SCHUMACHER COLLEGE
An International Centre for Ecological Studies
EDUCATION
An Earth Academy
David Nicholson-Lord
This article originally appeared in Resurgence 2001
Schumacher College celebrates Ten years of Environmental Education
There are between fifteen and twenty of us sitting round in a circle, the morning sun streaming in through the windows, and we’re discussing deep ecology. Specifically, we’re discussing crabs : How do we relate to crabs – and, by implication, other species ? We don’t make much headway with crabs, however, so we move on – to snails. Stephan, the resident ecologist, says he’s sad when he loses a snail from his garden. Others are more pragmatic. “ I’ve got plenty of snails, “ Robin, a doctor, tells Stephan. “ You can borrow some of mine.” We laugh.
The point of deep ecology is that all life has intrinsic value. Even a small and seemingly insignificant creature has a purpose and a role in the scheme of things. Hence, we need to consider the importance of all life forms.
From deep ecology we move to Gaia theory and we talk about interconnectedness and the interdependence of all life. Very heady stuff, but very relevant to our environmental crisis.
Schumacher College, on the Dartington Estate in South Devon is, it’s fair to say, a unique institution. What other centre of learning would devote even five minutes to such matters ? This is a failing in conventional colleges and universities – which neglect issues such as deep ecology at their ( and our ) peril and concentrate instead on fitting people into the “ industrial and economic growth paradigm. “ The mainstream “ seems to think that the environment can be an add-on subject “ said one of the participants. Schumacher was established to put holistic, ecological and sustainability issues at the centre of education.
IN JANUARY 2001 Schumacher College celebrates its tenth birthday. During these years the College has developed into an important centre of environmental education. It also serves as an important source of learning for the local community. Take the tradition of Open Evenings, for example. One of those in the circle discussing deep ecology is Morag, who is a member of Crystal Waters, the pioneering eco-village built on permaculture lines in Queensland, Australia. The previous night when the College threw open its doors, more than 100 people from Totnes and its environs crowded in to hear her talk about how the eco-village works.
Later that evening Antonia, another from the circle, showed slides of organic sculptures she has created, and Teresa, an American postgraduate student in holistic science, talked about her work on watershed education with North American Indians. And before our session on deep ecology, we had an hour or so on complexity theory – dissipative structures, non-linear dynamics, why living systems ( termite mounds, for example ) take the shape they do. Leading the discussions were Fritjof Capra, of Tao of Physics fame, and Brian Goodwin, former Professor of Biology at the Open University and now a Schumacher College staff member.
THESE SNAPSHOTS by no means exhaust Schumacher’s distinctiveness. There’s the internationalism, for a start – at least nine nationalities in the circle of 15, for example. There’s the breadth of background, from permaculture designers to the sculptors, from hoteliers to senior hospital consultants. And there’s the chat, the crackle, and the stimulation from many different sources including the exercise sessions at the morning gatherings, along with the readings, the announcements, the occasional music and the detailing of work duties, as well as intense conversations.
At this morning’s meeting, for instance, we hear that the group named
“ funnel webs “ are short of a cook. What can this mean ? To explain, you need to know that at Schumacher College education isn’t merely an intellectual pursuit : it’s designed to involve the whole person. So for the length of the three week course you live with 15 or 20 others in a learning community, sharing the cooking, the cleaning, and the gardening. Students are divided up into work groups and on this course they have named themselves after spiders – Tarantulas, Trapdoors, Red Backs and Funnel Webs. The funnel webs are on cooking duty today but they’re one down on numbers – hence the request for another cook. “ Why spiders ? “ I ask Hans, one of the volunteer helpers. “ They’re strange creatures, “ he says somewhat cryptically, “ and they weave the web of life.”
Hans is a retired lecturer in mechanical engineering from Coburg in Germany who read about Schumacher in a German environmental magazine. He first came in the late 90s and since he retired two years ago, has spent two spells as a helper. And he is definite that Schumacher is unique. It’s something to do, he thinks, with the status of English as a world language, with the UK’s old links with the rest of the world and with the fact, oddly, that it is not the United States. “ Britain is smaller. If Schumacher College was in the US, people would feel somehow intimidated. “ And its uniqueness ? “ You can get people from 14 different countries here on a course and when they all sit round the table for breakfast or supper, there is a spirit, an energy, that you don’t find anywhere else. It’s something very special. He says,
“ You get a world perspective on world issues rather than a Eurocentric view . “
SCHUMACHER COLLEGE opened its doors in January 1991 when 32 participants arrived at the College to spend five weeks learning about the “ Health of Gaia “ from the independent scientist and originator of Gaia Theory, James Lovelock. The courses that followed in the first year give a flavour not only of what the College was attempting, but what made it so special. There was Hazel Henderson on Life Beyond Economics, Rupert Sheldrake on Earth, Soul and the Imagination, and Helena Norberg-Hodge on Ancient Wisdom. The teachers were not just teachers: they were thinkers, writers and activists, well known on the intellectual wing of the green movement. The subjects were challenging, all embracing and leading edge – certainly difficult to reconcile with any notion of conventional compartmentalised learning. “ Concern for the environment and sustainability underpins all courses, “ says Satish Kumar. “ Education which does not address the environmental issues of our time is no education at all. “
For The Dartington Hall Trust, it was a voyage into largely unchartered seas. For half a century the trust had run Dartington Hall School as a “ progressive “ institution but when this closed down, the Trust cast about for another flagship educational venture. There were already links between Dartington and Satish, editor of Resurgence magazine and originator of the Small School in Hartland, North Devon, where Resurgence is based. The “ seed “ of the idea, according to Anne Phillips, Director of the College, came from Satish. That was in 1988. Two years later the Dartington Hall Trustees approved the launch of a “ national centre in the fields of ecology, environmental action and transformation. “ And since then, the role of The Dartington Hall Trust, which for 75 years has been pioneering new ways of thinking about culture, education and the environment, has been pivotal to the college’s success – not least through the £ 2 million it has put into the College over the last decade.
Named after E.F.Schumacher, the author of the iconic green text, Small is Beautiful, the College’s purpose was to “ provide a place and space where the implications of the profound changes in world views now surfacing in so many fields of human thought and endeavour can be studied – and lived – to some depth.” It was a challenging vision but it’s fair to say Schumacher College has fulfilled it with a completeness that would have seemed unlikely a decade ago, even to its most enthusiastic proponents.
This is not to say it hasn’t changed or there haven’t been tribulations and uncertainties. For example, it became clear that some of the teachers, charismatic and inspiring though they might be, couldn’t necessarily teach. So facilitators are now present to oil the wheels of learning: often these are former students who, in return for their facilitation, get a free course.
Other changes are more fundamental. From a highly eclectic approach to the choice of subject matter, the College has narrowed its focus somewhat, concentrating these days on ecological economics and development, the links between philosophy, psychology and ecology and the world view emerging from new insights in science – enough to be getting on with, one might think. Sadly the original five-week courses proved impractical – people just couldn’t spare the time, so three weeks is now the maximum. And since 1998, two initiatives in particular have reinforced Schumacher’s credibility and opened up new and challenging links with the outside world – an MSc in Holistic Science, offered in conjunction with the University of Plymouth, and thought to be the only qualification of its type, and a new series of week-long courses for business managers, the first three held last year. Since Schumacher College and business could be said to occupy opposite poles of the social and political spectrum – “ globalisation “ is a concept few of its teachers would endorse – the potential of these contacts is very significant.
SCHUMACHER’S uniqueness rest partly on its unclassifiability – it is part retreat, part residential community, part academic institution, part intellectual seedbed. This is, no doubt, much to do with the setting – the woods, fields, and waters of Dartington, the solid stone house known as the Old Postern where Keble Martin wrote his Concise British Flora in Colour, and a retired admiral experimented with submarines in the nineteenth century.
But there is also a ( discreet ) emphasis on the spiritual and the contemplative – one of the changes was bringing the meditation room from an annexe into the main house. This, Anne Phillips believes, owes something to the influence of Satish, a former Jain monk, but also the legacy of the Elmhirts who travelled to India and were deeply influenced by the poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. “ In the 1920’s the Elmhirsts had the same concerns as we have today – quality of life, the purpose of existence and the values which transcend mere material prosperity. Our answers are different now, but I think our questions remain the same. “
For many participants however, it is clear that this sense of wholeness is at the root of Schumacher College’s proven ability to change minds, and thus lives. Since 1991 there have been more than 2000 participants on the College’s courses, of whom 360 have been returnees : around 1,600 people have thus been through the doors of the Old Postern. Roughly half have been British, although 80 different nationalities have been represented, and most have been in their twenties, thirties and forties ( the full range is from 18 to 80 ).
THE VISITORS’ BOOK at Schumacher College, coupled with a host of unsolicited testimonials provides ample proof of the college’s impact on students. Words such as
“ pivotal “ or “ transformative “ are repeated frequently. An American who gave up her job at a software firm to help run a coastal restoration project says her spell at the college gave her the “ clarity “ to make the change. A young Indonesian activist set up an organic farming project after he left. “ My time at Schumacher College, “ he says, “ made me realise that there is a community of people who have similar values…and although we work in different fields and different geographical locations, we are working towards a common end. This sense of shared vision, of a common ethical community, provides hope and sustenance in what is sometimes difficult and lonely work. “
A brief history of Schumacher College could no doubt multiply such examples many times. Take the 15 or so people sitting round discussing deep ecology for example; it’s a reunion course – all the participants have studied with Capra at the college before, some as long ago as 1992. And in that time, it seems the waves in individual lives have created ripples in society. In 1992 Morag Gamble, then a landscape architecture student at Melbourne University in Australia, came to Schumacher for a five-week course – and stayed ten months. “ It was a transformative experience. I had been an activist since the age of 14 but I was tired of fighting against things. I wanted to work towards solutions. It was an amazing 10 months. It just blew my mind. It set my life on a completely different path.” She left the College, she says, with three objectives – to live in an eco-village, to use her design skills to create sustainable settlements and to set up a Schumacher-style college in Australia. At Crystal Waters, the first two ambitions have been realised, the third is starting to take shape.
Roland Sapsford was a 1993 participant. Then a civil servant in the New Zealand government, he later left to join the Green Party and is now a parliamentary co-ordinator for the Greens, who have seven MPs and support the centre-left coalition government. “ When I came here I was of the view that there was something fundamentally wrong with the world but I wasn’t sure what. I left feeling tremendously optimistic. It was the most empowering experience. “ Regina Thomas von Bohlen, German-born but bought up in Argentina, gave up her job in the New York art world after coming to the college in 1996. She is now starting a restoration project on a degraded 5,000-acre farm in Mexico.
After returning home from Schumacher College, another 1993 student, Robin Stott, a hospital consultant from South London, hit upon the idea for “ carbon footprint “ parties, at which people would be able to gauge their impact on the planet. Linda Gibson, a university teacher, went back to Liverpool after a course in 1996 and helped to launch the Liverpool Schumacher Lectures, the first to be held outside Bristol. Noel Charlton was first at the college in 1991, and has returned on a number of occasions both as a helper and a facilitator. He was inspired, at the age of 58, to go back to university – taking a part-time MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University. Now he is working on his PhD. He says the college helped him realise that “ it was possible for people of any age and background to influence the way things are going….One of the key things is that Schumacher College relates feelings as well as knowledge to environmental problems. You meet people from all over the world who are attempting, and succeeding, in bringing about change. Some of them are truly remarkable.”
Cause and effect in such areas are hard to establish of course. Most people who come to the College do so because of what might broadly be called environmental concern. Stott says he was “ already into environmental thinking when I came here. In that sense, it didn’t change my trajectory, but it gave me a more substantial awareness.” According to Anne Phillips, Morag Gamble’s disenchantment with being “ against things “ is typical. “ So many people come here wanting to know what they can do that is positive – that will help them and others around them to live a life that is fulfilling and rewarding but not damaging to the planet.”
Capra, who has given six major courses at the college, making him one of its most prolific teachers, talks of the “ tremendous intellectual power and diversity “ of the college. “ I don’t know any other place like it. I came here whilst I was writing my last book, The Web Of Life, and used this place to present my ideas and have them challenged and discussed. It helped me enormously. I teach many courses and give many lectures but Schumacher students are the only ones that I keep in touch with on a regular basis. When you live together for several weeks you form very strong bonds. It is very inspiring.”
Capra also believes in the college’s power to “ subvert.” He adds, “ Everybody who comes here is instilled with the values of ecology, and sustainability on a community and human scale, and then they take these values away with them. Since Schumacher College is such an international place, this has a considerably subversive effect. Many of the people you see here cleaning the floors and cooking, are people in positions of power – people who may manage hundreds of others at work. The College is a significant influence in the world, although it’s impossible to track that.”
For Satish, these past 10 years have been revealing. At the start he says it was assumed that the teachers would hold the key to Schumacher College – and certainly they are a powerful magnet. but what took everyone by surprise was the educational potential of the place itself, and the processes that go on here. “ People find much more nourishment and opening of minds through living as a community, cooking, cleaning and working together, “ he says. “ The students become teachers for each other. “ He also points to the projects, from schools to ecology centres, from organic farms to alternative energy centres, set up by students after they return home, as evidence that “ the College is a catalyst. “
What of the future ? There is talk of trying to feed more into mainstream education, of ecological demonstration projects – “ living machines “ that deal with waste for example. There is satisfaction that the College is becoming more financially secure – halving the subsidy needed from The Dartington Hall Trust. The success of the business courses leads Anne Phillips to speculate on using Schumacher College and its teachers to bring industry and the green movement together. As to how – or why – this might work, she adds “ One of the things people say about the college is that there is a “ best “ in people and it’s the environment you put them in that determines whether it is brought out. Putting people here creates an opportunity for them to be their best – and they really are. “
David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental journalist.
For more information about Schumacher College and its courses, please contact :
The Administrator, Schumacher College,
The Old Postern, Dartington, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 6EA.
Tel : +44 (0)1803 865934 Fax : +44 (0)1803 866899
Email : admin@schumachercollege.org.uk
Website : www.schumachercollege.org.uk
