Historical Document: Glasgow Ragged University

A group of people in Glasgow decided to put on Ragged University events with the help of people across cities to do things like graphic design, webdesign, developing the project documents, publicity, etc… Many events were organised and delivered by Carrie Westwater, David Hughes, David Newman, Heather Sinclair and others. Unfortunately there are no further events planned at the moment in Glasgow as the coordinators there have been focusing on different areas of work. Supreme thanks to them for putting on so many brilliant and fun talks and activities. Read more…

Education in the Negative Sense

What comes to mind when we think of the word ‘Education‘ ? On one hand we must acknowledge that education has been used as much as a tool of oppression than as a means of liberation and collective progress. Thinking of the namesake of this project – The Ragged Schools – we can find lots of examples where the noble idea of sharing knowledge for the good of all was perverted to petty tyrannies. Read more…

Education History: A Brief History of Ragged Schools

Ragged schools is a name commonly given after about 1840 to the many independently established 19th century charity schools in the United Kingdom which provided entirely free education and, in most cases, food, clothing, lodging and other home missionary services for those too poor to pay. In many ways the movement embodied the notion of education as human development. Read more…

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

“Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules”
Wayne Dyer

The Ragged project has chosen the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as it’s guiding ethos and document. All talks and activities of the Ragged project must fit within the scope of the U.D.H.R. If you have any questions or queries please get in touch.
After the world wars of the 20th century, it was thought that it might be a good idea to have an association of most of the countries in the world where they could work out their problems peacefully with diplomacy instead of warfare. This organization could mediate in arguments between nations, and it could also help with crises in poor countries, vaccinating children, digging wells, providing medicines, and also serve peace-keeping functions in places where war was likely.
Read more…

Conference: Rethinking Inequality in Historical Perspective

Through working with the Public Engagement Policy of the University of Manchester and working closely with Susan Brown, I was called to do a presentation in University of Manchester on ‘Rethinking Inequality in Historical Perspective’. Pedro Ramos Pinto and Patrick Joyce were the key organizers and invited me to make a contribution by virtue of the Ragged project, as it is both an inclusive project and one borrowed from history.

Ragged University Events Are Free Events

All the Ragged University events are free and open to everyone. With the project model having been tested and critiqued widely, Ragged University is now moving forward to explore how many positives can come from doing something so straight forward as open learning events where people talk in social spaces. Much well intentioned comment has come with the perspective that Ragged should charge for the events, even if just a token amount.

Well, this is not something which is going to happen as it would change the model in a fundamental way.

Who Can Do A Talk ?

Anyone can do a talk at a Ragged event so long as they love their subject and are invested in it, and so long as that talk fits within the following guidelines: