Thursday, 30 December 2010
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Saturday, 18 December 2010
What a shit day
18.12.2010 - Captain Beefheart died yesterday and I heard this morning and wednesday lost 5-1 at Exeter.
Nothing to do but cry.
"We're matter - the stars are matter - but it doesn't matter."
Rest in Peace Don Van Vliet
Nothing to do but cry.
"We're matter - the stars are matter - but it doesn't matter."
Rest in Peace Don Van Vliet
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
W.E.A. - 2
Well, a major WEA fuck-up today has spurred me on to write something about it.
Use it as a focus for writing about education, politics and post-modernism.
It is incompetent and bureaucratized for a reason. It is not simply an accident.
There is a celebration of anti-education in the WEA - or more precisely an approach to 'education' that guarantees that the receiver of it will never move beyond the formulaic challenges of 'old Marxism'.
My emotional response is very important too - as someone from a working class background who has educated himself via the higher education system, I strongly resent what they are peddling as education. It promotes passivity. It sucks. They are giving this to 'my people' - dumbing down so that the learners can feel 'educated' but not actually challenging anything at all.
The other huge thing is that no-one (??) has written anything that is critical of the WEA - apart from daft Trots and maybe some anarchist groups. Must find something....!
To be continued.........................
Use it as a focus for writing about education, politics and post-modernism.
It is incompetent and bureaucratized for a reason. It is not simply an accident.
There is a celebration of anti-education in the WEA - or more precisely an approach to 'education' that guarantees that the receiver of it will never move beyond the formulaic challenges of 'old Marxism'.
My emotional response is very important too - as someone from a working class background who has educated himself via the higher education system, I strongly resent what they are peddling as education. It promotes passivity. It sucks. They are giving this to 'my people' - dumbing down so that the learners can feel 'educated' but not actually challenging anything at all.
The other huge thing is that no-one (??) has written anything that is critical of the WEA - apart from daft Trots and maybe some anarchist groups. Must find something....!
To be continued.........................
Monday, 13 December 2010
The Workers Educational Association
I've been meaning to write something substantial about my experience of working for the WEA from Sept. 09 to Sept 10 - for some time now. It was an unbelievably draining and disempowering experience.
At first I thought that it was just my immediate colleagues that were the problem but, unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that it is much more widespread than this and possibly includes the whole national organisation.
I did come to the WEA after working in universities for 13 years. This post is just a mapping out for a future piece of writing as I don't have the time to write it now.
1. Introduction - The WEA - aims and objectives, mission and history.
2. Some commentaries - I have seen many and my first thought is that it wil be difficult to find anything substantial that is critical. Look.
3. My experience - on a one year active citizenship project. The discrepancy between the treatment of students/ learners and staff. The incompetence, the lack of education, the muddle-headedness, the pointless and very heavy-handed bureaucracy, the insensitivity, the inverted arrogance of working-class South Yorkshire folk. The stupidity. The intransigence regarding what constitutes a useful educational approach. The anachronism - pre-modern!! The lack of understanding of the contemporary world. The destructiveness of all of this.
4. How has this happened? Something to do with relationship between adult and higher education - inferiority complex, defensive arrogance. The WEA has frozen itself in a time warp and said 'we are right' without any reference to any agency outside the organisation.
Yet it has managed to continue to exist for 105 years! How?
5. Conclusion - the WEA as an unhealthy element in the panoply of adult education providers. A workerist, horny-handed, laughable and anti-education organisation.
Sounds interesting!
At first I thought that it was just my immediate colleagues that were the problem but, unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that it is much more widespread than this and possibly includes the whole national organisation.
I did come to the WEA after working in universities for 13 years. This post is just a mapping out for a future piece of writing as I don't have the time to write it now.
1. Introduction - The WEA - aims and objectives, mission and history.
2. Some commentaries - I have seen many and my first thought is that it wil be difficult to find anything substantial that is critical. Look.
3. My experience - on a one year active citizenship project. The discrepancy between the treatment of students/ learners and staff. The incompetence, the lack of education, the muddle-headedness, the pointless and very heavy-handed bureaucracy, the insensitivity, the inverted arrogance of working-class South Yorkshire folk. The stupidity. The intransigence regarding what constitutes a useful educational approach. The anachronism - pre-modern!! The lack of understanding of the contemporary world. The destructiveness of all of this.
4. How has this happened? Something to do with relationship between adult and higher education - inferiority complex, defensive arrogance. The WEA has frozen itself in a time warp and said 'we are right' without any reference to any agency outside the organisation.
Yet it has managed to continue to exist for 105 years! How?
5. Conclusion - the WEA as an unhealthy element in the panoply of adult education providers. A workerist, horny-handed, laughable and anti-education organisation.
Sounds interesting!
Sunday, 5 December 2010
it's a new life
Things are happening.
Other Things is up and running with excellent potential.
I have learned some things about love recently.
AND my work situation is the most relaxed since I came to Sheffield in May 09.
And when we have wood-burning stove in basement - I'll be able to work (art) and listen to music at same time....
Bloody 'ell - can life get any better?
Other Things is up and running with excellent potential.
I have learned some things about love recently.
AND my work situation is the most relaxed since I came to Sheffield in May 09.
And when we have wood-burning stove in basement - I'll be able to work (art) and listen to music at same time....
Bloody 'ell - can life get any better?
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