College Blog

Underpinning currently dominant educational practice lie a series of assumptions about how we learn that are contradicted by a growing body of scientific evidence, as well as by our common sense.

Patricia Shaw, visiting teacher and fellow at Schumacher College has been involved with the setting up of Schumacher-like activities in Brazil. In this interview, she asks Juliana Schneider, Msc in Holistic science and co-founder of Escola Schumacher Brasil, about the Certificate in Holistic Science and Economics for Transition, a year-long-programme being offered now for the third time in Brazil and with two places remaining.

A true march of the makers will turn the tables on our abusive consumer culture and deliver the richer relationship with ‘stuff’ that our economy is crying out for

The healer knows that hope means displacement. To touch the universe is to lose one’s ground. To arrive is to be dismembered. To be born is to be reborn – and not in a neat way. I like to say that “we are coming down to earth, and we will not arrive intact”.

Schumacher College’s inception as a centre for nature-based education, personal transformation and collective action, the gardens have been integral to the vision of Satish Kumar and co-founders. In keeping with Tagore's view that nature is our teacher, different areas within the gardens have been created as spaces for contemplation and relaxation, food growing and ecologically-minded horticultural practices.

"Now it's up to us, not as global leaders but as local leaders." A blog by Margaret Wheatley

Schumacher College has, for the past 25 years, been ‘baking the cake of imagination’ (to quote Satish Kumar), who began the evening’s celebrations by talking of imagination as being the “fifth element” that we are embracing in our lives; one to which the college dedicates much of its teachings. And when it came to igniting and nurturing imagination, the celebration indulged us all, with Satish’s invitation to fall in love at Schumacher being encouraged from all angles. With the soft warm glow of home being brought so effortlessly into the civic hall - fairy lights twinkling like birthday candles around the room - it was beautiful to see Schumacher transition down the hill to the centre of Totnes, bringing with it all of the light, life and imagination that resides up on those sacred hills of the Dartington Estate.

I find myself anticipating with some excitement a gathering that I suspect will be primarily populated by techies and geeks firmly convinced that the information technology revolution

As we move towards a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern scientific and technological capabilities, we can become good at designing regenerative cultures. Among them are many lessons we can learn from indigenous cultures around the world.

There is a growing body of research and practice that challenges the core fundaments of conventional educational philosophy and practice. This affirms that education is a community-based rather than individual pursuit, that knowledge is emergent rather than fixed, and that students have multiple learning faculties other than the intellect.