Ruskin Mill Educational Trust from Stourbridge, England, offers a holistic and student- centered approach to the education and care of young people who fall between the cracks of mainstream education. This year we welcome back the craftsmen from Ruskin Mill who will be integrating the crafts and Rudolf Steiner’s human developmental insights. Featuring workshops and presentations, this course will support teachers who wish to learn interdisciplinary and cross curricular approaches and techniques that may be adapted to various ages in the elementary or high school years.

Inspired by Aonghus Gordon and using the insights of Rudolf Steiner, John Ruskin and William Morris, Ruskin Mill Educational Trust works with head, heart, hand and place to provide students with the tools to transform material and in doing so transform themselves. Thus self-generated, conscious action is at the heart of this practitioner curriculum. It has been seen and experienced that when students work with craftspeople in natural environments on real- life, purposeful tasks, their personal, emotional and social skills, behavior, and health improve dramatically.

This five-day Renewal course involves craft work with materials sourced from the four kingdoms of nature. Workshop activities span all 12 grades within the context of age-appropriate delivery.

 

This year the following Crafts will be offered:

FROM THREAD TO FABRIC with Stuart Groom who has worked at Freeman College for years and is an outstanding textile weaver and pedagogue who uses thread to braid the strands of thinking, feeling, and willing and create fiber art and hangings.

FROM TREE TO CHAIR with Chris Halliwell who has worked at Ruskin Mill College for 18 years. Participants will shape and turn within the circle of the senses to create three-legged stools and other items.

FROM ASHES TO GOLD with Jonathan Code who has worked at Ruskin Mill College for over a decade. Participants will be making gold balms that may be applied to the heart. This will allow participants to experience a synthesis of the kingdoms of nature.

MASKMAKING with Michael Chase will be creating face casts and masks by exploring the soul journey through adolescence using key archetypes as guidance.

These hands-on workgroups will be coupled with daily research- based presentations by Aonghus Gordon, offering an opportunity to penetrate the finely honed therapeutic crafts curriculum originated at Ruskin Mill. The themes Aonghus will work with in his presentations are:

The Architecture of Braiding Waldorf Education, Biodynamics, and Anthroposophical Medical Insight; The Genius of Place-based Education; Impediments in Child and Adolescent Development; and, Grasp, Focus and Step, the Compass of Three-dimensional Orientation and Initiatory Rites for Adolescents. In addition, each craftsperson will present his own specialist craft in child and adolescent support for all attendees.

Materials Fee: $50

AONGHUS GORDON attended Rudolf Steiner schools, trained as an artist and teacher, and traveled extensively before renovating Ruskin Mill in England in 1982 into the Ruskin Mill Arts and Crafts Centre. In 1984 he founded the Living Earth Training Course, which developed into the Ruskin Mill Educational Trust in 1996. In 1994, he co-founded Hiram Trust. He has co-founded three colleges: Waldorf College in 1999, Glasshouse College, Stourbridge, in 2000 and Freeman College, Sheffield, in 2005. He was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005.