre
For biodiversity
For shelter and forage
For flood prevention, protecting water ways and holding water in the landscape
For oxygen and clean air
For climate stabilisation
For beauty and a sense of meaning
For the joy of it
When thinking about planting for Nature and regeneration we are driven to think in spans beyond a single human life.
What would our culture look like if we truly took this to heart?
What if our political, economic and education systems had to think long term as opposed to only as far as the next election or next round of funding?
What if we based our economy and sense of value on the health of our communities and ecosystems instead of what we can extract from them?
What would a community look like that recognised the importance of holding certain things in common not private hands?
Soil, water, air, seeds, biodiversity - surely these are all too important resources to be held and managed by the few. But do we currently possess the cultural skills and understandings for them to be adequately looked after by the many?
Ripple Effects
At WCSS we like to think we are holding a space for those questions and relevant skills and understandings to emerge.
Now that we have filled our first planting sites we will be returning to them to watch and help them grow. Over time students will have the chance to learn skills such as tree identification and tree specific needs, growing habits and potential yields of different species. As woodlands grow they require thinning, so students will learn to make important decisions around which to take and which to leave. We will be able to learn about related species found in natural woodlands and how to go beyond merely planting trees to re-establishing resilient plant communities and healthy ecosystems.
By pioneering this project we provide a space to practice these skills in the world and embed our students in an ethos of care for Nature.
We hope that these trees will grow along with our students and wider community and that they will provide many opportunities for learning and listening in a time of sometimes terrifying change.
What's next?
We have plans to start our own tree nursery where we will identify local reservoirs of biodiversity from which we will harvest seeds and maybe, in time, be able to supply our garden centres and farmers with trees of local provenance thus avoiding the problems of imported disease we are currently seeing.
This is not the only problem this approach can address:
We hear talk of a loss of meaning and hope among young people today.
This is understandable. Mainstream narratives are filled with disaster and fear.
Comments