On meeting Glenn Liddall of People Know How, I was very pleasantly surprised. We had been introduced because we are both involved in the idea of cultivating community and trying to create opportunities for people where they are most needed. My role in Ragged University is to listen to people, appreciate the time and energy they have invested in their subject, and try and support them get where they want to be – wherever that is. Glenn has a similar vision, and we met and discussed the possibilities of People Know How and Ragged University working together in partnership. What grabbed me is the humanity that Glenn carries around with him. From the off I got the sense that he understands that life is messy, complex and non-standard; and that helping people starts with listening and forming a conversation. Read more…
Even in cases where no specified mental illness at all is ever claimed to exist, treatment powers and just the threat of their use, can devastate lives long term when child maltreatment situations, which are obviously not the child’s fault, come to involve child psychiatry. That happened to me, though I am not a person who has ever been labelled to have any mental illness. I have Asperger syndrome, but I belong to the generation who have only been recognised as adults. As a teenager I was not diagnosed with any condition at all. Read more…
Should research – especially research produced or undertaken by people funded by taxation – be accessible to all? Should it be always in the public domain? Should there be a compulsion to have it written in clear English (or French, Russian, Mandarin……), using terminology that is pretty much universally accessible and comprehensible? If our taxation paid for it, it’s ours? Is there any value – other than to those in the inner circle of its production – in research for continued funding, for publication, for status, for career progression, ego or for the impressing of close colleagues. It seems that may be the currency currently driving our HE institutions, and maybe researchers don’t like it but if them’s the rules, what can they do but comply? But is that the case, and should it be? Read more…
“I would like to send a message to staff, teachers and tutors – all young adult carers need help. Some staff need to respect the fact that when we leave college or school at the end of the day, we don’t go home and go out with friends, we go home and take care of someone until they are in bed. It’s a hard job but it’s the best job ever.” Leanne: Voices of young adult carers on barriers to accessing higher education.
This is an appeal that has gone out for people interested in learning and valuing people to take part in helping develop a co-operative model of education. The appeal comes from Joss Winn and Mike Neary at Lincoln Social Science Centre – a hub of profound thinking on how we as a society can reach new and more equitable models of education: Read more…
This is an interview with Eleanor Cunningham who opened the Edinburgh Larder in 2009. In search for sustainable and ethical businesses, coming across Edinburgh Larder was a surprise. Combining locally collected and seasonal produce in recipes which reflect the flavours and tastes of Scotland, she has demonstrated that highly successful business is viable through sustainable practices. Read more…
