Thomas Henry Huxley’s research was so impressive that in 1851 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; this however brought him no income. After a considerable career in the Navy as a voyaging surgeon, he left it to carry on his career in science.
I have been thinking about the nature of education and how necessary inclusive education is to a healthy society. Education involves a social behaviour which is built significantly from the dialogue of learning. Francis Bacon is often attributed with having said ‘Knowledge is Power’. Regardless of who first said this, what is obvious is that it has become common currency as a phrase.
After being prompted we have done much thinking and deliberating and working out the cost/benefits of intellectual property and officialdom, we decided to change the collective name from that of ‘Ragged University’ to The Ragged Project…Ragged-Online, Ragged Talks, Ragged Publishing, Ragged Music; you get the picture. Read more…
I was recently made aware of the most amazing practical demonstration of what motivation involves. Whilst reading through Andy Cranwell’s website, it struck me as interesting the way he approaches team building. He makes reference to The Fun Theory through, amongst other things, the piano stairs. This video is an impressive example of how the perception of the task defines the response to it. This rings true to me on a number of levels… Read more…
In helping bring together the Ragged University I have been working with lots of people who are keen to make a success of this as an inclusive education project. In day to day life we meet and interact with many people and human relationships are always complex. I mean complex in the sense that even the smallest moments of speaking, working or interacting with others, involve countless and immeasurable factors which feed into the exchange and outcomes. This I think is why other people enrich our lives so much, fascinate us, and consistently educate us.
The idea was simple: we had spent so many great evenings together talking to each other (and also to complete strangers) about subjects we were passionate about, and had learnt so much from each other (and from the strangers), thatAlfigured surely there could be a way of creating an environment in which anyone, no matter who they were or their background, could get together in an informal setting and share their passion and knowledge. Read more…
A famous quote is that of Thomas Carlyle stating economics as the dismal science. Thomas Carlyle complained that society had become mechanical and lost much of its humanity because of the abstraction of ‘real things’ into monetary terms. Read more…
