ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses therapeutic education, the fourth field of Ruskin Mill Trust's method of Practical Skills Therapeutic Education. It visits Grace Garden School in Bristol, where young people with complex additional needs spend as much time as possible outdoors, within a curriculum which combines education, agriculture, health and therapy. Central to therapeutic education is the understanding that craft, farming and so on are not being taught primarily for vocational reasons but as tools to support physical, cognitive and emotional development. This takes place within a broad understanding of the phases of human development and the need to re-step stages which may have been missed for a variety of reasons. A checklist of 12 senses is used to assess this. A conversation with the Trust's founder Aonghus Gordon discusses the need to reconnect knowledge and action, the importance of human autonomy, the challenge for young people of entering the world and Ruskin Mill's contemporary apprenticeship model. This chapter also discusses the inspiration Ruskin Mill draws from Rudolf Steiner's contribution to educational theory.
