Green School - Bali, Indonesia

Jurgen Zimmer
Director of Learning Village

Professor emeritus Dr. Juergen Zimmer, Director of the Learning Village, is a transcontinentally experienced and respected innovator in education. His concept is characterized by UNESCO as a “new standard of educational excellence for the world community of the 21st century” and “world-class innovative effort in the field of education”.

The Development Forum of the United Nations has published a report on his concept with the title “Life-situation approach makes more sense” (Vol. XVI, No.6). The paper reports on kindergartens and schools in Europe, Asian and Latin American countries which work with this approach. In this report we find: “Probably the greatest difference between academic schools and his kindergartens and schools is that the first is an institution and the second a dynamic process. The gathering together of concerned groups, learning about experience, finding resources, the participation of parents, students and community at all stages, identifying life-situations and turning them into curriculum-elements, dealing with the situations, recording and evaluating the work undertaken, planning further projects, the growing solidarity of the community as people find they can act effectively together – all these are part of the learning process. One cannot overestimate the importance of this pilot work. These kindergartens and schools have shown that education can encourage creativity, self-reliance and constructive community action – that through an imaginative and practical combination of life-situations and fact-based learning. The three R’s can be taught without drilling, stress or overtaxing the students. This is only the beginning.”

In Germany he was directing the nationwide reform of kindergartens. Numerous countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America requested his consultancy and cooperation. His focus is early childhood education, schooling, intercultural and international education, community education and development, and entrepreneurship education.

He is a Professor emeritus for Educational Science at the Free University of Berlin. There he founded the International Academy for Innovative Education, Psychology and Economy. In Thailand he is the co-founder and president of the School for Life in Chiang Mai and the executive director of the Beluga School for Life in Phan Nga, and the director for international affairs of the Rural and Social Management Institute in Bangkok. He was member of the German UNESCO Commission and acts now as Conseiller Cultural of the African Diplomatic Academy in Paris/France.
One of his masterpieces is the development of United Schools for Life, of “Open Learning Villages” (UNESCO) with an unique combination of excellent schooling and entrepreneurial centers of excellence.