Soesterberg, Netherlands

Photographer: Annette Nijenbanning

Year of Submission: 2016 (Educators Edition) 

After deciding that today’s schools could not prepare their five children to live in today’s world, Gerdt and Janneke Kernkamp set up their own school in their home in Soesterberg, a town in the northern Netherlands. Already they have sixteen children learning at the school. Classes alternate between interdisciplinary projects, personal leadership lessons, traditional subjects and expeditions – trips to museums or a local race track for the younger children, journeys to other countries to learn languages and life skills for the older ones. “At our school a student takes an individual learning path,” say Gerdt and Janneke. “Learning is divided between making your own choices and working together in a peer group setting. Who am I? What do I see in the world? What talents do I have to share with the world? All children need a broad range of knowledge and experiences to figure out these questions.”