Newsflash: Dyslexic Makes Typo on Flyer....

...Extra Extra Read all about it....

New free education project manager Alex Dunedin delivers leaflet with spelling mistake. The event being held at the Blind Poet on the 6th of July at 7pm was being advertised with a quote from Great Educator Mary Wollstonecraft but the copy lacked a consonant - to his shock and surprise.

When asked about it he said "B.F.D (Bone Fide Distraction) not to worry, no big deal, in fact, the more we think about language the more important it is to realise that living language is an organic thing"

When asked, Dr Johnston said "language is as mutable as a cloud". Billy Shakespeare united the local dialects in his work to create an expansion of the English language which popularized and shaped the whole of it's future. Despite being accused of being a common hack at the time he is now considered the height of culture now.

Dyslexia has made me casual about formal language in a creative context. Since discovering the excellent work of Oxford Neurosciences on dyslexia much of the problems of reading certain texts have resolved.

This does not omit the importance of formal language, a misplaced letter here or there in a technical document can be as affecting as a misplaced decimal point in mathematics.

"This is a good opportunity to raise awareness of what dyslexia is or is not". for so long is has been a little understood condition which is by no means a handicap" said Alex. In criticism of his response, spokesperson for W.T.F (We're Too Formal) said "A fine excuse for a typo ! Must try harder Dunedin !"

A Crash Course in Social Capital

So, what is social capital ? Jeremy Shearmur describes social capital as loosely as situations where people choose to voluntarily associate with each other and where membership in that group serves as a free resource to those members.

Why is it important ? I feel that social capital is important because it expresses community or belonging. I suppose that it is because we are social creatures and I suggest we are social creatures because of the greater benefits of being part of a community than of being solitary.

Social capital is a phrase being explored and studied across the world. Vivid importance has been attached to there being social capital in culture and it has been suggested that it is vital for stable growth economies, happy communities, healthy communities, efficient administrations, and effective learning environments.


Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam are three major names who have done famous research on this area. Similarly the concept is not necessarily new but can be found expressed in Aristotle, Alexis de Tocqueville, and many other thinkers. As an exercise in understanding, it is good to think about what value trust has.

The Economist equates social capital to trust, and Partha Das Gupta explores trust in context with economics. This is a rich area of study which warrants being looked at and brought into everyone's lives and conversations. Some basic descriptions follow:

Bourdieu: 'Social capital is the 'the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition' (Bourdieu 1983: 249).

Coleman: 'Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities, having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of a social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure' (Coleman 1994: 302).

Putnam: 'Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called “civic virtue.” The difference is that “social capital” calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a sense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital' (Putnam 2000: 19).

The World Bank: 'Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions... Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds them together' (The World Bank 1999).

Social Capital and Trust For John Field the central thesis of social capital theory is that 'relationships matter'. The central idea is that 'social networks are a valuable asset'. Interaction enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric. A sense of belonging and the concrete experience of social networks (and the relationships of trust and tolerance that can be involved) can, it is argued, bring great benefits to people.

Trust between individuals thus becomes trust between strangers and trust of a broad fabric of social institutions; ultimately, it becomes a shared set of values, virtues, and expectations within society as a whole. Without this interaction, on the other hand, trust decays; at a certain point, this decay begins to manifest itself in serious social problems.

The concept of social capital contends that building or rebuilding community and trust requires face-to-face encounters. There is now a range of evidence that communities with a good 'stock' of such 'social capital' are more likely to benefit from lower crime figures, better health, higher educational achievement, and better economic growth.

However, there can also be a significant downside. Groups and organizations with high social capital have the means (and sometimes the motive) to work to exclude and subordinate others. Furthermore, the experience of living in close knit communities can be stultifying - especially to those who feel they are 'different' in some important way.

Measuring networks and shared values is not a simple black and white thing to do. People and cultures are organic, dynamic, interdependent, flowing. With this borne in mind we can make rough attempts to measure the impact, as have done the Office for National Statistics:

Social capital describes the pattern and intensity of networks among people and the shared values which arise from those networks. Greater interaction between people generates a greater sense of community spirit. Definitions of social capital vary, but the main aspects include citizenship, 'neighbourliness',social networks and civic participation.

The definition used by ONS,taken from the Office for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is "networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups". Why does social capital matter? Research has shown that higher levels of social capital are associated with better health, higher educational achievement, better employment outcomes, and lower crime rates.

In other words, those with extensive networks are more likely to be "housed, healthy, hired and happy". All of these areas are of concern to both policy makers and community members alike. How do we measure social capital? There are a number of different aspects to social capital and measuring the level of social capital in communities can be complex. In many surveys respondents are asked a range of questions that cover a variety of issues.

They commonly focus on:- Levels of trust - for example, whether individuals trust their neighbours and whether they consider their neighbourhood a place where people help each other.- Membership - for example, to how many clubs, societies or social groups individuals belong.- Networks and how much social contact individuals have in their lives - for example, how often individuals see family and friends. What are networks? Formal and informal networks are central to the concept of social capital.

They are defined as the personal relationships which are accumulated when people interact with each other in families, workplaces, neighbourhoods, local associations and a range of informal and formal meeting places. Different types of social capital can be described in terms of different types of networks:

Bonding social capital – describes closer connections between people and is characterised by strong bonds e.g. among family members or among members of the same ethnic group; it is good for 'getting by' in life.

Bridging social capital – describes more distant connections between people and is characterised by weaker, but more cross-cutting ties e.g. with business associates, acquaintances, friends from different ethnic groups, friends of friends, etc; it is good for 'getting ahead' in life.

Linking social capital – describes connections with people in positions of power and is characterised by relations between those within a hierarchy where there are differing levels of power; it is good for accessing support from formal institutions. It is different from bonding and bridging in that it is concerned with relations between people who are not on an equal footing.

All of this has led me to bring together the Ragged University as an inclusive social capital project. We as individuals are all Ragged Universities – that is unique and distinct bodys of knowledge. By coming together to realise each others work and creative endeavours everyone prospers. The fundamental premise of this is having trust in each other and working together through mutual respect.

Great Educators: Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797

“The most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the hear. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as well render it independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of it's own reason”

Mary Wollstonecraft left home after receiving a haphazard education in a miserable and unloving family situation. She spent the next nine years in some of the few occupations open to unmarried women at that time. First she was a companion to a widow in Bath. Next, with the help of a sister and close friend, she established and ran a school for girls; then when that venture had to close, she became a governess.

When she was dismissed from her last position, Joseph Johnson who had published her 1786 tract “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters” gave her housing, hired her to write for his new 'Analytic Review', and introduced her to an intimate circle of literary friends whose number included William Blake, William Godwin and Tom Paine.

In this environment she came into her own. Her great leap was to come in 1790 when Wollstonecraft published 'A Vindication of the Rights of Men' in reply to Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' which made her a public figure. It was in 1792 that she published her opus 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' which was a landmark in egalitarian literature.

Praised by radical thinkers of the time and damned by the conservatives, her treatise propelled her to fame both in England and abroad. When she arrived in revolutionary Paris in late 1792 she was to discover that a French translation of that work had preceded her. She went on to marry William Godwin, author of the acclaimed radical treatise 'Enquiry Concerning Political Justice'.

It was a loss to the world that she would not have the opportunity to repeat this achievement. In August 1797 Mary Wollstonecraft died after complications in childbirth. The child lived, and her portrait (as that of her mother's), can be seen hanging in London's National Portrait Gallery after reaching fame herself when at the age of 19 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley wrote the great gothic novel Frankenstein.

Such an influence she had that great authors and feminists like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emma Goldman, Virginia Woolf, as well as Simone de Beauvoir are among the many thinkers who have paid tribute in their own writings to Wollstonecraft.

So often 'A Vindication of the Rights of Women' has been compartmentalised and read only as a political or feminist text, but an intellect such as Wollstonecrafts must not be confined to pigeon holes. Just as she draws upon Rousseau's text Emile, we can do so as well – 'Read Plato's Republic. It is the most beautiful educational treatise ever written'. In this spirit, the Republic is both a political and an educational treatise as can also be perceived of Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women.

It is a celebration of the rationality of women. It constitutes an attack on the view of female education espoused by Rousseau and countless others which would render women artificial and weak by subordinating cultivation of understanding to the acquisition of some 'corporeal accomplishment'.

To be a moral individual Wollstonecraft stated one must exercise one's reason: 'The being cannot be termed rational, or virtuous, who obeys any authority but that of reason'. The exercise of reason requires, in turn, that knowledge and understanding be cultivated. In other words an education of the mind is essential for the rationality that is the mark of the truly virtuous person.

One of her positions of argument was that if the requirements of morality and also of immortality demand that woman's education develop her reason as fully as possible, so do the requirements of the wife-mother role. In vindicating women's rights, she rejected the education in dependency that Rousseau prescribed. A woman must be intelligent in her own right, she argued, because she cannot assume that her husband will be intelligent. Moreover, 'Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers'.

Wollstonecraft was a spirit of the Enlightenment. Reason served as the starting point for her philosophy as it did John Locke's. She believed that there are rights that human beings inherit because they are rational creatures; that rationality forms the basis of these rights because reason, itself God-given, enables them to grasp truth and thus acquire knowledge of right and wrong; that the possession of reason raises humans above brute creation; and that through its exercise they became moral and ultimately political agents.

Wollstonecraft was someone who systematically argued for bringing women into the enfranchised world domain. The originality and profundity of her ideas are to be found in the extension of the Enlightenment philosophy to women. In A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft brings forth a threefold argument:

1: A rebutal of the presumption that woman are not rational but are slaves to their passions

2: A demonstration that if the rights of man are extended to females, women's domestic duties will not suffer

3: The proposition of an education and upbringing for females that will sufficiently develop their ability to reason independently so that they will clearly deserve the same political rights as men

Approaching the first task she documented the details of what has come to be known as female socialisation displaying a sensitivity to the educative powers of the community on a par with Plato.

She proposed an experiment in living – since women have been denied the very education necessary for the development of reason, it is impossible, she said, to know if they are rational by nature; thus cultivate their understanding and then see if women are not rational creatures. By shifting the burden of proof onto those who deny female rationality, she turned a question about political rights into one about education.

Wollstonecraft's approach to the second part of her great argument was to incorporate the characteristics of rationality and personal autonomy that the Enlightenment associated with the good citizen into her redefinition of the wife-mother role; she made the performance of women's domestic duties dependent on the extension of the rights of man to woman.

To accomplish her third task it must be understand that although the idea of female education she put forward constituted a wholesale rejection of Rousseau's recommendations for the education of girls, it incorporated the education Rousseau designed for males. She managed to appropriate the Enlightenment's philosophy of men's rights and bring them to more egalitarian terms. Needless to say, Rousseau would have been horrified, and he would have been all the more distressed to learn that she wanted men and women to receive identical educations but also to be educated together.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, reformers started translating Wollstonecraft's coeducational philosophy into practice. By the end of that period coeducation had become a fact of life for millions and millions of people around the world. The problem that occurred was that in the reification of Wollstonecraft's vision the inequities of the old paradigm were carried in to the new bringing with it the problems she had tried to resolve.

Unfortunately, as the official tracking system of separate schools with distinctive curricula for males and females became all but extinct, a de facto gender tracking system within coeducation developed to take it's place. The coeducational classroom climate would be a chilly one for women.

In 1932 Virginia Woolf wrote that the originality of A Vindication of Womens Rights 'has become our commonplace'; however, so far as Wollstonecraft's educational vision is concerned this judgement was premature as was brought into perspective in Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own'; an extended essay on patriarchalisms which dominated the literary and learning landscape.

All in all what Mary Wollstonecraft gifted in educational thought to the world has yet to reveal all it's benefits and fruits. She was someone out of her time, someone who was relentless in her intellectual pursuit of rationality, and someone who had the high mindedness to see a truly equal landscape. As a great educator I think everyone should be familiar with her work.

Roberta Wedge has written an interesting blog on Mary Wollstonecraft pointing out some of the things that she managed to do in her relatively short live. You can find her blog here