People-Shaped Learning

'Attitude deliberately indifferent - made no effort to learn his work. Progress very poor.'

So wrote Mrs Wynn during that parched summer in July 1976. Sounds like a 'disengaged learner' alright - although if you'd said that to me at the time I fear that you might have got a gobful of abuse - or, perhaps, I would've simply laughed in your face. After all, who wants to be put in boxes - they're not very people-shaped are they!

I'm not proud to have been a 'naughty boy', but it is a fact that I was. Now, looking back I just wish I'd had some positive role models - or even a mentor. I wish I had some stability in my home, and someone to believe in me... but I didn't. I felt anger which I couldn't articulate... not through words anyway. I boxed and I fought my peers like a snaring whirlwind. I hurt a lot of people, but I also wrote poetry (in secret). I was, and am, complicated, defying categorisation. I felt alone and incomplete; although I'd never have admitted it. Like most boys playing 'hard', in my scattergun way, I was actually terrified, trying desperately to exert power over something - anything!

Now, that that's all in the past, all I can do now is use such experiences as I try to connect with folk for whom learning is not seen as something for them. As I often say, 'it's all credit in my empathy bank'. It is so, because now I am empowered to see it that way, and I chose to do so.

Education gives you choices. It opens doors. It gives you a voice. I believe that people thrive in the light of positive expectation, and that if we're not reaching them, then we need to reflect on ourselves, our practice, and try again and again. We should never give up on those who may have given up on themselves. I aspire to be the sort of person who would've noted the potential in that young me from another lifetime ago. In this game it's often about planting acorns: although you may not see the tree, you've got to trust that they will grow. Learning is for life!

What This Blog Is For...

Thanks for looking in on my blog. My name is Colin Howey and I'm employed by Norfolk Adult Education, working to promote learning in communities within the Norwich area (my job title is 'Community Development Worker'). Sometimes I laugh at the idea that I 'develop' communities. Actually, what I try and do is work alongside people; working with them to offer learning which engages them and reflects their interests. In other words, I'm kind of led by what it is that people actually want out of their Adult Education service. That's why I've set up this blog. It's another way in which you can tell me what interests you and what you want (either: phone me on 079 174 274 06 or email on colin.howey@norfolk.gov.uk ). It's also a place where I can write about adult education in its broadest sense. My own life journey has taught me the value of education and I'm gonna bang on about this from time to time.

Finally, it was only very recently, when someone asked me the question, that I learnt what a blog is. Before that I hadn't really thought about where the word comes from, so I Googled it and found the Wikipedia entry about blogs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog). Anyway, as I understand it, a blog is short-hand for a Web Log - or an online diary or log-book. In effect, it's like a website, on which you can post words, images and music.