Education can be many things

I have been thinking about the nature of education and always having been familiar with the noble aspects of this tenet of human society, I have not thought much about the negatives which it can manifest as.

Sir 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. There are various ways in which this can be interpreted but one I like, which is not so commonly encounterd is “Knowledge is only powerful when it is shared” (thank you Francis Benton).

This makes me think that education only gains it's potency when it is inclusive. To me, education is knowledge shared and it's carriage is enjoyment. The delight of having someone understand what you are saying is something which intimately social and enriches our environment. This inclusivity is key to empowering the knowledge which can make positive social change.

Whatever way I chalk up education in it's inclusive form, it yields equilateral benefits. It is when knowledge becomes an exclusive enterprise that it loses much of it's power and majesty. Education in it's highest form does not set people up to fail but constantly revisits it's last known communal point and endeavours to extend its horizon.

In these term education is when someone who knows something shares an expression of that knowledge with someone who is new to it. If the person who has the knowledge rejects the other person because they do not know what knowledge they hold, it is an exclusive enterprise and more akin to a mutual appreciation society devoid of fertile ground.

It is less about enriching the world (both inner and outer) through discourse and more about self affirmation through status comparison. Not allowing people to recount and adapt is not facilitating learning it is prescribing a colloquial elitism. Imagine if Albert Einstein's work had been forever rejected on the basis of a spelling or grammar error which is particular to a school of thought !

Many vocational teachers and academics have expressed to me that they learn that 'there is no stupid question, only stupid answers' and that 'if I truly know my subject then I can find a way to express it which will allow anyone to understand what I know.' This sharing is what has inspired in me an aspiration of the beauty of things which I previously thought dull, mundane, ugly or just rubbish.

Here is to the individual who made that vital and bright spark in our lives opening out 'a universe in a grain of sand' without motive beyond sharing the awe which makes their day to day life an ever extending pleasure.

Here is to the friend who taught me of the history and heritage in each brick or carefully hewn stone, signed by it's author in craftsmanship. Here is to those who have taken the time to enlighten me through entertaining chat over a coffee, beer or bite to eat, making me realise how much painstaking attention to detail has gone into the pointing of a building or the turn of a phrase.

Here is to the person who has recognised in others a passion and brought them into a fold to mentor them because they saw in another human themselves – someone who similarly did not have the knowledge once upon a time.

This is enlightenment and the betterment of all which is quite beyond the Malthusian spectre of resources. This is the path to the shared solution of such a logistical hill which we all address.

Here is to climbing that hill through constructive and not destructive means. Knowledge is a limitless resource and our existential crisis' are quite enough to bind us together. I also think that pleasures can bind us together too. Here is to you all who care to share and think !

Ragged Rebrand....

Announcement: We are now changing our face to Ragged ! After much thinking and deliberating and working out the cost/benefits we have decided to change the collective name from that of 'Ragged University' to 'Ragged'...

....Ragged-online, Ragged Talks, Ragged Publishing, Ragged Music; you get the picture. The story is worth telling as we are learning much as we go along on this journey...

...It, of course, must begin with the inspiration of the Ragged Schools and the collective efforts of philanthropists and entrepreneurs to transform the social landscape of Britain. These peoples felt, tried and succeeded in bringing about equilateral positive social change whilst improving the economy.

Thus the inspiration for the Ragged University project. We made our application to become an official charity and four and a half months later we receive a response saying we must refrain from using the word 'university' in our title pending processing of our application. Here is the crux of the letter:

To use this word for the purpose of carrying on business requires the prior approval of the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills. The requirements are set out in section 1194 of the Companies Act 2006 and in The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business names (Sensitive Words and Expressions) Regulations 2009 (SI2009/2615)....

...This word can only be used in a name by a body that satisfies the Department's separate criteria for university title; these relate to student numbers, good governance and taught Degree Awarding Powers. If the venture satisfies the criteria, BIS will be happy to support its use of the word in its name....

...I appreciate that the activities as described on your website may be charitable and that there is no attempt to misuse the word university....

This is of course important legislation and the the principle of legislation should be respected. There are various ways of looking at it but primarily the legislation we fall under is there to protect the public against misuse of words which carry certain weight and credentials. The idea of being able to buy a degree, for instance, is as corrupt as being able to buy a gold medal or the outcome of a football match.

So I called them up and spoke to a very nice John Sclater who apologised for the trouble and said that they felt that it was a “laudible project” but nevertheless we must fill the criteria if we want o use the word 'university' in our title.

To this I informed him that we offer no accreditation, we have no student body and told him that our good governance is guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as laid out in our policy (which I forwarded to him). It seems that this is a bit of an unusual situation we are in and dont exactly fit the boxes that have been laid out for us, thus a debate has started about the credible and correct use of the word in this context.

Much as the nice Mr Sclater and his department have been very helpful in guiding us through this process, I looked at the calendar and started to weigh things up as the letters of support started to roll in backing our application. My spidy-senses started to tingle...

I thought about all the time and energy which could and would go into winning the application and thought about what else could be done with the untold hours and efforts which must be summoned just to use the word in our name. After tussling with this I thought the opportunity cost was potentially draining to the project. What is is in a name I asked ? And what is our name ? The answer seemed very clear to me – Ragged !

We are about being dynamic and want to avoid drifting off into a quagmire of law, potential argumentation and semantic philosophy. I made the motion to rebrand as Ragged which does not exclude the fact that we can emphasize to people the soul of the idea - “Everybody is a Ragged University”

This is what it is all about – the project is not about bureaurcracy, legislation, semantics, or spending our collective efforts doing anything which is not progressive or productive for the community. The interpretation of words in context with the law can be very mutable, so let us move on and roll over the permafrost of indecision making decisive pragmatic moves to get Madras teaching into social spaces and realise each others projects.

The Ragged project lives, it does not dither.... so, our announcement is this – We are the Ragged project and we coordinate Ragged Talks, we are Ragged-online and realise peoples work through Ragged Publishing. We have Ragged Music forming and Ragged Film rolling.

Year two – here we come – Yeeeeeehaaaaa !!!!!

The Ways in Which We Do Things...

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.

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates People is a brilliant part of the The Royal Society of Arts website. Not only have the RSA managed to make something which delights me as a piece of art being created before my eyes, but it conveys a lot of knowledge in an easily digestible form. In a nutshell, what I draw from it is what motivates people is their passions !

An expression I have heard and like is 'the first step is half the journey'. When that first step is taken effortlessly I think it is generally something which innately rewards people, and when this is the case, great things can come of the journey. I am of the opinion that individuals are not born with 'talents' but acquire them through the happenstance of their inspiration.

Inspiration can, of course, come in all guises; a kiss, a word, a sight, a kindness, an encounter. An inspiration puts fire in our belly to know intimately and wholly, everything about something, somebody, sometime...

What drives you ? It is a good exercise to think about how you wound up doing what you do today - who or what created that spark ? Also, I like the question to pose yourself - if you take the last six months of your life, would you be happy to repeat it for eternity ?

My bet is that people get good at what they love should it have been nurtured and allowed to have been nurtured...

How Hard it is to Make Policy

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, countless factors feed into the exchange and outcome. This I think is why other people enrich our lives, fascinate us, educate us.

When a group of individuals come together to achieve a common aim, the idea of organisation comes into play. Obviously the ideal situation is to be able to write down rules which everybody can read and reference when a question arises so everybody knows where they are. It is often not as simple as it seems.

I find people and life usually beyond the Complexity Horizon and not predictable or reducible to a statement, equation or pattern. In designing policy for the Ragged University I can only think it wise not to be prescriptive because so many things I have not invested enough time in to understand the best situation to aim for.

In this I see echoes in all cultures great and small. For me, a knee-jerk stance is as unhelpful as a dogmatic one in approaching matters of policy. Being a big fan of libraries I am intrigued to refer to people who have invested much time in questions I have invested relatively little time in understanding.

Trust to the experts - Experto crede - in my opinion, history and literature are some of the finest resources we have available to us. So over time I am going to read about successful policy and hopefully hold an open mind to developing written policy which wins all votes.

There have been lots of very interesting and successful policy makers throughout human history. One which I think is worth mention is Marcus Aurelius as played by Richard Harris in the popular film Gladiator. I was surprised to find out that this was a reference to a real historical figure who thought deeply about the decisions he was entrusted with.

It is interesting that we are privy to the thoughts of this man as he wrote them down all those hundreds of years ago in his Meditations. A humble man who tried hard to think beyond his own interests and administrate in a way that best met the mean of the world around him. What do you think ?

Is Economics a Dismal Science ?

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.

In fact, there appears much gloom around the fabled world of money and exchange, and as someone who is outside of this field of study I wrestle with just what it all means and what is the practical nature of economics.

From meeting various people who love economics and invest their lives in it, they have revealed that it is not about doom and gloom but about all the varying ways that people act to exchange goods and services to improve the lives of people (directly and indirectly.

Without the pretence of understanding the subject, I can say that ideas and elements expressed within it are inspirational and I find it fascinating that great thinkers' ideas have been so useful as to have become common knowledge – much as people may not know the heritage or jargon to formally describe the thoughts they have.

My feeling is that economics is not a dismal science but a way of thinking about and understanding better how we as human beings communally meet the needs of the individual and the group. It stimulates me to appreciate more all the diverse efforts which go into producing something and exchanging it for something else.

Something as simple as a pencil (symbol of Sir Humphrey Chetham) can symbolise a whole chain of collective efforts to get something to market (the place we exchange). If you don't believe me, just try making one yourself! For me economics, like so many other subjects of study, adds value to our world.

Morecambe ce com ca

I had a happy thought and it involved rain

Vivian Aristotle Smiles

An article in the Guardian newspaper (Friday 14 January 2011) was brought to my attention the other day. Hermione Hoby wrote about the amazing Vivian Maier.

This is a fine case of where someone was truly engaged with what they did and got good at it because they were passionate. For the love of photography and the fascination of the world around her Vivian Maier became a great photographer producing thousands of images which further inspire and move other people.

Being quite interested in education and the arts, a passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (384 BC – 322 BC) jumps to mind:

"...Moral virtue, like the arts, is acquired by repetition of the corresponding acts.... Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly..." Book II

This suggests to me that one theory of learning is practice. How do we learn to be what we want ? What makes a successful author a successful one ? By what yardstick are we to measure people ? These are huge and complex questions which I have no plain answer for, however passion is something which always leaves the greatest impression.

It intrigues me people who have invested in knowing about something - all that time to understand the in's and out's of the life of a footballer or painter; all those moments absorbed in knowing how you can fix a combustion engine or get a certain sound from an instrument; all those years ferreting out the understanding of how to put a perfect finish on some wood or a large plaster wall...

A great writer who I am impressed by in many ways is Samuel Smiles who wrote Self Help. I think he was an admirer of people and human culture. I think he saw possibility in the world around him because he admired the embodied capabilities of people. All of this inspires what the Ragged University is.

For me, people are what they do and when I see people enjoying what they do it makes me think they will not tire of the task, therefore they will tend to excell in their field because to them there is no mundanity. They want to understand each little minute detail and are prepared to do what is necessary to achieve that. There are many perspectives on the theory of learning, and we are always learning more. An excerpt from Samuel Smiles' Self Help (1859) which I like is as follows:

...Sir Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry, that he held that artistic excellence, “however expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be acquired.” Writing to Barry he said, “Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed.”

And on another occasion he said, “Those who are resolved to excel must go to their work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night: they will find it no play, but very hard labour.” But although diligent application is no doubt absolutely necessary for the achievement of the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that without the inborn genius, no amount of mere industry, however well applied, will make an artist. The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which is of more avail than all the imparted education of the schools.

Some of the greatest artists have had to force their way upward in the face of poverty and manifold obstructions. Illustrious instances will at once flash upon the reader’s mind. Claude Lorraine, the pastrycook; Tintoretto, the dyer; the two Caravaggios, the one a colour-grinder, the other a mortar-carrier at the Vatican; Salvator Rosa, the associate of bandits; Giotto, the peasant boy; Zingaro, the gipsy; Cavedone, turned out of doors to beg by his father; Canova, the stone-cutter; these, and many other well-known artists, succeeded in achieving distinction by severe study and labour, under circumstances the most adverse.

Nor have the most distinguished artists of our own country been born in a position of life more than ordinarily favourable to the culture of artistic genius. Gainsborough and Bacon were the sons of cloth-workers; Barry was an Irish sailor boy, and Maclise a banker’s apprentice at Cork; Opie and Romney, like Inigo Jones, were carpenters; West was the son of a small Quaker farmer in Pennsylvania; Northcote was a watchmaker, Jackson a tailor, and Etty a printer; Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, were the sons of clergymen; Lawrence was the son of a publican, and Turner of a barber.

Several of our painters, it is true, originally had some connection with art, though in a very humble way,—such as Flaxman, whose father sold plaster casts; Bird, who ornamented tea-trays; Martin, who was a coach-painter; Wright and Gilpin, who were ship-painters; Chantrey, who was a carver and gilder; and David Cox, Stanfield, and Roberts, who were scene-painters. It was not by luck or accident that these men achieved distinction, but by sheer industry and hard work.

Film and Footage of Events

Well, who would have guessed that the festive period takes up interests right into the middle of January. Yes, folks, it seems like only now has everyone emerged from that wintery cocoon we wrap ourselves in. The wheels are starting to turn and brains get back to the busy machinations which we call the day-to-day...

My first offering this year in this long overdue blog entry is the footage of the the Ragged University events in Glasgow - follow this link. Happy new year !

We are all delighted that Freelance Director at Bad Monkey Films (Glasgow), David Newman, has extended his support of the Ragged University project. For me film is the most eclectic of the art forms and embodies multimedia most coherently. So many skills and processes go into making film footage I wonder if it is significantly appreciated outwith the film making community.

Many years ago, I remember hearing something which greatly improved the way in which I encountered other people's work. It was a wisened man who explained that the way they judged a meal, when they went to a restaurant was - "If I can cook the dish better myself then I have grounds to criticise".

This comment has stayed with me and informed much of how I encounter many creative endeavours. It is so easy to slip into a default mode of criticising for the sake of saying something; this default mode is predominantly contrarian and not very helpful or enriching to anyone...

So whilst trying to appreciate what effort and skill goes into making film I discovered this great resource: Film Education. I know my sister has greatly improved my appreciation of film (her having invested lots of her time in her passion) and I wonder what her thoughts on the general perception of film are... I must ask.

Anyway, a good 2011 to you all and nice to be back in the swing of things. I promiss to be more attentive to this blog space now the port has worn off...

All the best

Alex

It's Who You Know

An interesting book is Social Capital; Key Ideas by John Field (ISBN-10: 0415433037), Director of the Division of Academic Innovation and Continuing Education at the University of Stirling. Social Capital is a term which has been popularised by the American political scientist Robert D. Putnam, who defined it as:

“features of social organisation, such as trust, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions”

What does this mean and why are you telling us this I hear you say ? It came up in conversation the other night with a young writer Eleanor Ball who was discussing all the aspects of what it is to realise as a writer, including financing. Inevitably the discussion bumped against the old brigand is it 'not what you know that counts, but who you know'...?

It so happens that I have been reading through a book which deals explicitly with these matters, it comes highly recommended. A particularly pertinent and lucid section from it is worth quoting:

“Modern organisations are governed by rules. There are accepted procedures for making or appealing decisions, and responsibilities are usually defined clearly in terms of a position rather than a person. But when they want to make something happen, many people will ignore these formal procedures and responsibilities, and set off to talk to someone they know.

Important decisions almost always involve a degree of uncertainty and risk: if someone is looking for a new job or planning to appoint someone to a job, if they are looking for someone to service their car or mend the washing machine, if they are thinking of moving home or introducing a new way of organising the office, or if they want to find the best school or hospital, using the formal procedures is no guarantee of success.

To make things happen, people often prefer to bypass the formal system and talk to people they know. Calling on trusted friends, family or acquaintances is much less stressful than dealing with bureaucracies, and it usually seems to work faster and often produces a better outcome. Peoples networks really do count.

As the cliché has it, it is not what you know that counts, but who you know. More accurately, it is of course both what and who you know that comes in handy. And just knowing people isn’t enough if they don’t feel obliged to help you. If people are going to help one another, they need to feel good about it, which means that they need to feel they have something in common with each other. If they do share values, they are much more likely to cooperate to achieve mutual goals.

Formal systems – combining impersonal order and hierarchical rules – are often an attempt to control the excesses of mutual informal cooperation, which can lend to forms of indirect discrimination against others who do not belong in the charmed circle.

Some networks like the 'old boys networks' that are said to dominate parts of the British Civil Service and business leadership or the family based Chaebol business networks of Korea, cooperate with the aim of keeping out those who do not wear the old school tie or come from the same kinship grouping.

George Bernard Shaw, in a preface to his play The Doctor's Dilemma, famously said that all professions are a conspiracy against the public. Social relationships can sometimes serve to exclude and deny as well as include and enable. People's networks should be seen, then, as part of the wider set of relationships and norms that allow people to pursue their goals and also serve to bind society together.”

Free Audio Books

Here is one internet address I trully enjoy - Librivox. Being a particular fan of the spoken word, it was amazing to me when I found that I could get free audio books from this website. The project is one that I think is trully worthy of support.

Francis Bacon, Dorothy Parker, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Henry Huxley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mark Twain, Scott Fitzgerald, Isaac Asimov; the range of audio books is extensive and inspiring.

This is another example of the internet providing a fantastic foundation for great public projects. Check out their website and possibly contribute if you have time ! I know I always want to be able to listen to more great books as well as read them.

What's it all about Brian ?

So, what's the Ragged University all about then ? Well, sometime back, whilst sitting in the pub with friends, I realised that that was what we did; swapped stories, shared facts, related things. What is the nature of knowledge ? What I experience is a good place to start.

What is the Ragged University all about then ? Well, sometime back, I thought that the Ragged Schools movement was immensely successful and they had less available to them then. Imagine if they all had access to a printing press, paper, pens, librarys, tuition.

There is an interesting question about whether you would rather live as a millionaire a hundred years ago or on an average salary now. A hundred years ago you would not have your ipods and your mp3 players, your mobile telephones, or any digital trappings.

I also like the ending of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine; "Which three books would you have taken?". These ideas all carry a 'what-if' element relevant to what we already have. This is a project which I would like to ask what if we could do something just as good.

Business and Community

We live in interesting times. When attending a conference on how businesses can become involved in their communities, I was impressed at the interest that the business community has in 'putting something back in'.

So many questions are being asked as the economy goes through all of it's changes and adjustments. For many it is a time when belts are tightened and prospects seem uncertain. We are being asked these questions by our circumstances and being pressed to come up with solutions.

Often, life is oversimplified to a two dimensional rhetoric which is unhelpful for those seeking resolve to problems. Sometimes 'business' is categorically dismissed as mercenary and uncaring; sometimes 'social enterprise' is dismissed as fluffy and lost to ideals.

Of course neither is true as in reality we must dispense with absolute statements and contend with life on a case by case basis. Sometimes business loses it's way and disconnects from the communities which make it thrive, and sometimes social enterprise falls victim to it's own zeal forgeting how commerce and economy is a fundamental element of community.

How do we reconcile our society with our times ? Without having answers, I turn to the experts. Experto Crede. Society is built upon the loam of generations. We would be stupid not to utilise all the great thought available to us in libraries and archives.

We are doomed to repeat what we do not learn from. This can be said on an individual level, a generational level and a societal level (for want of...). For all the cynicism we can encounter and endorse, my feeling is one of optimism. What can we do ? We can study history and historigraphy, we can study economics and logic. These things by proof are not beyond us humans, and by store they are laid before us. Thinking we can change our futures.

What if Aristotle had a PC ?

I have been thinking about the technology available today in context with the libraries available. It makes me wonder about what some of the people of the past would make of it all. If we consider Voltaire wrote over seventeen million words in his lifetime, or the remarkable range of works created by the likes of Aristotle, what would they have managed with a personal computer. Everything was painstakingly done by hand, often through many drafts.

When we consider the progress of technology and the increasing sophistication of information tools, the computer is pretty bloody awesome. Considering the legendary status of the library of Alexandria and book collections such as that of the Library of Congress or the famous Bodleian library of Oxford, what is available through open access on the internet is obviously priceless. Great collections available to search in our own homes, what amazing potential.

Some examples which make me think positively:
The University of York Librarys and Archives
Directory of Open Access Journals
Public Library of Science
Project Guttenburg
PubMed Central

Where to Begin ?

I have been thinking about what to make the first entry of my Ragged University Blog. Since the start of this project I have enjoyed the fact that it compels me to find out about all the people in the world who have been great teachers, learners and thinkers. Learning about learning if you like. But what an infinite task. Do I take the great famous names still studied today for their contributions? Do I look to marvelously motivated people who invented or innovated ? Do I look for the people who have taken the time to develop me as a person, advising me and giving that all important constructive criticism and support ? Do I look at the awe-inspiring collaborations of countless individuals who form great institutions and libraries enriching, the whole of society ?....

Well, without arriving at any specific answer, I am adopting an 'all of the above' default. I want to look to the people and works which inspire me and share them with others under the collective heading of learning. Not in several lifetimes can I, a team, or a city of people scratch the surface, but we can get an idea of the magnitude of what human beings are capable of through culture and society. I personally always stand impressed when in a good library. I can think of any question and then approach finding an answer within those walls. Often I think of books as listening to another person; an interpersonal universe I share in, a lifetimes knowledge revealed.

So where do I begin with this Odyssey ? It starts with the people around me, the people who have developed me and mentored me through their kindness and philanthropy. The great realisation in life for me was that in each person I meet there is something unique and passionately developed. I have been privileged to know many people throughout my life, two of which I feel are directly pertinent to the Ragged University, Mrs Eileen Broughton and Mr Leroy Wilsher.

These people have helped me understand that learning and the exchange of knowledge represent part of the foundations of a healthy society. For the purposes of this context, I shall call it learning exchange. It is found all about us – throughout entertainment, industry, and academia – and is an innate part of our behaviour. Indeed both Eileen and Leroy have been natural didacts and demonstrated the inspiring truth of the vocation of the teacher – themselves having worked in the formal education for some years prior to retirement.

Through knowing them both as friends, and helping where I could, I found that doing a little thing like showing them a function of their computer opened up a generosity of spirit which I was not fully aware of previously. Eileen, having been involved in the study of Economics insisted on making some remuneration for my time. I suggested that, in exchange, she could teach me something: Delighted, she became animated and said “Joan Robinson, a famous economist in the 1920s said that when she was asked why she taught economics as a subject she replied – I teach economics so that people can know when an economist is telling them a lie”. From this moment onwards we enjoyed a buoyant relationship where she would share with me insight into a subject I had all but written off as 'boring'. Through her love of the subject and her passion, knowledge has become alive and fun rather than a chore, crystal clear rather than obfuscated. The conversations and time spent together are still so vivid that I would say she still constantly enriches my day to day experience. (Nessun dorma (In English: None shall sleep) is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot. She first introduced me to Operas; this is the music by which I shall always remember her.

Leroy Wilsher, similarly a retired teacher, inspires much of the same feeling. Roy has managed to enliven history, literature, educational theory and so much more. His introduction to Marc Bloch's The Historians Craft started me looking at the subject of history in a light so different from the early perception which I had of it as a dusty lifeless subject. He has helped transform it from a subject of obsoletism into something of perpetual vitality - something more akin to Sir Francis Bacon's conception of it as one of the main branches of human knowledge (to paraphrase; history being the knowledge of memory; science the knowledge of mind; and art the knowledge of imagination). I never tire of being introduced to something new and enlightening when it comes from someone so genuine and engaging.

It is a privilege to share the company of such great people, and my life is – in so many ways – created of them. I could name the great thinkers who have influenced me, but many of them you will find in no book or film or memoir. We are surrounded by the genius of people everyday, all the time, and it humbles me in a time of celebrity culture, where cult of personality gets mistaken for quality that people will share their genuine passions for things.

It is the most basic of human interactions for people to learn and to share knowledge; I also believe that it is a philanthropy of humanity which bears great fruit. These things I am going to explore through this blog and through the Ragged University project. I invite everyone who is of a similar view to also be a part of this great journey retracing the steps of free education and the triumphs of the Ragged Schools. It is an appeal to reason and fun. If there is not an answer today, tomorrow there shall be one. I do not feel things insurmountable when they are approached pragmatically. Studying and learning about something is attainable. For these purposes I shall lay down one of my favourite quotes from a great educationalist called John Amos Comenius:

“If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb(the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by.”

This speaks of Aesop's famous hare and tortoise, it speaks of practically achievable things which amount to something which is inconcievable without actually doing it. I assure you though, by simply doing one thing a day, by learning one thing a day, it will be surprisingly soon that you look over your shoulder and are shocked that it adds up to more than you ever thought was possible.