ANCESTORS AND ALLIES
No movement is born in a vortex! All of the following schools, learning communities, and organizations served as profound inspiration, while others joined as core collaborators right from the beginning. Follow the links to learn more...
The Woolman Semester School was the best example of Education for The Great Turning before this movement had a name. A Quaker-inspired semester program on 230 acres, high school students from all over the country would come to take part in a ground breaking intentional learning community. The focus of the studies were peace, justice, and sustainability. Beyond taking courses in Global Issues, Environmental Science, and Peace Studies, the students also participated in Farm to Table class, art, Nonviolent Communications, and many more exciting topics.
In and out of the classroom, students were getting skilled up in areas such as organic farming, sustainable living, inner resilience, permaculture, healthy eating, and group process.
Several of the alum are known internationally as leaders in the field of social and environmental justice!
In and out of the classroom, students were getting skilled up in areas such as organic farming, sustainable living, inner resilience, permaculture, healthy eating, and group process.
Several of the alum are known internationally as leaders in the field of social and environmental justice!
Finding The Good is a multi-faceted 16-week traveling semester program dedicated to the research, study, documentation, and sharing of working models of sustainability. The program is open to high school juniors and seniors looking to take a semester of study away from their traditional schools, as well as to students taking a gap year after high school graduation. FtG writes:
"Learning is different here… our classrooms are fields and farms, rivers and roads, gardens and green buildings, and so many more. Your brain will work in conjunction with your body as you meet the challenge of joining academic study with hands-on investigation and outdoor adventure. You and your classmates become fast friends and then family as mutual members of each tight-knit semester community."
"Learning is different here… our classrooms are fields and farms, rivers and roads, gardens and green buildings, and so many more. Your brain will work in conjunction with your body as you meet the challenge of joining academic study with hands-on investigation and outdoor adventure. You and your classmates become fast friends and then family as mutual members of each tight-knit semester community."
Mycelium: Provides an environment for global youth to come together, recognize social and environmental issues while developing the tools needed to address root causes. They offer a 10-month program, plus workshops, and more. The aim of the program is “to cultivate learning communities of tenacious innovators creating systemic solutions that increase the health, connectivity and resilience of our world”.
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Transition Lab: For 44 years, The Transition Lab has been offering a 10-week summer program and a 7-month intensive in which student/co-creators help replicate existing models of resilience while learning the skills that support these. The skills fall into the five broad categories of Food, Housing, Employment, Community, and Knowledge of Self.
Swaraj University: Offers a two-year based self-directed program, including re-skilling, unlearning, gift culture, and international issues. The mission of this university is to nurture youth leaders who would be able to start ‘green’ enterprises and movements in their own local communities, and experiment with new ways of personally and collectively living with swaraj* in the 21st century. Each person has their own talents and dreams. The curriculum starts by identifying those attributes, rather than telling the students to learn mathematics or history or any other preordained syllabus. Based on their input, training is provided.
Barefoot College: is a non-governmental organization that has been providing basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities for more than 90 years, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable. These ‘Barefoot solutions’ can be broadly categorized into the delivery of Solar Electrification, Clean Water, Education, Livelihood Development, and Activism. With a geographic focus on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), this organization believes strongly in Empowering Women as agents of sustainable change.
Unitierra in Oaxaca: Young men and women without any diploma, and better yet no schooling, can come to this school. They learn whatever they want to learn—practical trades, like urban agriculture, video production, or social research, or fields of study, like philosophy or communication. They learn the skills of the trade or field of study as apprentices of someone practicing those activities. They also learn how to learn with modern tools and practices not available in their communities.
Schumacher College: is an international education center offering transformative learning for sustainable living and holistic education courses for people concerned with social and environmental issues. People from all over the world, of all ages and backgrounds, have been informed, inspired and encouraged to act, by our 20+ years of transformative courses for sustainable living.
The College is world renowned for cutting edge and dynamic learning on a wide range of issues related to sustainability. We bring together the leading thinkers, activists and practitioners from all over the globe, to deliver a unique range of group learning experiences.
With a focus on interactive, experiential and participatory learning, we offer the practical skills and strategic thinking required to face the ecological, economic and social challenges of the 21st Century.
The College is world renowned for cutting edge and dynamic learning on a wide range of issues related to sustainability. We bring together the leading thinkers, activists and practitioners from all over the globe, to deliver a unique range of group learning experiences.
With a focus on interactive, experiential and participatory learning, we offer the practical skills and strategic thinking required to face the ecological, economic and social challenges of the 21st Century.
Findhorn Foundation: offers concepts, tools and techniques for creating sustainable human settlements. A practical forum for learning and for developing action plans drawing on the experience and expertise developed within the Findhorn Ecovillage and other initiatives. We offer a broad range of workshops, events and a variety of ways to participate, with the aim of inspiring and demonstrating new ways of living for a peaceful and sustainable world. We recognise that the future of humankind and the natural world depends upon a worldview that is compassionate and interconnected and we help provide experiences and tools for people to relate to each other, and to the world, in new ways. The Findhorn Experience Week is a practical experience of how to apply sustainable values in daily life.
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Weaving Earth: Center for Relational Education: The Weaving Earth immersion recognizes interdependency with all life, and seeks to cultivate leaders, stewards and pioneers for a socially just, ecologically harmonious and consciously awakened future. The program empowers participants to discover and explore the possibilities that arise when we unite in an intentional, mentoring context via:
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