Education

 

This part of my website will contain my writing on education and teaching.

It will not be uploaded until the TAIJIQUAN part of my website is complete. It will probably be the second part uploaded.

My interest in education stemmed from conversations with my father when I was in my early teens, while he was undertaking his degree in education. He taught me to look at the process and elements of education and what underlies the education process, introducing me to writers like Ivan Illic in my mid- teens. 

My education began at home and continued in school first in Singapore and then in a small village school in rural England, then in an inner city school, then a catholic middle school. Having passed my entrance exams I spent my secondary education at King Edward VI School, Southampton, an all boys grammar school. I then spent a year on an AFS scholarship in Connecticut, attending High School before returning to the UK to take my degree in Natural Sciences (Anthropology, Computing and Psychology) at Durham University. I also took the opportunity to complete my coaching qualifications in Tennis (BLTA) and Squash. This was followed by the full-time training program in Accounting and Corporate Finance held in Chicago. (Throughout my time in International Banking I took various postgraduate modules in Finance.)

I consider myself fortunate to have experience a wide range of educational establishments in several countries. I believe this has curtailed the investment I might have had for one type of education system.

I have been a teacher for over 30 years and taught such diverse subjects as Accounting and Business, Hockey and History, Mathematics and Physics, Fruit-Tree Grafting and Pruning, Tennis and Squash, Timber Framing and Woodturning, Technical Drawing and most of all Taijiquan.

 

I began teaching taijiquan in 1989 and after I moved to Ireland taught at University of Limerick and in Limerick Prison (where I have taught since 1995.)

My partner Kim and I allowed our three children to make an informed choice as to their own preferred education and all three chose to educate themselves from home.

We became very active in the home education community in Ireland, including being a guest speaker at various European conferences and acting as an advisor to the Dept Education on the Education Welfare Act and to the National Education Welfare Board in its training process for the assessment of home educating families.