Heartbreak and hope - a story of Schumacher College

This week, my heart has been utterly broken.

On Tuesday morning, I had the pleasure of teaching on the Head, Heart, Hands course at Schumacher College . We spent the morning exploring the sort of education we need for our changing world, engaging with the Triple WellBeing framework and experiencing practices and processes to support a holistic way of learning together. Being at Schumacher for this workshop means that the participants had an immersive experience of everything we were exploring together – for they were living in a college that has this way of learning at its heart. Everything about the ‘how’ of Schumacher is an invitation to connect deeply with ourselves, each other and the natural world through a head, heart, hands approach.

On Tuesday afternoon – just one hour after I left the college – DARTINGTON HALL TRUST(THE) made the decision to close down Schumacher College, end all of its programmes and make all of its staff redundant with immediate effect.

This matters personally. I lived there for 8 months in 2016-2017 and have shaped my life and work around the place, its teachings and the magic happening in this part of the world.

This matters locally. It has a huge impact on the local area, both in terms of who comes here, what happens here and what comes out of the college and its community.

This matters globally. Schumacher College is a beacon of hope for the sort of education the world needs, and a place of learning, guidance and inspiration for people right across the world.

Founded in 1991, Schumacher College was established on the Dartington Estate as a place to continue the progressive legacy of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst – pioneers who bought the estate in the 1920s to begin an experiment in living, learning and working together based on the arts, culture, progressive education, social justice and ecological restoration. Everything happening on the estate championed an education for the head, the heart and the hands. Long before climate change was a major concern, Schumacher College was founded at the Old Postern on the estate, a college which has since become a leading international centre for sustainable education and global hub of inspiration.

Working with luminaries in the fields of ecology, philosophy, climate science, economics, design, art, sustainability and social justice, the college has housed some of the world’s leading educators and visionary thinkers. More than 20,000 alumni have lived and studied at the college through either postgraduate, undergraduate courses or short-courses all committed to the principles of regeneration. Thousands of social enterprises and organisations have emerged from alumni over the years, with many also leaving the college to take up significant political roles, such as advising Barack Obama on environmental matters or leading climate negotiations at the UN. The college has given rise to partner organisations around the world including Brazil, Colombia, Belgium, India, China and France.

I moved to Totnes in 2016 and lived at Schumacher College as a residential volunteer for nearly a year. ?During that time, I volunteered my time cooking, gardening, cleaning, running the bar, DIY etc. in return for bed, board and being part of the learning community. Over that year I spent time with thousands of extraordinary people from all across the world, learning from and studying with educators such as Satish Kumar, Ian McGilchrist, Bayo Akamolafe, Vandana Shiva, Rupert Sheldrake, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Fritjof Capra, Polly Higgins, Charles Eisenstein, Stephan Harding and so many more.? Far more than academic learning, it was the experience of living together in community that utterly transformed my life. ?I learned through lived experience what it means to live ecologically and consciously together, and experienced how to form a livelihood based on caring for ourselves, each other and the planet.

The love, care and tending offered right across the learning community gives all who study there the experience of deep belonging to ourselves, each other and the earth. And when time at the college is over and folks return home it is not just intellectual relics of their time together that remain but something much more significant - a memory of a feeling they can return to again and again reminding them of the work ahead in regenerating our planet and transforming our lives towards healthier horizons.

The beating-heart of ThoughtBox Education evolved during my seminal time at Schumacher and it is a place that has continued to feed the learning, wisdom, inspiration and direction of travel in my own life and work. Like hundreds of people I know, I moved my life permanently to Devon because of Schumacher and have the college as a connection with so many people I am friends with or work with across the world.

On the afternoon of 27th August 2024, Dartington Hall Trust made the decision to close Schumacher College with immediate effect because of continued financial difficulties on the estate. The callous and ignorant way this action was taken by the trust has shocked and angered so many of the global community and truly broken people’s hearts.

And yet…

One of the powerful connections I made during my time at Schumacher was to the work of Joanna Macy, and in particular the practice of 'active hope'. Like tai chi or gardening, active hope is something we?do?rather than?have - it is by no means passive but hugely active. It is a process we can apply to any situation involving three key steps:

1. First, we take a clear view of reality
2. Second, we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we’d like things to move in or the values we’d like to see expressed
3. Third, we take steps to move ourselves or our situation in that direction.

A beacon of regenerative learning, Schumacher College has inspired a global community of individuals ready to take their place in the world, to stand up for social justice and the future of our planet. Those individuals – us individuals – are now coming together to keep this college alive

By Wednesday morning this week, news had spread across the world and mobilisation had started. By Thursday afternoon, coordination was underway to bring different stakeholders together for shaping a plan for an independent Schumacher College (plans that faculty have been quietly working on for many months). By Friday a fundraising campaign was underway and by Saturday a plan to mobilise hundreds of locals to gather on the Dartington Estate today for a silent protest.

The Schumacher community is now seeking financial independence to continue the pioneering work with the intention to purchase (ideally) The Old Postern, the spiritual home of the college for the last 34 years; as well as create an endowment fund to ensure financial security moving forward. Seeing and experiencing the groundswell of action, of care, of support and of energy to keep the college has been humbling and speaks so loudly to the power of a place that champions for the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

This story is far from over and these doors are far from being closed.

*Details of the fundraising campaign will be launched here soon: https://www.satishkumarfoundation.org/supportus