Episode 39: Schumacher College with Pavel Cenkl and Morag Gamble

In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World, it is my delight to welcome Dr Pavel Cenkl, Head of Schumacher College and Director of Learning at Dartington.  We talk about the kind of higher education we need in the world today, and explore the innovative and immersive programs offered at the College - from Holistic Science, Regenerative Food and Farming, Ecological Design Thinking, and more.

Pavel has worked for more than two decades in higher education where there is learning with practice and thinking with embodiment. He  has been at the college now for a few years and developing new courses too at the intersection of movement practice, ecological thinking, and environmental philosophy.

Pavel is also a passionate endurance and adventure runner. Over the past five years through a project called Climate Run. Pavel has covered hundreds of miles in the Arctic and subarctic on foot to bring attention to the connections between our bodies and the more-than-human world in the face of a rapidly changing climate.

Pavel holds a Ph.D. in English and is the author of many articles, chapters, and two books. Most recently he has co-edited a book celebrating the 30th anniversary of Schumacher College with Satish Kumar, Transformative Learning: Reflections on 30 Years of Head, Heart, and Hands at Schumacher College. New Society Publishers, 2021.

You can watch the youtube version here.

PERMACULTURE AS TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION
In my twenties, I studied at Schumacher College and the integrated way of learning in community was absolutely inspiring and transformative.  I have since taught at the College a number of times. The head heart and hands learning experience that I experienced at the College as a young woman is what I weave into the fabric of the face-to-face courses I create and the Permaculture Educators Program online.

Permaculture is education for one planet living and through the course you become immersed in all kinds of skills and cultivate connections that support the transition to regenerative ways of being. The world needs more permaculture teachers everywhere sharing local ways, and working toward

Transcript

Morag: 0:00

Welcome to the Sense-making in a Changing World Podcast, where we explore the kind of thinking we need to navigate a positive way forward. I’m your host Morag Gamble.. Permaculture Educator, and Global Ambassador, Filmmaker, Eco villager, Food Forester, Mother, Practivist and all-around lover of thinking, communicating and acting regeneratively. For a long time it's been clear to me that to shift trajectory to a thriving one planet way of life we first need to shift our thinking. The way we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, self, and community is the core. So this is true now more than ever. And even the way change is changing, is changing. Unprecedented changes are happening all around us at a rapid pace. So how do we make sense of this? To know which way to turn, to know what action to focus on? So our efforts are worthwhile and nourishing and are working towards resilience, and reconnection. What better way to make sense than to join together with others in open generative conversation. In this podcast, I'll share conversations with my friends and colleagues, people who inspire and challenge me in their ways of thinking, connecting and acting. These wonderful people are thinkers, doers, activists, scholars, writers, leaders, farmers, educators, people whose work informs permaculture and spark the imagination of what a post-COVID, climate-resilient, socially just future could look like. Their ideas and projects help us to make sense in this changing world to compost and digest the ideas and to nurture the fertile ground for new ideas, connections and actions. Together we'll open up conversations in the world of permaculture design, regenerative thinking community action, earth repair, eco-literacy, and much more. I can't wait to share these conversations with you.

Morag Gamble: 1:49

Over the last three decades of personally making sense of the multiple crises we face. I always returned to the practical and positive world of permaculture with its ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. I've seen firsthand how adaptable and responsive it can be in all contexts from urban to rural, from refugee camps to suburbs. It helps people make sense of what's happening around them and to learn accessible design tools, to shape their habitat positively and to contribute to cultural and ecological regeneration. This is why I've created the Permaculture Educators Program to help thousands of people to become permaculture teachers everywhere through an interactive online dual certificate of permaculture design and teaching. We sponsor global Permayouth programs, women's self help groups in the global South and teens in refugee camps. So anyway, this podcast is sponsored by the Permaculture Education Institute and our Permaculture Educators Program. If you'd like to find more about permaculture, I've created a four-part permaculture video series to explain what permaculture is and also how you can make it your livelihood as well as your way of life. We'd love to invite you to join a wonderfully inspiring, friendly, and supportive global learning community. So I welcome you to share each of these conversations, and I'd also like to suggest you create a local conversation circle to explore the ideas shared in each show and discuss together how this makes sense in your local community and environment. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which I meet and speak with you today, the Gubbi Gubbi people and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

Morag: 3:26

On the Sense-making in a changing world show today. It's my great honor to welcome Pavel Cenkl the head of Schumacher College and the director of learning at the Dartington Hall of trust. Schumacher college is an innovative center of higher learning for ecological and social change. Way back in 1992, I studied there myself and stay for about a year and visited a number of times to teach on one occasion with Janine Benyus, founder of biomimicry, and we explored permaculture and b iomimicry together. And on another occasion returning back to explore Beyond Development, a course that also featured people like Kate Raworth, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Jason Hickel, and Rob Hopkins. So today Pavel and I explore what is Schumacher college? H ow's it different from the usual type of university courses and programs and environments, and take a look at some of the new programs that are emerging t here around regenerative food and farming. So join us. And I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I d o. Well, thank you so much for joining me today Pavel. Dr. Pavel C enkl is the head of Schumacher college and the director of learning at Dartington Trust. And maybe for the l isteners who haven't had the wonderful experience of hearing about, or being at Schumacher college, maybe we could just start, what is Schumacher college? Where is it and how d oes it, how's it coming to be maybe just l ike a little bit of a snapshot of where you are and what you do there?

Pavel Cenkl: 5:07

Well, first off it's a pleasure to join you. Thanks so much for the invitation. I really love talking about Schumacher college and about Dartington and about the transformative learning and educational community that we have here. So absolutely. So Schumacher College, we're celebrating our 30th anniversary this year, so it's a lovely year to celebrate here and we're coming out of, really challenging, more than the last year, really challenging 18 months, really. Because of COVID, all of the restrictions that have come with that. So it really feels like a re-emergence and a wonderful time to celebrate being here for 30 years. And so Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Trust in South Devon, which is in Southwestern England. We're about 10 miles from the coast and about 10 miles from the largest national park in Southern England, Dartmoor National Park. And personally, I spend my time sort of at either one of those, as much as I can, if I'm not on site, at the college and on the state. Dartington Trust is itself a Dartington estate. A 1200 acre rural estate that was founded in well founded in 1925, by Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst as really a opportunity to shape a sustainable and progressive society and around ecology, around agriculture, around arts performance. Really making all sorts of wonderful cultures of making that have persisted throughout that hundred-year period. We're almost coming to the hundredth anniversary of Dartington as well. Schumacher college it was developed 30 years ago as part of sort of an experiment in immersive learning community. And what would it mean if instead of standard university model, where you come into a classroom and you're taught a subject when you go to another classroom, you're taught another subject and then you eventually get your degree. What it would be like to create a really immersive learning community that offered transformative experiences for its students. And so effectively it is a living, learning community. All of Dartington really is. So when you come there as a students for, let's say a year-long master's program, you have classes that you attend in residential periods. But you also have work that you contribute to the running of the college and the really the rhythms of the day. We like to think of education for the head, heart and hands, to use Satish Kumar's saying, and it begins with a pre-breakfast meditation and then, sharing breakfast with the community and that can be staff and volunteers, interns, students as well and helping to clear up from that breakfast and doing the washing up, joining in the morning meeting before classes begin, then participating in whether it's harvesting produce from the gardens or weeding or doing community clean, or just helping with the running of the college on a regular daily basis, helping to prepare meals, helping to serve them clean up after them. And the learning doesn't end once you leave, you know, your actual t aught sessions. I'd like to think that it spills over a nd some of the best conversations you might have. And some of t he deepest learning is in those moments of community where you might be working alongside a program lead from a completely different course and then a volunteer and a student w ho's on something else entirely. And it's those conversations that I think might actually y ield some of the richest o r cross-fertilization I think those are some of the most sort of special times for me. I started at Schumacher as head of college in October of 2019, and for the first four or five months, I lived right there on site in some rooms above t he office. And t ried to get my bearings, having moved from Vermont in the US to South D evon. And I ate three meals a day with the students and some of the students didn't realize I wasn't a s tudent f or quite some time, which was great to get sort of the inside scoop, but it also demonstrates that it really is sort of a community that in some ways democratizes education. I f ind, I l earn as much from my conversations with students as I do in conversations with staff. And I think that's probably why a lot of staff like to come to Schumacher as well, because it's a really rich and vibrant community. So over the last couple of years, so really since I've arrived a bout 18 months ago, both D artington and Schumacher h ad been undergoing a fairly significant step in their evolutionary process. And we've moved from hosting t wo m aster's programs in 2019, 2020 with probably 23-25 students to where we are now, where we are running, between Schumacher college and the new Dartington Arts School. We're running five programs, with a hundred students or more, and next year we're projecting to run 11 master's programs and one undergraduate program, and anticipating having over 200 students enrolled in all of those programs. A nd that's across again, Schumacher and the Dartington Arts School. So during that period also D artington Trust has reframed its own mission and vision. So really e mphasize being a center for learning with a focus on arts, ecology and social justice. And so by doing that, effectively taking the mission and vision of Schumacher and sort of centralizing that to the trust, it's really opened up, all of the resources of the estate for learning, for all of the students. And as director of learning at Dartington, one of my areas of focus is how to create that learning experience for anybody that comes. And so among the things that we've done are lowering our tuition rates, increase accessibility to students, creating a low residency model so that students who might not be able to come and be in a residence for six months at a time, can come for two weeks at a time and then, go back home and t hen come again for two weeks and that sort of thing. And we've been doing, I think t here's a lot of people around the world, a lot more online learning this year. But we had actually prepared for that in advance of COVID coming. So I think we've, we've run a really interesting, and from the student feedback that I g et a relatively successful model that we're going to continue moving forward. So we're putting all of these things into place, increasing the number of short courses that we're going to be offering, really using the online and hybrid environments for our earth talks, theories that have seen really skyrocketing attendance, because we've opened that up to a global audience in ways we haven't before. So it's been really just a fascinating m oment of evolution to be part of.

Morag Gamble: 12:07

It's interesting, isn't it really, when something.... You know I've been doing something similar with the work that the education work that I'm doing, taking it for something that's very grounded and very community-based into this online world and it has transformed. I think it's so important to still have that the learning community, but the learning communities can shift. It becomes more of like a community of practice and, and there's possibilities of connecting and exchanging and have things this global conversations that are quite remarkable. And I'm so excited to hear that Schumacher College and Dartington Trust have come much more in line. I was one of the one, I was one of those very early students back in 1992. I think I was there. And I do remember the first arts college that was up there. There was lots of people doing them, various sorts of music and theater. And so that dynamic, arts and ecology has always been there. It's I mean, you'd say that it's a transformative education and, I'd be one of those students who would say it's actually transformed my life as a young person coming through there. Absolutely. So now with all these different programs, it's incredibly exciting to hear that you're stepping into many more, cause I'm part of the college is has always been on the forefront of thinking in ecological thinking. Where is the edge? And that's, you know, whenever you want to look to where the edge of thinking about the ecological world, we looked at Schumacher College and the type of people that are brought there, the type of concepts that are being explored. And so now what are those types of the new master's programs or postgraduate programs that you're introducing that are really starting to push those edges in a way that we start to see the type of education that we need in the world that we have right now, because it's rapidly changing, even though the same topics are still as relevant from back then, but there's new things that need a new response and a more urgent response possibly

Pavel Cenkl: 14:24

That's right. Well, I'd say that all of the programs that we're developing really have at their heart, the Schumacher pedagogical model and the model of delivery and the model of engaging, as you're saying at the leading edge of sort of what's new and what's necessary. I would say, you know, going back to really the roots of the college and thinking about[ inaudible] Schumacher, and sort of the appropriateness of the newness that we're doing. We're not pushing the envelopes for no reason, but we're pushing them because that's exactly what needs to happen. We're hoping to, and I think, history would show that we have helped to change the global conversation and shift people's perceptions and narratives and hopefully politics and policies, in a more progressive direction, both in terms of ecological crises, social challenges, cultural perspectives and so on. And I think we've done that throughout, one of our longer standing programs, holistic science, which has been on hiatus for the last couple of years, undergoing really a root and branch revision, under both existing leadership and then bringing in some new faculty to help redevelop that program, which will start again in January of 2022, as a more, one of our more fully residential programs really looking at what have been the innovations in questioning scientific principles and not just taking, the scientific method is a fit, a complete, but thinking about where can we interrogate? Where can we challenge? Where can we allow students through the Schumacher experience of sort of embodied practice and engaging on firsthand first person level with the world that surrounds us and how can the students enter into the deeper intellectual conversations through that individual practice? So that's one example of a course that's been around for a long time, it's undergoing revision.

Pavel: 16:25

We're also launching new programs such as engaged ecology, which starts in April, actually a couple of weeks time. Again, a more fully residential program that has students on the site for a few months, through the end of summer, engaging in, or making practice as a way to enter into those sorts of conversations and whether it's, you know, weaving flax that the students have planted the year before from seed, which is one of the projects that they're working on as an entry point into conversations about, you know, about textiles and about making it about that sort of cultural perspective and the intellectual framing of that and the scholarship or carving bowls or spoons that they might use over the period of the course and thinking about what that means, or melting copper. I think that's one of the things that they're looking into as well, just various making practices as an entry point into those conversations. Another program that will be coming up relatively soon, that I've actually been program development lead on for the last year is movement, mind a nd ecology. And that m ay start on the 21st of June of this year, which uses movement practice as a very explicit way to explore that space between the human and the more than human worlds, and to really inhabit that alive space and sort of the relational space between those areas. And so we no longer think about it as being a border between things, but t hink about it as a place to be. One of the challenges that the students will be faced with over that course is in fact, use the skills and the tools that they develop over the top modules to develop a p ublic f acing practice, where they can then take what they've learned, help to build or develop an event or an activity that helps to share that knowledge with a broader public community. I think that's really an essential piece for me. U m, one of the reasons that I came to Schumacher was thinking about the multiplying effect that the global network that you a re a great example of, for instance, I thought the global network that of w hat Schumacher is a p art and all of these relationships that it has developed over the last 30 years a nd how that has such a massive impact and can potentially really, as I've said, s hift that conversation in a much more progressive way. And so I think t hat t hat outward facing piece that we see with our alumni, that we see with friends o f the college who might develop their own Schumacher-like schools elsewhere in the world, or other teach other programs in the way that Schumacher does, because that's exactly what I think we need so much more t han that.

Morag Gamble: 19:10

I'm really interested about this sense that as a small college, you can have this really big impact that it's through the networking through that rippling out, through people taking it and embodying it in there making it localized in their own community. Is there some kind of broader network that connects all the different things we've done? Or is it just this sort of naturally myceliating process?

Pavel Cenkl: 19:42

Well, I think it's a bit of both, isn't it? I think there's a felt need around the world that this is exactly what needs to be done. This sort of teaching this sort of immersive learning experience and also the subject areas, you know, the messages that the students are engaging with and their transformative learning now are exactly what people want to participate in. I think there are reasons that, when we have an online earth talk, for example, as we did last summer and 400 people sign up within a matter of two or three weeks. There are people out there that want to hear exactly the types of things that we're doing. I also think it's a lot of hard work. And for 30 years, people have built, beginning with Satish Kumar and others who founded the college. It is a tremendous amount of work constantly bringing new people into that conversation. And as we're doing with holistic science, and as we did with, regenerative economics. Another MBA programs that was economics for transition the year before renamed it and reframed it a little bit. All of our courses are a constant evolution. There's so many new courses that I'm bound to forget some, but one really significant area of growth for us is around land use. Food and farming and progressive agriculture. And because we're on a 1200-acre estate and surrounded by some really progressive agricultural programs and initiatives and enterprises[inaudible] to biodynamic farming, to permaculture and a variety of other progressive agricultural and food systems techniques. And we are really in, you would know this better than I actually, in one of the best areas to study and to expose students and visitors alike to different types of agricultural techniques and food systems. So we're launching the first ever undergraduate program at Schumacher college, a BSC in a regenerative food and farming that starts in September, and we're currently recruiting students for that. And that will really look at exactly this. What is the variety of different progressive techniques that work both in this area as well as globally, so that students can come from around the world and learn a set of tools, perspectives, and sort of framing techniques and then be able to apply those wherever else they might go.

Morag Gamble: 22:10

I was going to say, I think it's an absolutely wonderful thing that you've made foods so central in not just the way that the college runs but how in this learning, this new program, because quite often learning about this type of thing has been a very marginal type of education. Anything that's about agriculture at a university is typically not been about this type of food system, but it seems to be such a critical part of our response to what's going on with the climate. What's going on with ecological systems, what's going on with health, what's going on with it. It's such a connecting thread to so many other things, and to be able to bring it into conversations that you will be having around food at all different layers from having a hand in this, like you're saying the head heart and hands approach to it. I think it's fantastic. I'm really excited. I'm really excited by this new program.

Pavel Cenkl: 23:07

I can't really imagine. I know that they exist, quite a few of them, but I can't really imagine a program in food and farming in any sense where you simply study the subject and you don't also help to grow the produce that you're going to be eating. And then while doing the washing up from after the meal and help to cook the food. And it strikes me that the only real way to get a good sense of sort of the holistic interrelatedness of all of these aspects and to think about, Oh, well, this is really what progressive food systems and progressive agriculture looks like is to inhabit that space. As I said, with the other program[inaudible] ecology it's how do we get into those places where, the physicality of that work helps to underscore and enhance the learning of students by doing in the lab or in the classroom or on field trips or elsewhere. And so the B SC is just t he, well, really t he second step, if we build on the horticulture residency program, where the students are actually arriving this weekend for that. We have 16 students who will be o n s ite for six months, working with Colum Pawson who l eads that program, and really working on H enry's field, which is the farm, which is o ur gardens that are really adjacent to Schumacher college, where we were able to produce about 50% of the veg that we consumed prior to COVID. Hopefully w e'll be able to maintain some sort of percentage of, u m, y ou k now, self-sufficiency moving forward as we expand that program a bit. But so we have the horticulture residency program, the BSC i n r egenerative food and farming. And then in January, we'll be launching a m aster's program at MSC regenerative food farming a nd enterprise, which is sort of the next step for those students. And that program w ill add a bit more of the enterprise piece and help to give students again, the tools, the skills that they need to step out into the working world. And whether it'svelop value added products or t hink about farming on their own plot or think about ways that they might implement techniques they've heard of on an existing farm. It really gives students the skills and the stepping stones they need to do that. And then that program is g oing t o be followed the following year by a sustainable food systems MA. And so w e'll really be stepping out and looking at the whole of the food system locally, regionally, globally. We are examples of, I think, a fairly progressive food system. So we will be developing that in turn.

Morag Gamble: 25:44

So I'm wondering whether you... is Schumacher college now a network of academic institutions that are doing things differently. Because you seemed like you're quite a beacon in the landscape of academic institutions, of something that's quite different. I know you came from Sterling college, which was also quite a different place there. Where do you see the role of places like Schumacher college in not just meeting the needs of the students that come, but shifting what's actually happening in education itself?

Pavel Cenkl: 26:20

Well, I mean, as I said about the...it's hard to imagine a university course on food and farming where the students don't actually work in the fields and eat the food. I think that that's exactly the type of education that transformative learning, you know, the really immersive embodied community. I mean that there are lots of sort of adjectives and identifiers that we like to use, but really it's a holistic, immersive learning experience. You come, you do everything. You live with the community you work, you've learned, and all of it is woven together in a way that it's impossible to pull apart. I've had conversations with alumni relatively recently about particular courses and they've stepped back and said, well, the particular course was really important that I learned these skills, but it was the whole thing that has changed my life. Then the way that I work the way that I live, the way that I live in community and relate with others. And for me, that's as the head of a college and then director of learning, that's the most rewarding thing. I would love to see, I don't even know if mainstream education is the right word anymore, but sort of education more broadly look at you know, learning in this particular way. I mean, can you just imagine, if universities around the world took this as their standard.

Morag Gamble: 27:46

This is what I'm asking. What have you noticed as have people been taking this on, into other institutions? In what way? What way is the conversation around tertiary education changing because of she Schumacher existing and how

Pavel Cenkl: 28:05

I think it is slowly. I think it's really difficult for larger institutions. You know, universities have tens of thousands of students to be able to completely shift and change and say, all right, we're going to be a learning community. I think there are experiments even within the larger institutions of doing exactly this type of small learning community and there have been for a long time.I think what we're seeing is really a proliferation of these sorts of experiments thinking about how one they can be financially sustainable moving forward. There are lots of, for example, where I've moved from Vermont, there are lots of small independent colleges and small Sterling college had a hundred.. 120 undergraduate students and Schumacher up until recently only had about 40 students. So there is this sense of almost on the living on the edge of precarity, in some ways that if you're so tiny without this broader global network and without sort of developing these relationships and developing satellites effectively around the world, then there is, there is a bit of a risk in doing that. And I think there there's, you know, an aversion to that risk on the part of larger institutions and organizations and say, well, what if this doesn't work? What if this isn't the way? I think there's still enough inertia in higher education, so that, or maintain that performance structure. I think one of the challenges that I see, and I've done a bit of writing around this, a bit actually in the final chapter of the book, the 30th anniversary book that Sateesh, and I have I've co-edited, um, on exactly this type of learning that, you know, I think higher education has a real challenge with form. It's a bit of a crisis of form that, you know, the university thinks that it needs to be in this particular structured format. Whereas I think if you take that structure away and think about, a problem-based or a solutions-based transdisciplinary approach to learning.

Morag Gamble: 30:12

Yeah. I think that's really important about exploring the ways that universities can shift and change. I remember Sateesh actually talking about how he started, Schumacher College and how h e started t his small school and, you know, as an experiment and just encouraged us all a t that back at that time t o just to go out and start doing these things. And part of the way of getting that going was doing short courses. And I know that this is something that's a really big part of the programs that you run there as well and a way to connect with some of the most interesting thinkers of the timetto engage them in, in these short programs. So I wonder if you have some new themes that are coming out through that whole program that you've got going on at the moment.

Pavel Cenkl: 31:03

Well, we do, and I think it's interesting that you point to that, because again, those are the origins of Schumacher college. As I said, we were continuing with that history and developing and evolving and moving forward, and we don't aspire ever to fit into a university model. I actually suggest that the university model is not necessarily the future of education. In fact, you know, perhaps the shorter and more modular approach of a short course where participants can come in and engage in a very focused study for a week or two, and then come back again for another week or two in a related subject to can help build those interconnections in ways that perhaps sort of more monolithic, a master's program or undergraduate degree might not. I think our programs are different because they're more interdisciplinary than you might find elsewhere. But, so with respect to the short courses, we do have a breadth of short courses, both focused on some of the principles subjects that some of the masters program programs that Schumacher emphasize where there's leadership and facilitation or engagement with ecological ideas or economics, or design as well as developing the craft revolution courses that we have been offering for a number of years into a much larger, residential, as well as day long, online and hybrid mix of courses as well. So anything from painting to carving to various making ceramics, printmaking, et cetera. And then we have another strand of short courses that's more in performance and music and art, and that's really an expansion of the Dartington summer school which has happened every year for many, many years. And we are now recognizing that in fact some of those classes and some of the focuses of the summer school can expand and can be available year round. So we are looking at quite an expansive short course or network over the course of the year. And we are looking more and I'm looking more at Dartington as having really a network learning model where we have masters programs, undergraduate degrees, a whole lot of short courses that either dip into or intersect with some of the top programs that we offer, as well as we're expanding the number of festivals that we hold over the course of the year. The number of talk series is that we have, we're currently running a series in cooperation with Chelsea Green publishing on food and farming, specifically an author series. We're developing an earth talk series on race and ecology. That's starting up later this year. And we'll be putting together a festival or conference event around cop 26 and looking at issues of the black Atlantic connected with climate change as well. So it really is interesting integrated from interdisciplinary perspectives that again are part of this overall network. So if you're a visitor coming to Dartington my hope is that once all of the restrictions lessen a bit that you find yourself in the midst of this really immersive dynamic learning community. And even if you come for a cup of tea at the green table, or you stay in the rooms at the courtyard, then you'd have the opportunity to participate in workshops. or you might want to volunteer in the gardens or have a guided tour of part of the estate that shows some progressive agroforestry techniques. So you really get the sense of you're in a learning community, even if you're just coming as a visitor.

Morag Gamble: 34:44

Yeah, that's amazing. That would be so incredible. I mean, there's just there, it's all there, isn't it. And so the opportunity to be outward facing as well as being, having that internal learning community would make such a difference. There was one topic that we hadn't really explored as one of the key themes that is at the college and that's ecological design. And I remember early on when I was there, the masters of holistic science had started. But not the design one at that point. There was professor John Todd came in and we were doing some things around permaculture and there was biomimicry design with Janine Benyus. And there are still the short courses. And then from then you've created the ecological design courses. So what is it about ecological design that the Schumacer college sees as central to its work in the world of education for regeneration and sustainable living? What's the core part of the design that shines for you.

Pavel Cenkl: 35:56

In a number of ways I'd like to think that the learning communities that we have developed over the last 30 years is an example of ecological design and that we are using ecological design principles in the way that we think about integrating different responsibilities and not thinking about disciplinary silos and allowing conversations and experiences to organically develop has, you know, students and staff interact with one another over the course of a top program module. So t he program that you're describing, the MA in ecological design thinking r eally basis i t's principles on how can we look at various processes around the world v arious design challenges and use t he principles that we might find in the more than human world around us, ecological systems b i omimicry a s y o u d escribe and variety of sort of in terrelationships i n ways to rethink, e xisting processes in a more echo, in a way that sort of embraces ecological thinking more deeply. I'd like to think that if we embed a program like that in an institution, which already teaches in an ecological way from the ground up that I think that that builds and even a richer experience for the students, because they can sort of see in some ways, the design around them as they're moving through th eir p rogram. And hopefully that can be an inspiration to some really wonderful projects, bu t i t has been as a s I've seen.

Morag Gamble: 37:27

Mm, absolutely. I mean, definitely inspired the design programs. And that I've set up here in my own ecovillage here as a way to, you know, particularly with Crystal Waters being an ecovillage, it's a possibility to, again, see ecological design in practice. You can see it in the homes, in the village design, the water landscape, the food landscape and how design is embedded. So I think this possibility for embedded design explorations and particularly that in the design thinking is really important. I have a really important question that I do have to ask to you from y daughter, actually my 14-year-old daughter who does design thinking work with and systems thinking, she studies with Fritjof Capra and Nora Bateson, and she wants to know what kind of programs could possibly be available to young people through Schumacher college type of opportunity. I wonder whether there's any youth possibilities that you've ever explored or is it once you get past your high school years, then it's time for you to start heading over to. Oh, wait, I think that's a problem. She can't wait.

Pavel Cenkl: 38:42

Well, I think the fact that she's asking these questions is a good answer to your question, right? You shouldn't need to wait. In fact, I think a lot of what we what we teach and a lot of the methods that we use are those things which might be lost as students leave childhood and move into adulthood. The ability to not worry so much about being vulnerable in relationship with others, in relationship with the world around us and to explore and to play and to engage in really creative practice. I think those are some of the challenges that some students that come to us have faced, whether they're out in businesses entrepreneurs, or they've been at a university elsewhere and they come to us and they say, Oh, well, this is new. I haven't been asked to do this. Like, why are we starting a postgraduate course by going off and going for a walk through the field or going swimming, or meditating in the presence of trees. How has that ever going to inform my work in design thinking or economics, or, you know, all of those things, but it becomes very clear that that embodied practice is in fact, the entry into those bigger conversations. So, we're always exploring other avenues for younger people to engage in our programs. Interestingly, we're talking with some of our partners who work on the estates separate from the college about how they're already offering programs and food and farming, for example, to younger students. And we're actually looking at a way that students might be able to not that they necessarily would, but start at age 11 or 12, with one of our partners and we've a ll the way through to the po stgraduate s tudy if they we re i nterested in following a f ood and farming program. And so we are, I' m r eally interested, you know, as I've said before, about the visitor experience to Dartington an d t o S chumacher, and that includes people of every age. We certainly have ha d p rogramming at Da rtington i n the deer park, for example, that is specifically for children and families. I'm always looking to develop new ideas. So I'd love to learn more from her about what she's really interested in, and we ca n h ave that conversation.

Morag Gamble: 41:07

Yeah. Great. I'll ask you more. I know there's a whole group of them that are just absolutely switched on. It's just an absolute joy to work with them. And, you know, they've all got to the point of thinking, well, actually, we don't really want to continue on with school because we're not learning anything at school in particular. That's what we need to address in the world. And so they're carving out their own type of educational pathway picking, you know, authors and fields of practice and making music and art and photography, as well as philosophy and permaculture and all sorts of things a nd shaping their own type of education, which is just amazing. SoI have the honor of being their mentor and helping to try and find opportunities for them to keep flourishing and growing. And it's just an amazingly wonderful thing. And that y oung people from around the world, some even from refugee settlements. And so I guess one of the last questions I wanted to ask you was about what are the opportunities that you're able to provide for people who don't have the resources to. Maybe from i f t hey're from Europe or the United States or UK, they might have more of an opportunity to attend. But do you have programs that enable people say from, y ou k now, poor parts of the world to be able to access this kind of amazing education?

Pavel Cenkl: 42:40

We do, and those are developing all the time as well. When we do have a bursary scheme which invite students to apply for bursary funding to attend the postgraduate programs and the undergraduate program as well. We have a scholarship scheme and so scholarships that are specific to particular program that's available for students to apply to. We have, as I've said, dropped our tuition fees, to make the programs more accessible. We've actually with the low residency model, I have seen a dramatic shift in the demographic of our students. It used to be that we had a very small minority of students who are actually from the UK. Now that has become much more of an equal split. I think in 2019 there was one student from the UK and now it's about half and half. So about 50 or 60 students come more from the local and regional area. Which I think is really important to not exclude the people that live right here. This year as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations, we are fundraising to develop a really robust bursary scheme specifically with strands that address inclusivity and diversity and, you know, w ill hopefully help to bring in a greater diversity of students who wouldn't necessarily be able to either afford or think about attending a place like Schumacher.

Morag Gamble: 44:05

Yeah. Wonderful. That's wonderful. I'm so excited that after three decades that it's not just continuing on, but it's actually thriving and evolving in a such dynamic ways. And in that beautiful, holistic way with the whole of the estate, I mean, it's such a beautiful place. It's kind of amazing really, after all these years, I can still feel myself walking through particular parts of the forest or noticing when the bluebells come up for the first time or sitting in a particular part of the river and the smell. You know, when you're engaged in such a transformative learning experience, it is an incredibly sensory experience and there's there's moments or sounds, or smells or things that just are with me as present today as what they were when I was a young student then. Fortunately I've had the beautiful opportunity to come back several times since in various different roles, but I still remember very much, is there like a very young 20, w hat, 21, 22 year old being there and what a remarkable opportunity was to be there. So thank you for continuing on that work and continuing to offer it in beautiful ways. And if there's some way of connecting in with what we're doing here, even as some kind of form, like a network of people who want to come and visit us here at this place, then we'd be really happy to give them a permaculture ecovillage experience adding that in Australia when people are allowed to travel once more.

Pavel Cenkl: 45:50

Yeah, absolutely. I really look forward to that conversation. And I do feel grateful every day, even as I work from home most of the time, it feels like such a luxurious experience to go back on campus and starting this weekend actually greeting students who are returning and, being part of that vibrant community as well. It really is a wonderful place to be. So hopefully you'll have the chance to come back and a group of children with you perhaps.

Morag Gamble: 46:19

Oh yeah, well, that'd be teenagers. That would be amazing. I'll try and plan for something like that when, when the world enables that kind of thing to happen again, who knows when that might be. Yeah. Well, thank you so very much for taking the time to talk with me today, Pavel. And, um, yeah, Schumacher, as I said before is such a big part of my heart and I'm sure so many thousands of people whose lives have been touched by it over the years and will continue to be touched by it. It really is a remarkable educational experience, place. Anyone who has the opportunity to connect in who's listening, whether it be going there in person taking a short course or a long course or zooming in for one of the earth talks, all of the links for all of the different programs and opportunities to find out more. I'll pop in the show notes. You can follow those there. So thank you again so much. I wish you all the best for all the programs that are about to launch. I kind of am wishing I was there too.*laughter*

Pavel Cenkl: 47:36

Well, thanks so much Morag. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. I love to talk about Schumacher and Dartington, so I'm happy to chat anytime.

Morag Gamble: 47:45

Lovely. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye bye. So that's all for today. Thanks so much for joining us. Head on over to my YouTube channel, the link's below, and then you'll be able to watch this conversation, but also make sure that you subscribe because that way we notified of all new films that come out and also you'll get notified of all the new, all the new interviews and conversations that come out. So thanks again for joining us, have a great week and I'll see you next time.