Steiner Alumni, Beatrice Jeavons

As part of our 25 Year Celebrations, we recently caught up with one of our alumni, Beatrice Jeavons. Bea was born in Mparntwe | Alice Springs. She is a Creative Producer, and Climate Impact Manager working in the Arts and Cultural sector. Bea currently live in Adelaide, but has studied in Glasgow, Scotland, and lived and worked in Norway, Canada, upstate New York, and Germany. 

For the best part of the last decade, I have been working with festivals, events, arts organisations, and touring musicians to reduce their environmental impact and mobilise action on the climate and biodiversity crisis. Last year, in collaboration with Julie's Bicycle, the British Arts Council and the Australia Council for the Arts, I co-produced Australia's first Culture and Environment Roundtable and Climate Crisis and the Arts, a free one-day event as part of the Adelaide Festival’s program. 

In November 2022, I launched Creative Climate Action, an environmental action course to build frameworks and set goals for sustainability in the live music and arts sector. I am also a project manager and campaigner and I’ve worked with Green Music Australia on the Green Action programs, AMIDESI and Sound Country: A Green Artists guide and I worked on campaigns such as the ‘Party with the Planet’ and ‘No Music on a Dead Planet’.

My passion is nature and the environment. I am either spending time in the outdoors or building protection of our living systems by working with organisations to make this a central focus in their work and operations (be it through programming, policies, practice, or advocacy).  

In the brief pockets between projects, I spend time as an outdoor guide leading expeditions or trail running to save our wild places. My work strives to create places and spaces where our environment, art, and culture can co-exist or, better yet, band together for further climate action. Currently, Bea is the Climate Impact Manager at FEAT. Live and in the early-stage developments of producing a green touring documentary.

I was a student at The Alice Springs Steiner School in its fledging years from 1998-2005, back in the day, when we were spotted between the cottages at Araluen, behind the Araluen Arts Centre, before its current home on Ragonesi Road. In the Araluen days, I can remember climbing trees, running around on fresh green grass, and hiding around the cottages.

The move provided quite the contrast; a landscape more representative of Central Australia. A shift that could have been quite challenging, but I remember nothing but high spirits and more of a delight for the new exploration and paving the way forwards. Now as the older cohort of students in Class 5 & 6, I was the only girl in, and my dad Christopher Brocklebank was my teacher. Which provided for a mix of entertainment and a few 'weeding detentions'. 

I remember so much from Steiner! I remember baking bread, climbing trees, the school Fair and dipping candles. I remember the Main Lessons and the joy in being able to be creative in the ways we learnt and digested information. Most of my memories are a mix of being connected to nature in some way, whether in the garden, playing at lunch and recess to the backdrop of the landscape, or weeding as part of a somewhat detention (see above). 

I think Steiner education has a wonderful way of fostering a creative way of thinking. There is a connection to nature, food, music, arts, people, and community. Attending Steiner in my earlier school days has influenced the work I do now in bringing creativity to complex problems and learning by doing. The way we learn was very much connected to our environment, from the materials we used, to the diversity of mediums. 

Steiner education recognises the power of collective learning through creativity and play. I think by encouraging students to learn not only from their teachers, but as part of a collective and the surrounding environment, it helps students to nurture and develop social skills, as they feel safe in their own capacities and learning style. 

Steiner education also incorporated a wonderful mix of appreciation and admiration for our natural world, and a connection with others that has influenced my life and work. And lets not forget a strong sense of community.  

If you are thinking about sending your child/children to Steiner, DO IT! Especially for Primary School! I loved it. I think now more than ever, we need more creativity and connection in the world and new ways of doing things. And I think that Steiner education encourages that and allows students to embrace their own way of learning and doing.