Re-wilding the Bauhaus: What its Foundation Course Should be like Today
No textbook for the new foundation course exists – which is probably just as well. The course is better thought of as a journey, than as a body of knowledge.
alternative education
“A child can transform a twig and a pile of leaves into absolutely anything”
To me one of the most important things is mental sovereignty, is that you really think for yourself rather than be made small, be made constrained, by the narrowness of the dominant culture.
Karen MacLean on Den Grønne Friskole, Where Imagination Flourishes
The imagination needs the whole body and all the senses. Sitting still and having to pay attention and only use some of your senses, it gets kids out of the habit of feeling the world and themselves.
Ruth Sapsed on Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination
We’ll talk about children leading. That doesn’t mean that we don’t do anything. That means that we’re trying to listen to what they are interested in and come alongside them with those interests.
How Farms can Help Improve the Lives of Disadvantaged Young People
On social farms, health, social or specialist educational care services for vulnerable people are delivered through structured programmes of farming-related activities. Social farming is established in numerous European countries. Norway currently operates 1,100 social farms, compared to 240 in the UK.
Integrated Sustainable Community & Ecovillage Design Education
Education for social and ecological literacy will be an important catalyst in the process of creating a culture of sustainability. The challenges of climate change, approaching peak oil, and non-renewable resource depletion are creating the need for an education that empowers citizens through knowledge and skills which enable them to actively participate in the design and creation of sustainable communities and bioregions.
The Right Structures have Power – Simon Mitambo on Reviving Cultural and Biological Diversity
I like giving the example that we humans can behave like cancerous cells. Working out of a disconnection from nature, as if we are separate from other natural aspects is similar to when cells stop communicating with the whole system.
Dreaming of the School Birthed in Flames
I am dreaming of the school birthed in flames. The work that I do has no place in current universities. It is too holistic, too integrative, and too practically oriented toward the real world.
This isn’t just About Pensions Anymore – There is a Revolution Afoot!
The pension thing was the straw that broke the camel’s back, apparently, and it has triggered the greatest wave of staff-student mobilization the sector has seen in decades. What did they think lecturers would do while on the picket lines for three weeks? Chat about the weather? Snack on cucumber sandwiches? And what about students? Were they going to stay at home and sleep?
Manish Jain: “Our Work is to Recover Wisdom and Imagination”
In my own journey what I found out was that most people think education is a solution going forward for the world, and to deal with the different crises on the planet, and I found that the education system, the current one, is actually part of the problem. Not only is it irrelevant, but it also is actually creating, reproducing, the same sicknesses you have in the planet.
Website for Collaboration on Resilience Projects
NOW the Path Forward is an educational website based on Moodle (http://moodle.org). It’s purpose is to grow solutions under an open source umbrella and use the educational tools such as wikis for collaboration. In this scenario, the teachers are actually teacher/moderators and the students are student/collaborators. Do not think of the courses in a traditional sense, but rather as work space. Participants can contribute at any level they prefer. Lurking is allowed.
Another Way of Learning
I’m sure there are people out there who are much cleverer than me. What I’ve spent my life trying to do is make these welcome solutions accessible to people. You see – it’s not how clever we are individually, it’s about how effective we are. And ethics sit at the heart of permaculture. Create surplus and share it. So the surpluses we can create might be food… But what if they were happiness, insight or knowledge?