When we first started exploring the topic, we thought about elements such as methodology and about teachers facilitating learning. This was our rationale on a conscious level, but with hindsight, there must have been more to our thinking while we selected a team 8 facilitators comprising a shaman, a yoga teacher, two philosophers, a psychologist, a social-media-enthusiastic school-head and a couple of action research aficionadas… In fact, during our first preparations we quickly realised that what can make a difference for pedagogy is not so much learning a set of tools and methods, but rather understanding why we are teachers (motivation), who we are as teachers (power, identity and value base), and what we see as our purpose in society (vision of society, purpose of education and teacher roles).

This is why the 2015 edition of the Summer school offered 30+ courses revolving mainly around personal development. Themes of courses included: ethics, identity, conscious communication, imagination, creative writing, arts, voice, body and movement, and spiritual journeys.

There was a gradual realisation by participants that they were not here to get any “ready-made recipes for good pedagogy”, but would instead be engaged on an intensive journey to discover themselves and understand how

“We (teachers) are the pedagogy!”

Summer school 2015 at a glance

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6		Day 7		Day 8
Open space Day	Common activities: (whole group) soap boxes[1], Socratic walks, TASKs for democracy, roundtable debate, excursions
	Long courses (15h) “The being of a teacher”  (with a interruption on days 4 and 5) -       Conscious communication -       The fourfold way: the warrior, the healer, the visionary, the teacher -       Teacher as learner -       Action research
	Short courses (1½ -3h): acceptance, active listening, arts, assessment, body in learning, creative writing, conflict resolution, empathy, fun in learning, imagination, identity, influence, nature as teacher, philosophy of education, personal development journeys (drum & voice), rapport building, sexuality education…
Base groups	Base groups	Base groups	Base groups	Base groups	Base groups	Base groups		Evaluation

Pestalozzi Summer school 2015 – Voices from the field

 “You have to be there to experience it,

 it cannot be easily described”.

(S. B., Personal communication, Participant of the Summer school)

With this participant, we feel that this course is not easy to describe.

This is why we have chosen to send our report of the summer school this year through a video, for which we interviewed participants, (individually or in their base group), and team members, to give a feel of what this experience is like and what this summer school was all about.

Video report