Category Archives: Equality, Diversity And Inclusion
The Politics Of Aspiration For All
Tony Blair has been unwavering in his determination to tackle low horizons head on. This challenge lies at the bottom of all his thinking on schools and how to improve them. But maybe the voluntary, faith and business groups the Prime Minister so wants to see become involved in schools should ask themselves first what they could do to raise ambition and opportunities for the wider families of the children who most need support.
Education, education, education…. and never conceding the politics of aspiration for all. The two things are, as Prime Minister Tony Blair rightly says in his Guardian article (18 November ’05), intimately connected. For almost all of us, and never more so than for those around the centre-left, this truth is both self-evident and compelling.
Perhaps however the Prime Minister’s idea that ‘there is a huge untapped energy in the private, voluntary and charity sectors for partnerships to help state schools’ is only part of the truth.
From where I look – in Merseyside, as someone who has seen quite a bit as a teacher, social worker, researcher, evaluator, entrepreneur and so on – I’m not sure this hits all the nails on the head. It may hit some; but not all.
The options for partnership action are wider
I’m still unconvinced that Tony Bair’s wished-for partnerships are most urgently needed in schools as such. For me, working on the ground, the politics of ambition has to be much broader than ‘just’ schools – though this is a part of the equation.
Ambition simply inside the school gates is not going to take many children very far. I accept that the Prime Minister’s idea of education-other sector partnerships is (at least for now) a matter of choice; but many of the least blessed parents who, like everyone else, want the best for their children, are less concerned with well-meaning voluntary and faith groups or businesses getting involved with their kids, than they are with getting themselves into work.
For lots of people on Merseyside the main objective is just to get a job – and preferably a decent one. If voluntary and business interests, for instance, want to support disenfranchised people, perhaps they could begin by finding ways to employ them.
There are plenty of currently almost-trained adults on Merseyside whose future trade registration depends on work experience which is very hard to find. (Small businesses say they can’t afford to provide this for apprentices; and most of Merseyside’s economy is small businesses….) So how about starting with opportunities for less privileged parents and carers to show their children what ‘real work’ is, by being able to actually do it, for pay?
Ambition is a cultural thing
I don’t doubt for a minute that Tony Blair genuinely wants to see progress and improvements for our children and their futures. He’s absolutely right to throw down the gauntlet to us all. If we, voluntary, faith, business and other communities, want the best for children, we do indeed need to think hard about where we can best support and encourage.
And we need, too, consistently to challenge complacency, incompetence and / or narrow comfort zones, whether in local communities, schools, hospitals, industry, churches or indeed politics itself. If there are employment, educational, medical or other practitioners who don’t cut the mustard, they need to understand just why this is not acceptable – though not at the (perceived) expense of people ‘at the coalface’ who are in fact doing a good job.
I still wonder however whether we have the right ‘mix’ in all this, as yet. Tony Blair has identified and articulated an important, probably fundamental, problem, in that he sees (and always has seen) education and ambition as key elements of a successful future for everyone. But I’d like to think that all those sectors apparently so keen to go into partnership to support children can grasp the aspirational challenge outside the school gates, as well as inside.
Where Are All The Physicists?
A new report says Physics is at risk of dying out in schools. However can this be, when Physics is one of the most intrguing and exciting stories on the block?
I have a real Thing about how invisible Science and Technology are. It’s everywhere around us; yet most people seem simply not to see it.
Hw do we transact our communications? How do we take ourselves from A to B? How do we keep our food fresh and our homes warm… You get the picture.
But there’s no Big Take on science. We imagine those who actually do it are ‘Boffins’ (whatever that may mean). And anyway it’s all too hard with too many sums, so who cares?
The Missing Physicists
In the light of this general view (correct me if it’s wrong), I’m hardly surprised to read today that there is a severe deficit of Physicists. Again, So what?, you may ask.
Well, it’s like this: Physicists and those in closely related disciplines are the people who lead much of the high-spend and high-impact knowledge economy. They take our understanding of the world and how it is made to places people in previous generations never even dreamt of; and with their engineering colleagues they also lead much of our industrial innovation.
Plus, they are the people who teach the next generation about the nature of what at the most fundamental levels makes the world go round. Taught properly, this is one of the most exciting things anyone can ever learn…. I studied A-level Physics many years ago, and although I shall never make a Physicist, it hooked me. You see things in a very different, and quite amazing, light when you begin to learn what sub-atomic particles are all (or even a bit) about!
Why aren’t there enough Physics teachers?
I’d guess there are a number of answers to the question of where all the Physics teachers have gone.
Firstly, good Physicists get snapped up in industry and finance, for large amounts of money. Not many others can manipulate and analyse figures like they can. Teachers’ salaries are no match for what the city and the biggest industrial companies can offer.
Then there’s the prospect of teaching itself. Teaching is difficult, it can be draining, a lot of children are – and always have been – resistant to the sort of complex studies required by well defined disciplines (in any academic field).
And finally, in my books, there’s the question of ‘relevance’. Because we hardly ‘see’ Science and Technology, we don’t understand why it’s relevant.. and you try teaching youngsters things which they believe have no relevance…
The excitement of Physics
But it’s not even just that there are now fewer Physics teachers than before. A news story this week also tells us that the number of Physics teachers who are actually well qualified has dropped dramatically.
Would it be reasonable to suggest that some of this is because Science, and especially the hard physical sciences, are so invisible that we don’t value it? If we did, of course, people would want to teach Physics, and even more importantly students would want to study it.
There’s a big challenge here for the scientists themselves: Tell people, loudly and clearly, why Physics excites you! Show them why it’s ‘relevant’… and even maybe tell them that the best Physicists earn lots of money….
In other words, please try to understand that even the most challenging and abstract ideas in disciplines such as Physics can become interesting, when people know these ideas exist and perceive them as integral to our society and how it is moving forward, in so many ways.
There’s a massive PR job to be done here. Investigating the very nature of matter is about as exciting as it gets. We all need to share in the excitement; but that can only happen when someone takes action to ensure we know about it.
Friends Of Sefton Park
The Friends of Sefton Park (in Liverpool) have been making excellent progress in taking forward their work for the city….
The initative to promote Sefton Park seems to be going on apace.
The Friends of Sefton Park now have a new e-group which people associated with the Friends can join; and the plans for the future of the Park are developing and being debated quite rapidly. (Anyone who wants to join the Friends of Sefton Park Group could contact me directly via ‘Email Hilary’ on my home page, and I will send the expression of interest on to the Group.)
One thing which I find fascinating is how many of us with serious involvement in the environment are also e-contactable and so forth. Obviously, e-technology is a low-energy activity, once it’s all set up – and we don’t have to use petrol and paper to be in touch!
See also: Sefton Park’s Grebes And Swans
Liverpool’s Sefton Park, Swans, Herons And Grebes
Sefton Park, Liverpool: Winter Solstice 2006
Cherry Blossom For May Day In Sefton Park, Liverpool
What Now For Liverpool’s Sefton Park?
Cherry Picking Liverpool’s Sefton Park Agenda
Liverpool’s Sefton Park Trees Under Threat – Unnecessarily?
Solar Lighting Could Solve The Parks Problem
The Eco-Community is All of Us
Building sustainability into community life will take a real shift in how we do things; but, just like weight-loss diets, it will only work for most of us if it’s something we find enjoyable and actually want to do.
It’s been very interesting to see how everyone has responded (on- and off-line) to recent postings here on Eco issues.
I started with a piece on ‘allotments for all’, wandered through some thoughts on Tesco and the other superstores, and have so far ended up with ideas around building communities in which sustainable living becomes part of the common, shared experience. (All these postings are listed below, if you want to have another look.)
The theme which is emerging for me is that we (literally) can’t afford to make sustainability into a ‘do it because it’s good for you’ exercise. It’s too important for that. And evidence elsewhere (e.g. with weight-loss diets) shows that people simply won’t carry on doing what they should unless they really believe it’s for the best and, critically, it fits into their pattern/s of living.
So, we can get a little way with house-to-house collections (Liverpool does these too; and it still has almost the lowest recycling turnover of any place around), and we can indeed troop up to Tesco or wherever with our recycle bags, when we go shopping (one lot of petrol, two missions). But some people don’t have cars, though they may have babies, or no job, or boring, isolated days…..
Fitting the practice to the people
This is why the ‘little but often’ approach might work for certain folk. It’s nice to have places to go, especially if in a good cause (i.e. recycling and community-building, in this case); and it’s nice to have things to grow, as people would if they had back-yard allotments – which is of course also where the green waste would be composted.
I strongly suspect – though we’d need much more evidence to be sure – that giving people reasons to get out and about, even if only to recycle stuff and meet up with neighbours (see Eco-Inclusion), would help to develop local relationships, and thus the community as a whole. In some ways, it’s like parents waiting at the school gates – but in this case it can be everyone, not just carers of small children.
And, if previous experience serves me right, meeting up informally but for a purpose also gives everyone in a locality reason to become more invoved in their community, and to make this more of a reality in terms of common interests and ambitions for the future.
A new sort of community?
Get people to relax and talk to each other, and you never know where it will take them (or you). Giving them an excellent reason to do this (recycling) adds impetus to the process.
I’m trying to think out new ways to connect, which also take account of eco-considerations – without adding further rules and constraints to people’s everyday lives.
It would be impossible to persuade everyone to give up cars and all the other things we’ve grown to think of as essential for our lives; but adding a bit of community spirit might ‘include in’ more, and more varied, people of all kinds to the very necessary task of tryng to sustain the eco-communities in which we, everyone of us, have to live.
A New Life In Australia: Dream Or Reality?
Young professionals have always wanted spread their wings. But why are some workers outside London more willing to up roots to Australia, than they are even to try life in their own U.K. metropolis – or, come to that, in Cornwall if they want surfing and sun or in the Higlands if they want space? The distant unknown, it seems, is a more attractive dream for the future than the anything closer to home.
Strange how people often feel ‘safer’ opting for the completely unknown, rather than for the semi-familiar. Two or three times this week I’ve been chatting to young public sector professionals and skilled trades people around my patch (northern England) who’ve announced they fancy a new life in Australia.
When quizzed a bit more, the reasons for this option usually run as
1. it’s warmer and sunnier (indisputable, of course…. but it can be pretty humid too);
2. there are more ‘opportunities’ there (Yes, but that could be because loads of young Australian professionals are over here); and
3. it’s ‘boring’ here in the U.K. (What, all of it?)
Now, far be it from me to talk anyone out of an adventure – I went to Arizona on an American Field Service International Scholarship, for a full year and all on my own, at the ripe old age of seventeen – but I’m still a bit puzzled.
Why not London?
If I further enquire (because I’m curious, not because I want to dissuade) why these young people don’t want to try (say) London, I’m usually told it’s because Londoners are unfriendly and it’s a horrible, expensive, confusing place which you can’t get out of.
Well, some of my best friends live in London, I quite often work there, and I graduated from a London university. On the whole, I enjoy being there. It is a collection of some of the most historic ‘villages’ in the world, it has culture, it has cutting edge knowledge, it has huge parks…
But others’ hostile view of London does raise some interesting issues, such as: how do folk ‘know’ that a land they have never even visited isn’t also confusing, unfriendly or expensive? How can they be so confident that it’s a better place to be?
Or Cornwall or the Highlands?
Are these adventurers actually seeking a ‘new’ life when they leave the U.K., or, in fact, just a revamped version of the ‘previous’ one, with more excitement, freedom, challenges or whatever? And is this a realistic expectation in either event? Most people probably plan to take their current skills with them in their news lives, so they are in reality just trading locations (no harm in that).
If people want work and sunshine / space, why not Cornwall or the Highlands? Both are currently Objective One areas of the U.K., with plenty of incentives for skilled and entrepreneurial people, and both have space enough for everyone. They offer beaches, inexpensive housing, a more relaxed life-style; and they leave the option of experimentation without a huge commitment. In fact, on reflection, I’d probably suggest they be explored as ‘practice runs’ before taking the drastic step of crossing the equator for a permanent change of home.
It’s all in the marketing
These ideas of London and Oz are probably both wide of the mark. People are people everywhere, and, even allowing for deep cultural differences, how you find them usually depends far more on your own personal approach than on any other factor.
Which brings us to marketing and image…. Australia is openly eager to draw some of our brightest and best to its shores; and no problem there – we do the same to them, and, perhaps sometimes less fairly, to other countries too. But whilst London seems to emphasise the requirements of the knowledge economy, Australia also overtly seeks to draw those with technical and applied skills.
London as a city rarely does anything about actively attracting young public sector professionals from other parts of the U.K. Yes, individual organisations do this, but not London as a city in
its own right. It doesn’t really need to; but perhaps young people need it?
Conversely, the UK ‘regions’ all set themselves up in opposition to the metropolis. The very brightest of all already go to London in their droves (London has a far higher concentration of very highly qualified people than any other part of the U.K.); but little is done directly to encourage exchange and flow between different U.K. regions. And to us in the ‘regions’ London often looks like the Opposition.
Shared experience has value
It would be a very positive move if we encouraged young professionals to know their counterparts elsewhere in the U.K. Perhaps the problem here is that often only as they become more senior are they expected to attend conferences outside their own regional ‘comfort zone’, meeting other workers in more distant locations and learning how different people see the world. Indeed, for many that never happens, or else it’s too late by then for them to develop a fresh perspective.
Until a couple of decades ago many undergraduates chose to study as far away from home as possible; but that was at a time when a far smaller percentage of our young people went on the higher education. The sheer numbers of students these days makes this option impossible to finance by state grants; there’s been a relocation of post-school study to home ground as a trade-off for more people (of all ages) doing it.
So when are young people today getting their experience away from home territory? How can they come to see the opportunities across the U.K.? Maybe here’s a theme to return to another day.
Add your comments below…
Eco-Inclusive?
Why is recycling so often seen as something to be conducted only in grim carparks? Why can’t it (at least in the case of small amounts of material) be viewed as an opportunity for people actually to get together in their communities?
There have been some very interesting debates buzzing around this week. Not only have we (some of us, anyway) been hearing about Enterprise in all its manifectations, social and otherwise, but there have been big debates about how we should get a grip on environmental issues such as emissions and sustainability.
Mulling these things over, I also happened to come across some stuff on how difficult things currently are for towns and ports dependent on farming and fisheries. It strikes me that’s not really too much different from some of the issues in the disadvanatged areas I sometimes work in. They all need ‘new’ ways to build their economies, and to enhance their social and business connectivities.
Which led me to think more about the Eco- aspects of Enterprise.
Let me ask, why do we make our domestic recycling facilities so grim? Do they really all have to look like blots on the landscape? Isn’t there some way that at least some local recycling facilities could be part of the community ‘offer’?
The joined-up alternative
What would it look like if some recycling became a feature of community connection? Somewhere where people could pop in as they pass to the shops or park, and where you could at the same time join friends for a coffee, let the kids play, or visit the library?
In the past few years bookshops have at least twigged that people who buy books also like tea and cakes; it’s proved to be good for custom. Why isn’t the same applied to the idea of recycling? (I’m not talking here of the mega-visit with the car full of all sorts; that’s still a superstore carpark job.)
If the theme were ‘little and often’, and the facilities alongside recycling permitted, recycling points could become community hubs which local people visited becaue it’s a good place to go – recycling to one side (preferably covered), playspace and coffee shop / library / community facility / adult education venue of whatever sort at the other…. with the feelgood factor guaranteed, as we do our eco-duty.
The imaginative entrepreneur
Maybe the ‘problem’ is that eco- / recycling is perceived as a green wellie activity; not something for entrepreneurs, unless they’re of the ‘social’ sort. Let’s move from the vague notion that only Environmental Officers – who might be thought of (doubtless unfairly) as a pretty puritan lot – should have a remit for recycling.
Let’s see if this whole activity can become a central part of community life. If it gives people with their small bags of recyclable material, their pushchairs and their shopping an opportunity to enjoy half an hour’s chat, that would be really great.
Then maybe people can find out more about how they all connect and what in common they have or would like…. never underestimate the importance of actual person-to-person encounters when thinking about capacity building in communities!
And if local entrepreneurs can use any of this to develop or tempt business, that’s better still.
Social Enterprise Day – Today!
Social Enterprise is a bit of a mystery to some people… so today is a chance to find out more.
Today is Social Enterprise Day. Perhaps you knew that already, or perhaps you didn’t; but it’s also Social Enterprise Week, focusing primarily on young people, so there is bound to be a bit of media activity.
So what is Social Enterprise?
The Government’s definition of it is ‘a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose inthe business or the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.’
In other words, social businesses are set up to ‘make a difference’ for society or the environment.
More of them than you think…
Recent research has shown that there are some 15,000 UK businesses which are social enterprises. That’s about £18 billion per year generated in the economy, and around 475,000 jobs. This includes activities as varied as Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant, Cafedirect, and the Eden Project, or Liverpool’s own Furniture Resource Centre.
You can find out more about all this from the Social Enterprise Coalition or from the Enterprise Week website.
The Tesco Effect
It may not be fashionable to say so, but maybe Tesco has a point when it says it can work to help develop local trading and communities. The evidence is not conclusive, but neither have all the arguments as yet been fully explored.
The debate about Tesco is all around us in Liverpool just now. There are strongly vocal groups, some of them just local people and traders, and some of them I suspect part of larger national campaigns, who are implacably opposed to any further development of Tesco anywhere near our patch.
Others, far more quietly, would actually rather like a bigger, brighter Tesco (or any other large supermarket) not far from home, where they can pop in, parking assured, 24 / 7.
It seems however that whilst one of Tesco’s applications, to the north of the city, has now been approved, there will be a big fight over the south city bid. Officers have recommended agreement, politicians mostly oppose it; so who knows what will happen when it all goes to appeal?
Reasons for unease
As far as I can gather, opposition to Tesco and other supermarkest falls into some four categories:
1. we live nearby, and shoppers will block our street parking, and maybe make a noise;
2. green space is at risk;
3. local traders will suffer;
4. we are opposed to any big business which may be getting the upper hand.
Reasons for quietly hoping plans will go ahead, however, tend simply to be that it’s convenient, open long hours and the range of merchandise is good.
Mixed messages
Maybe I’ve missed something, but it feels to me as if a number of mesages are coming over here, not very coherently.
Firstly, concerns about street parking are persuasive for local councillors dependent on electoral support – let the people park – but they are not otherwise very convincing. Mechanisms exist and are easily put in plaxce to prevent parking altogether, or allocate resients’ priority, etc; and in any case most Tesco stores have quite adequate parking facilities of their own, if they are permitted to establish these.
The concern about green space of course follows from this – more Tesco space, less green space; but Section 106 arrangements (which basically require developers to ‘give’ something to the local community in return for ‘taking’ a local footprint) can be brought to bear by Council Officers, so that alternative facilities will be part of the package. Perhaps not everyone from the Council for the Protection of Rural England will be happy with the end result; but, to be frank, cities are not rural.
The argument that local traders will suffer is more difficult; the jury is still out on this, because the evidence is generally unconclusive. Organisations such as the New Economics Foundation suggest that the effect on local traders may be damaging; this is therefore an issue to be taken seriously. It is probably however less clear that at least some of these local traders would have done well even if the lcaol supermarket had not been built.
And finally, the question of market share needs to be considered. Tesco, for instance, has about 30% of this in Britain, almost twice as much as its nearest competitor. But whether Tesco should be constrained is a matter in the hands of the Office of Fair Trading, not something which can be resolved at local level in a narrow context.
The counter-argument
The issues so far discussed are perhaps only part of the story.
Let us put aside matters of investment, when building large supermarkets, in local infrastructure and construction and so forth. These are usually acknowledged at least in part at some level.
But only rarely is it also noted that Tesco, like its main competitors, offers well-defined and nationally led staff training and development; the pay to start with is not especially good, but the opportunity to move up the ladder (or across to another one) is certainly there. In some communities, there are few other opportunities of this sort; but where these opportunities are on offer, specially in otherwise less advantaged areas, they are surely of value.
And, finally, we have to ask ourselves why local traders, if they really do want to keep going, are not forming liaisons at the professional as well as the protectionist level. Are they sharing responsibilities such as staff training, local environmental improvements and the like? What, if anything, is the collective deal, with or without the supermarket in their midst?
Maybe Tesco is right to carry on growing, or just maybe it should be restrained; but the basis of the debate so far does not explore all the issues at stake. If the simple demand to ‘stop!’ were replaced by a dialogue on how to develop, with or without large supermarkets, local people and politicians might discover that there are more ways forward than they think.
Art In Whose Context? (Private ‘Versus’ Public)
Art and culture are often dismissed as peripheral to public life; but private investment in the arts is serious business. There is a strong case for the position that what’s good enough for private investment, is also good enough for investment in the public sphere.
Looks like we’re all a bit muddled about what the arts are ‘for’…. Revent news stories have revealed that a Cheshire Member of Parliament is up in arms because the North West Development Agency has over the past few years spent a seven figure sum on (mostly very large-scale) public art; and there’s another rumpus about money being ‘wasted’ on engaging professional artists to do work in hospitals (see Is Art good for your Health?); and the list could go on….
Conflicting perceptions
If ever there was confusion, you can find it when people debate the arts. That is, if they debate at all. For some, there’s no need to debate, they just know – usually, that it’s all a waste of time and money.
And, perhaps even more worryingly, often the arts are not even considered when people look at plans for the future. Arts and culture are add-ons which can happen later, if someone remembers to get around to it. Certainly no need to seek professional advice or make sure there’s an outline arts strategy in place from the beginning.
Yet the same folk who berate public art often have no objection to the private sort. To parody, maybe a little unkindly, old masters in oak drawing (or international corporate board) rooms are one thing; vibrant work on accessible public display is another.
The cost factor
An underlying theme in this seems to be that arts and culture are O.K. as long as nobody publicly accountable has to shell out for them now. Perhaps this is why Museums seem to be able to make their case more easily than the Performing Arts – the less unrelentlessly labour intensive, and the more thematically linked to ‘tourism’, i.e. ‘business’, the better.
Ideally, we gather, the arts should be delivered by volunteers (amateurs) who ‘give something back’ – whatever that means – whilst people who are paid should concentrate on careers in the basics, treatments, training, tarmac, tills and the like; and of course everyone understands these are all essentials of modern living. But would that life were so simple…. though I wouldn’t like it to be so boring.
Missing links
There are two immediate snags with the ‘do arts for pleasure not pay’ argument.
The first is that, if no-one takes a proefssional role in the arts, there will soon be no-one left to show the next generation how to do it. The arts demand high levels of skill which take a long time to acquire – if anyone is to invest this amount of energy and time, they need a reasonable assurance that there will be a professional pay-back later, whether this be as a painter, a performer or even, say, a public parks and open spaces artist and animateur.
Secondly, art in all its forms can be the ‘glue’ which attaches a community to its various and infomal formal structures. The arts offer opportunities for local pride (think of Newcastle’s Angel in the North, or Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall), they can involve people directly (street theatre, music, film projects etc) and they provide ‘real’ reasons for communities at every level to come together and to share a common interest and identity.
Private or public?
Maybe the context/s of art and culture are what define how we perceive it all. Perhaps if we recognised the various posturings and positions from an underlying ‘private vs. public’ perspective we can begin to make sense of them. The confusion then drops away, for me at least. If art and culture are good enough for private settings, they are good enough for public contexts too.
The Philosophy Of Hedges
Hedges are protective, productive and permeable. They offer haven but also permit the flow of light and air. They respond to change by organic adjustment and they can sustain themselves. They are a metaphor for healthy boundaries, rural or urban, able to adjust and yet still retain integrity.
Hedges have always fascinated me. As a small child I walked with my sister and father along country pathways between fields, my father, a rural science teacher, all the time pointing out the features of the hedges,and explaining how, as living things, these hedges had been both nurtured and shaped – sometimes for many centuries -whilst they in turn sustained life for other plants, and birds and animals.
The craft of the local hedger, the names of his tools and the names of all the bushes, grasses and wildflowers… details now elude me, but abidingly the ideas underpinning of the significance of hedges remain.
It is not therefore surprising that the gardens of my homes as an adult have always been enclosed by hedges. Some were there long before I arrived, but quite a few have been planted and grown by ourselves. I especially enojy it when I find a tiny shoot growing from a random seed or berry, and can plant it amongst the larger inhabitants of our urban hedgerow. Thus in the fullness of time have emerged quite a number of hollies, some buddleia and even a few rustic roses and hawthornes.
The urban meaning of hedges
My professional life now is a thousand miles away from the innocent rural ambles of my childhood. Perhaps the contrast is almost Cider With Rosie vs. The City; but the significance of boundaries for me continues to be beyond doubt.
People still require boundaries, real and metaphorical, for their comfort and protection. Not many of us feel at ease in unmarked and uncharted territory. But, whether we consider and acknowledge it or not, a metaphorical ‘brick wall’ can be constraining in a way that a ‘hedge’ never is.
Hedges let us see the light next door, they permit the passage of air (but diminish the onslaught of the gale), they support life in a host of ways. Brick walls, on the other hand, block light and air, and do not offer sustenance and safe haven to small creatures. Hedges may take years to grow, but they adapt and respond organically to change. Brick walls are quickly constructed but come down only when they are dismantled – and then they are no more.
Protective, productive and permeable
The hedge as a boundary is a model for both rural and urban life. Hedges protect, but they don’t constrain, they are productive but they are organic in their response to their environment, and they are permeable, enabling flow of light and air without any loss of their role in defining boundaries.
Rural fields and urban communities alike need to be marked out. But let’s not forget that the marking of boundaries is best done in ways that respond to changing needs and opportunities over time, encouraging cross-over and the flow of the small ideas which may one day become big players on our territory. Hedges with their rich ever-changing diversity, the haven for a host of hidden small lives, serve us better than brick walls.
Dreaming Realist 