A professional training for educators engaged in higher education (e.g. university teachers, researchers and staff) providing deep experiences around sustainability learning and that shall lead to a transformative international community of practitioners to regenerate higher education in Europe. The transcending rationality for this holistic experience is inspired by the Schumacher College (UK) that provides education for head, heart and hands, and will grant innovative educational practices.
Climate change, complex political scenarios, an infinite global economy within a finite planet and an increase in mental health issues are some symptoms of what the Austrian systems thinker Fritjof Capra calls “a crisis of perception”. According to him, amongst the numerous and systemic solutions, there is an urgent need to address the educational challenges of the 21st century through alternative education capable of transforming the threats to our common future.
The conventional educational system focuses on preparing students for a competitive job market, rather than to work for sustainability, aesthetics and inclusiveness - little attention is given to individual, societal wellbeing and planetary health. Education is synonymous with exercising rationality, favouring still theory over practice while the human body remains excluded from the process. Worldwide, humanity decision-makers have graduated from the most prestigious and renowned universities, therefore it is relevant to inquire about the nature of leadership training.
This project is about experiential learning for sustainability, new ways of conveying conversations about education, bridging urban and rural settings and working with university staff who lead such initiatives, as teachers, lecturers, managers or researchers. It aims to deliver a singular experience where these actors find themselves in a collaborative environment for a series of meaningful dialogues, embodied work and community living in the countryside of Portugal.
This initiative is inspired by Schumacher College, an English higher education institution specialised in ecological thinking and living. Visiting teachers are philosophers, scientists, systems thinkers and practitioners from all knowledge fields, from all over the world. With the motto "Education for Head, Heart and Hands", Schumacher had over 30.000 students over its 30 years, for master's degrees and short courses.
Please highlight how the concept/idea can be exemplary in this context
Living an urban life can make us forget about our reliance on ecosystems in the most basic ways. For instance, consumers rarely know where their food comes from. A recent trend of bringing nature to cities should also encompass universities as important agents of urban transformation. The founder of Schumacher College, Satish Kumar wrote in his book Soil, Soul and Society: "Students coming out of schools and universities know nothing about making, growing, cooking, building and manufacturing. Such manual activities are supposed to be performed by uneducated peasants and workers somewhere far away, in China or Vietnam or Indonesia or Morocco or some other distant land. This is a recipe for a disastrous future".
Sustainability depends not only on our intellect generating innovative ideas, but also on our hearts capturing meaning and communicating the right attitude to overcome difficulties, and our hands to craft, seed, plant, sprout, prepare, bake, feed, adapt, carry and transform. The project allows teachers, lecturers, researchers and education managers to reflect together about which kind of higher education is required to build a sustainable future for people and the planet. For this reason, the retreats will be hosted closer to nature where participants are offered the opportunity to pause their routines and reconnect to the natural and communal world.
The learning experience at Schumacher College is, for many, proof that our education and profession should not be divided from the other aspects of our lives. Activities offered will show that scientific data can be better assimilated if the whole body is involved in learning: participants will go on a Deep Time walk to get a measure of how young our species are, and formulate their personal philosophy to live harmoniously, besides learning with nature's function, forms and diversity. That is living sustainability - it will revolutionise universities.
Please highlight how the concept/idea can be exemplary in this context
Most of this project is expected to happen in farms and other peri-urban green spaces with adequate infrastructure to receive our target audience. This is not only a way to rethink urban ways of living, looking for regenerative approaches that can increase the liveability of cities, but also to increase awareness of human intrinsic connection to nature. Sustainable solutions are beautiful “by nature” and their efficiency requires cross-sectoral collaboration.
In cities, natural spaces provide multiple ecosystem services, in which aesthetics is considered a cultural service since "benefits derived through ecosystems are considered beautiful, appealing or visually appreciated, etc" (UN Water, 2018). Even though this proposal does not include a concrete physical transformation, the aesthetic dimension of this initiative consists in reconnecting higher education stakeholders with nature. This collaborative quality amongst participants also should be encouraged towards the natural world.
Another aesthetic objective of the programme is related to the selected activities where the use of facilitation methods is combined with hands-on experiences (i.e. gardening, walking in the wilderness, cooking, etc), which enhance the quality level of the participants’ experience. This will be supported by the practice of mindfulness with the docents, so that a different sort of nature observation can flourish and make visible certain patterns that allow Biomimicry to be practised - making nature a “mentor, model and measure” in support to people “creating conditions conducive to life”.
Urban development has a lot to learn with rural settings, in this regard. The use of Nature Based Solutions, landscape interventions to strengthen ecosystem functions which provide multiple benefits, are advancements that can be applied and improved on university campuses, built by teachers and students in a way to make learning truly inspired by nature.
Please highlight how the concept/idea can be exemplary in this context
Mental health issues are rapidly growing amongst university students (Allen et al., 2022). Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence that gardening and activities in green areas benefit mental and physical health, with the potential to relieve pressure on public health systems (Thompson, 2018). Community gardens have been popular around the world and they could equally benefit academic communities, improving participation and bringing the enhancement of biodiversity on campus, spaces for open-air classrooms, providing material for science classes and most importantly, providing fresh, organic vegetables for university canteens.
This project offers guidance to think about the previously mentioned possibilities. bottom-up approach for sustainability learning, challenging hierarchies and inviting to invert the typical knowledge transfer from "experts" to "non-expert" or from "older to younger". Our public will work together in a garden, wash dishes, help with cooking and cleaning as part of the learning. It is expected that the experience awakens an aspiration to see the university community as a wealth that if valued, generates benefit.
On campus, a vegetable garden is also a meeting point, an open-air laboratory to test methods to regenerate soil and water cycles, and an environment where collaboration can be encouraged to be part of the academic culture. For instance, the university kitchens could engage students in food preparation through a volunteer programme where a student exchanges a couple of hours learning and practising his/her cooking skills in exchange for the meal prepared, and in service to the wider community.
Such changes in academic management are only possible if they are seen as part of the learning and recognised by professors, lecturers, researchers and managers who persuade other actors politically. Such initiatives become available to be studied and improved.
Please highlight how this approach can be exemplary
The project involves educating leaders of higher education in living sustainably to transfer its benefits to their work at European universities. University staff are the main target for the project, nevertheless, their learnings will bear fruit for their students. Teachers and students can partner for the co-creation of learning experiences, if teachers are open to it. They are the participants and protagonists who are often trained to have such a defined idea of how classes and knowledge transmission should look like at universities and that at this moment, they deserve to be invited to change perceptions in a gentle, creative and careful way.
Initiating a process of building other ideas about environmental sustainability through a different sort of learning is here highlighted as the fundamental element of this project. A refreshed attitude of humans as part of nature and a renewed sense of belonging are some of the expected outcomes of the retreats. Education should be participatory, indirectly impacting groups of students that would highly benefit from practical hands-on projects on campus (i.e. mental health issues), and directly groups of professionals who tried to integrate alternative education into their teaching but could not find support.
The training retreats will be conceptualised/organised by alumni from the Schumacher College, of which some are still students now in other contexts and probably younger than the main target group. Building on the intensive own learning experience and holistic educational training, a new environment of co-creation and embodied mutual learning shall be offered that will make this project unique in its approach, inclusive as it goes beyond stereotypes, beautiful and sustainable as it fosters inspirational and supportive new relationships that can strengthen each participant to act upon the Bauhaus values in their respective working and living contexts.
The sustainability initiatives and projects developed at European Universities target mainly students and researchers. Initiatives dedicated exclusively to caring and supporting staff and those which most frequently lead such projects are unknown. The singularity of this project is to live with whole bodies rather than only minds, keeping habits that contribute to the health of all communities integrated at the personal level, and learning to create in ways that create bonds and a high-quality conversation amongst like-minded people.
The way of building new perspectives is expanding current understanding by thinking in ways different from the ones that created the problem. The initiative aims to offer not only new ways of thinking, but also new ways of being to be practised in universities. For this reason, here theory and practice are not divided, however, the framework adopted to guide human development is the four Jungian cognitive functions, which are all balanced through learning. By sensing, the body is welcomed in the learning and experimentation; feeling is crucial for relating with others and creating bonds; intuition guides people amongst a myriad of possibilities, and thinking creates a representation of the world in constant update which is a fundamental tool for human ways of living.
This alternative model has the potential to further humanise universities. Despite the initiative taking place in Portugal, participants from other member countries of the EU will be welcomed. The format of a retreat was chosen for the gathering for its experiential quality. If this sort of project is conveyed at a University, in between activities and daily preoccupations, participants will most probably be unable to be fully present, be aware of the natural world’s teaching role and reach group cohesion that allows a high quality of co-creation of new projects through a hands-on approach.
At the moment, a 3-day retreat is being organised for September 2022 (Friday to Sunday, to enable attendance) at an organic farm which aligns with an ecological and systemic approach in Portugal for a group of 15 participants (excluding facilitators). The Portuguese EcoCampus network of higher education institutions (54 Universities), as well as the Rede Campus Sustentável (34 Universities) will be our primary ways of advertising and reaching the target group. There are three universities in Lisbon supporting the initiative.
The first edition of the experience will be a prototype and will not involve e-learning due to bureaucratic reasons with the universities, as well as the lack of seed funding. However, interested potential participants will fill out an application form and be contacted to make sure they understand the purpose of such an initiative. The three days of activities will involve a blend of dialogue sessions with working groups, following the schedule and methodologies used at Schumacher College.
After the event, participants will re-gather online to talk about how the initiative should continue.The ones interested will be asked to join the organisation of the second edition, becoming multipliers of the project and hosting small and intimate events at their home institutions. In this sense, a network will be built to generate projects and provide support for those willing to design and implement ideas based on their experience. In the coming editions, there will be an online training starting three months before the in-person gathering and ending three months later, designed according to the Theory U framework and involving the prototype of initiatives at European Universities.
The content of the programme is in holistic sustainability learning, inspired by the master's of Regenerative Economics, Holistic Science and Ecological Design Thinking, which will be facilitated by a group of alumni currently living in Portuga
The main benefit that a New European Bauhaus Award could bring to this project is seed funding to catalyse and speed up progress. The estimated cost per participant for the retreat is 300€, with accommodation, meals, facilitation and materials included. The funding would allow a donation-based registration or fees to be waived completely for those who otherwise would be unable to participate. Furthermore, at least two editions could be supported partially by the funding.
Currently, there are engaged networks and champions who believe in the relevance of providing this experience for education stakeholders, in the potential for innovation that those professionals have. Nevertheless, the visibility that the prize gives will surely open doors to host experiments and small events at universities across Portugal and Europe. Funding would enable some visits to carry out experiential learning activities in different institutions, with the aim of establishing partnerships and expanding activities and the network. Institutions integrating the EcoCampus/Eco-Escolas programme would be selected.
The main step that this project could take in 2023, however, would be to enable my mentor and Schumacher College’s founder to visit Portugal and host a number of lectures/dialogues with invited prestigious academics at some selected institutions, on the Future of Universities. Satish Kumar is an Indian ordained Jain monk in his childhood, who has written ten books, founded two education institutions and worked for 40 years as editor of the Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, in the UK. Over the last 10 years, he has been extensively invited to speak at Universities around the world, on themes including ecology, activism, education and the human relationship to the Earth. Despite being a recipient of three honorary doctorates by different British Universities, and receiving the peace prize Jamnalal Bajaj Award, Satish did not have a formal education.
@Graca Scheiffer, 2022
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