8 short rants!
I do not understand why the UK riots or mass insurrection (depending on your perspective) happened and I do not want to contribute to the clamber of voices from ill-informed people who seek to provide answers and solutions to ‘the problem’ before figuring out what the right questions are to ask, who to ask and how to ask them.
I am an academic! There I said it. I am not however an apologists if I seek to understand the underlying psycho-social reasons for the nature of the destructive events that we saw unfold just a few short weeks ago. I am also very clear that I can not (and have no desire) to offer a comfortable global solution for the complex issue of what to do with young people who know that they do not have a toenail hold on the world, let alone a foothold!
I spend most of my professional life trying to make a small dent in the experiences of a small number of people in order to change some aspect of their world: a change brought about partly because of my involvement in it. I know that sounds a bit grandiose but we are all involved in this activity every single day of the week, we may just not have time to blog about it!
I affect people’s worlds in two key ways: I am an educator and have been involved in education in one form or another for a very long time indeed! I also help people reclaim aspects of themselves that they thought had been wrenched from their psychological grasp a long time ago. A restoration of hope and self belief-that’s what I have been offering for years cloaked in the garms of education or psychotherapy. Your choice of which vehicle you use to effect change in another person is possibly becoming less relevant for those people who seek out your help-people are always going to be more preoccupied with whether your version of ‘help’ slots nicely into their idea of what it means to be helped.
So as I start my 8 rants I will keep that thought foremost in my mind: I help through educating the self and if that sort of help is what you need then hop on board!
So my 8 rants are about education as a form of emacipatory activity-emacipation of the mind, body and spirit drawing on the inspirational work of critical thinkers in education, psychology and psychotherapy and I will also delve back into history to reconnect with the notion of education as a valuable commodity. Historically speaking, becoming an educated person was SO valuable that the very act of seeking empowerment through education was perceived by some as an act of insurrection, especially in the hands of the oppressed. Least we forget that if some of our number acquired knowledge (an ability to read etc), this was often punishable by incarceration, death or severe injury.
So, here’s the title of my first rant: Rant One: The Power of Education throughout the ages
Keep posted!
eshuindependent
