The Return of Light
21 December 2025
Dear Friends,
Here in South Devon recent storms have finally stripped the remaining leaves from the tree branches and the River Dart is flowing at full strength from all the rain that has swept across Dartmoor. Meanwhile, holly wreaths are being hung on front doors and sparkling lights and cosy fires are helping to extend the warmth and the light of these short winter days.
Today we are celebrating the Winter Solstice, and are guiding our attention towards rebirth, renewal and the return of light, dreaming into the promise of Spring, and a new beginning for the life of Schumacher College. So, with great pleasure and anticipation, we would like to share with you a little of what we have in mind!
Our vision for Schumacher College in 2026 and beyond is to nurture a vibrant learning commons that is rooted in place, in the River Dart bioregion. This learning commons will serve to empower individuals and communities with the knowledge, skills and transformative experiences needed to become discerning practitioners in the art and science of wholehearted living, and to work together in service of a thriving world.
Rooted in its new place and form, Schumacher College will seek to cultivate life-centred practitioners who can restore relationships with soil, soul and society. Our mission is to engage every faculty — intellectual, emotional, moral, creative and practical— to participate in this renewal.
Through a learning experience that engages head, heart, hands and habitat, reflecting the deep heritage of Schumacher College, students will not just study this relational restoration; they will live it: whether sowing seed, planting, cooking, walking the Dart, shaping clay, poetry and story, or prototyping enterprises in the very community they eat and sleep in.
The intention is also to continue to guide learners beyond the assumptions that govern modern life—about control, speed, productivity, individualism, until they find communities, languages, and practices which allow them to metabolise overwhelm into clarity, care and creativity.
Where mainstream higher education still trains “human resources” for an extractive economy, the updated Schumacher College pedagogy invites learners into a new way of participating in the world. Beyond pedagogical theories, concepts, or tools, this participatory approach will inspire a renewed sense of how to live, work, and relate with integrity in an age of complexity.
Yet this is not merely learning about complexity: it is a lived experience of attunement with complexity. Students will come not to be filled up with information, but to be opened, unsettled, and reoriented toward life, tuning in to how systems breathe, how culture is shaped, how small actions ripple, and how healing can happen in places previously ignored.
This renewed pedagogy will unfold through three interwoven learning pathways – Ecologies of Place, Creative Cultures, and Social Transformation.
● Ecologies of Place will foster deep ecological understanding and practices grounded in the nurturing of dynamic relationships with the more-than-human world. Primarily rooted in land-based and place-based learning, this pathway will offer programmes in agroecology, nature connection, food growing, and regenerative land practices, with a view to cultivate an ecological literacy that is nourished by deep awareness and attentiveness, strengthened by an understanding of kinship across species and energised by a commitment to Earth-wide regeneration.
● Creative Cultures will curate a holistic approach to the artistic imagination as a catalyst for social and ecological renewal. Rooted in oral arts—such as storytelling, poetry, myth, movement, music, and dialogue—this pathway explores how creative practices can inspire meaningful change. Blending ancient traditions with contemporary forms, it will equip students with the intuitive, imaginative, and dialogical tools needed for cultural transformation, and nurture imagination as a vital force for truth, beauty, and justice in service to community and to the Earth.
● Social Transformation will engage with innovative social design processes, enterprise labs, and community-change projects, rooted in the question of how meaningful change can happen within human systems—economic, political, and cultural. Exploring its dynamics and the inner and outer capacities needed to bring about change, students will gain a deep understanding of social complexity and develop the critical thinking, practical tools, and leadership skills needed to build the agency to challenge injustice, to respond to complex global crises, and to co-create regenerative alternatives.
At the very core of these interwoven learning pathways is the insight that relationship is everything.
This insight is more than simply abstract concern: it is an endeavour to awaken ourselves to a sense of shared responsibility for the whole of life. It brings into play the wholeness of our being: the quality of our attention, the reach of our movements, the health of our bodies, the wholesomeness of our actions, the discerning of wisdom and the openness to surprise of our minds.
Each pathway unfolds as a living ecology of courses, spanning different formats and subjects and is held together by shared themes. To ensure that Schumacher College serves the world where it is most urgently needed, we will convene dialogues with academics, practitioners, and wisdom holders across cultures and geographies. The dialogues will be grounded in specific fields such as economics, law, music, science, peace, and politics.
Our work is not driven by novelty for its own sake, but by careful attention to what is already taking shape.Through this process, we seek to listen carefully to existing, leading edge ideas and practices, and to emerging possibilities, weaving them into the heritage and holistic learning of Schumacher College to help meet the future with a renewed sense of courage and imagination.
We wish you and your loved ones the very best for this festive season, and we very much look forward to further encounters with you in 2026!
With much love and gratitude,
The Schumacher College Team
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