Slow schools and slow education can refer to different aspects of education. Some people use the term slow schools to refer to schools that are attempting to bring slow food to the cafeteria or dining room. For others it has far more implications and includes aspects of connection to knowledge, tradition, moral purpose and all that is important in life. In this sense it refers to the curriculum (课程), the way it is delivered, the process of learning, management of the school, and even if school is the best vehicle through which to educate our children. So in this sense, it refers to bringing the slow movement into education.

In many Western countries that have Anglo-Saxon origins, governments and schools have strict control structures in place and schools are driven by standardised curricula with tests and targets to ensure uniform outcomes. The emphasis is on the outcome not on the process. The process is about things like how ideas are conceptualised, how can we support learning and the knowing of how to learn, as well as the love of learning and investigating.

Slow education is also about connection to knowledge and to learning—real learning. It is about doing no harm and having respect for all living and non-living things. Slow education is a concept of ‘ecological literacy’. Michael Stone and Zenobia Barlow have put together a collection of authors in Ecological Literacy: Educating our Children for a Sustainable World to give us ways to adapt to the way we live on Earth and the way we can educate our children to their highest capacities. This book is recommended to parents and educators who are engaged in creative efforts to develop new curricula and improve children’s ecological understanding. Slow education is about supporting our children to develop values and ethics (道德规范) that will enable them to live a joyous life in the slow lane.

The similarities of debate about Fast Food vs Slow Food and the debate about Fast Schools vs Slow Schools are self- evident upon reflection. Fast schools like fast food are not concerned with the process, preparation and connection. They are concerned with the standardised end product which in the case of schools is the results from standardised tests and targets, and in the case of food is the standardised hamburger or fried chicken etc. ，that look like all others the outlet produce quickly.

The process of education is not about supplying students with lumps of information to be repeated on demand. It is about enabling students to learn how to learn. It is also about giving them opportunities to hear what others have learnt (knowledge) and to then discuss, argue, and reflect on this knowledge to gain a greater understanding of its truth for them and of how this knowledge will be of use to them.

Exposed soil isn’t part of nature’s master plan. Good examples where soil is naturally found with no plants growing in are beneath freshly removed trees, or where the ground has been burnt by a land fire. In these situations bare soil isn’t bare for long; within days seedlings (芽) begin to appear and cover the ground. In a few months’ time, the scar is hardly noticeable.

Unlike these natural examples, ploughed (耕犁) fields and freshly dug gardens are obvious examples created by man. But, left to nature, even these bare soils soon turn green with a large number of tiny seedlings. In fields, gardens and on grasslands, roadside and sports fields, along streets and on paths and pavements, we are constantly battling to stop weeds from growing. All we are doing is stop the recovering powers of nature.

Whenever soil is exposed, weeds act like a kind of medicine to reduce the potentially harmful rays of the sun, so the sooner plant growth covers the soil over again, the better.

Weeds also help to improve the fertility (肥沃) of the soil. Their roots get the soil together, improving its structure and creating a more stable environment in which soil life can grow fast. Those weeds with a deep root draw up plant nutrients from deeper in the ground, making them available to plants growing near the soil surface. Above ground, the stems (茎) of weeds help trap fallen leaves which break down into the soil, adding to the fertility of the soil.

As the soil becomes more fertile, different kinds of plants start to replace the “pioneering” weeds. Bushes move in to take the place by gradually shading them out, followed in turn by trees, which eventually push up through the bushes, finally shading them out too. Fallen leaves from the bushes and trees carry on the job of building soil fertility that was begun by those very first weeds that grew on the bare soil. Then, when one of these mature trees is removed in a storm, leaving a wound of bare soil in the earth, the whole process starts again.

History is full of tales of great ideas taking shape in sleeping minds； Paul McCartney said that he awoke with the tune of Yesterday in his head, and Robert Louis Stevenson said that the idea for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came to him in a dream.

Scientists believe that the mind at night puts together bits of information in creative ways. Throughout the day your brain rarely gets a chance to stop and think. It constantly responds to a stream of challenges, from writing a report for a work deadline to remembering where you left your car keys and figuring out what to buy for dinner.

“Think of your brain like a web," says Russell Foster, Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University. "During the day the web is very tight, so you can only put information in a certain number of places. During sleep the web expands, and with the luxury of time, those bits of information can be put into lots of different places and make new associations."

He adds that this process may help to foster the formation of new ideas. "This bringing together of seemingly unrelated bits of information is vital to helping the brain think itself out of problems,” says Russell Foster.

"Sleep seems to allow your mind to make non-obvious connections. It puts all the information from the day into a big biological theatre and forces the mind to speak to people at the back of the theatre, who you may not think you have any connection with. This is the basis of creativity connecting ideas, events and memories that wouldn't normally fit together.

By placing volunteers into brain scanners and sending them to sleep, scientists have seen that the areas associated with emotion go into overdrive, especially while dreaming, while the areas that are responsible for logic (逻辑)are switched off. This not only explains why dreams are unbelievably random-you can be talking to a colleague one minute and the next minute sitting in your old school classroom dressed in your nightclothes—but also explains how the brain can put together different information.