Doctor Thomas Barnardo and the Ragged Schools

This is a conversation with Erica Davies, Director of the Ragged School Museum in Mile End, London. Erica shares deep insights into the Ragged School free education movement and the efforts of Doctor Thomas Barnardo. The Ragged School Museum is a unique place of learning about the Ragged School movement and is the last existing intact school of Dr Barnardo’s, famous champion of free education and welfare. It continues to offer an important cultural space for learning and communities in the locale. Read more…

An Interview With An Editor: Dr Gillian Dooley

This is a conversational interview recorded with Dr Gillian Dooley about the editorial work which she is involved with in Australia and other parts of the world.  She is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of English after having retired from Flinders University Library where she had been Special Collections Librarian from 1999 until 2015 and Publishing Support Librarian 2016 from 2017. Read more…

Interview with an Activist: Mike Cormack and Welfare Reforms

Mike Cormack is involved in Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty. This is an interview with him discussing his work and the issues which he sees at stake particularly as the current welfare reforms are pushed through in the UK. Offering counsel and support to people who receive benefits to understand their rights and resist unfair sanctions, Mike has been involved in activism for many years. Read more…

Interview With An Educator: Julian Edge

This is an interview with Julian Edge, which took place in Manchester Central Library in July 2015.  Julian Edge has a long and rich career in teaching, and has later moved into counseling, he talks about how he came to education as well as the ways he sees us learning.  In the interview he takes us through the history of how he got into teaching, and where across the world he has taught; all time being drawn back in to learning as he meets a new set of problems. Read more…

An Interview With A Development Worker: Shahid Khan

Shahid Khan is the founder and CEO of the Indus Earth Trust, a development project which is based in Pakistan.  In this interview he talks about his work helping people to build their own earthquake proof house, start their own business, and become an autonomous agent in the local economy.  Starting the informal interview out with questioning me, Alex Dunedin, about the Ragged University project, he then goes on to talking about his experience of trying to get people to adopt sustainable development techniques which take account of the cost to the environment. Read more…

Interview With An Educator: George Wilson

George Wilson has worked in higher education for the last 14 years. In Edinburgh and Lothians, in both paid and voluntary positions, he has been involved in formal education as well as community education.  With a particularly interesting view on the questions which should be asked surrounding widening participation and who it is benefiting, here his challenge shifts the issue from inside the institutional space to considering wider participation from the external perspective. Read more…