How

This way of learning draws on traditions of education for liberation, including the work of Paulo Freire, Augusto Boal and John Dewey. Learning here is about developing our capacity to examine our inner lives and the world around us, question what we find and act within it.

Facilitators offer knowledge, create opportunities and support reflection. They do not decide what another person's experience means or what conclusions they should reach.

Five movements run through the life and learning of the School:

Make room · Listen · Choose · Practise · Return

We make room to notice what everyday routines can conceal. We listen to ourselves, to one another and to the world. We explore what matters and what is possible to choose. We practise different ways of acting, relating and living. And we return to the lives and places from which we came, carrying questions, experiments and sometimes new commitments.

There is no right way around the wheel; there is no way at all. These five movements overlap, interrupt one another and appear in unexpected places. They are an invitation to explore, not a map of where anyone is supposed to arrive.

Activities at the School engage mind, body and spirit: conversations, theatre, sacred contemplation, music, painting, dancing, woodcarving or collectively caring for the nature that hosts us.

What makes these experiences educational is not the activity alone, but the opportunity to reflect on it, question it and explore what it means to us.

There is no single right way to participate. People can disagree, keep things private, decline an activity or choose to leave.

The Wild School's programmes are carefully designed and sequenced. They have themes, questions, practices and resources that give learning continuity and direction. But for each cohort, we adapt the curriculum to respond to your ideas and needs, involving our returning students. The way of the river invites participants to express their vision and expectations so that together we can adapt it. The way of the forest offers an even deeper possibility of change, where in the course of the five gatherings, we imagine together the involvement of other returning students. Your questions, experiences and discoveries can also change the activities, emphases and direction of inquiry.

Something here may change your life. But eventually, you will leave. What happens at the School must find its place in the life you return to: your relationships, work, communities and the wider world.

We take that very seriously, helping you find ways to bring what you learn into everyday life and offering the opportunity of a later check-in with your group.