This is an open source space for the research and ideas I have developed since 2009 when I started my school, The Homework Club.
Since 2010, I have had a separate project, Purple Learning Project to shelve my method development too. The legacy of what I leave behind in the world of thought, philosophy, psychology, methods, development, learning and teaching.
I will gradually add to this page in tandem with my podcast, Purple Psychology.
It’s vital for me that I do good in the world, not harm. And this has prevented me up until now presenting many of my methods. I don’t want to leave behind more scales of judgement or boxes that people can be assessed into or labelled. I use personality theory as it is open – open-ended in possibility and impersonal. It facilitates very difficult conversations sometimes around behaviours and traits.
I have always used colour theory in my work. The world is not black and white. I once wrote; “School, too many rules and not enough colour.”
The first aim I ever wrote in 2009 was to take literacy and intelligence out of the same sentence. It’s what I still do daily.
But gradually I will share those ideas which I feel are open and show how much of what we follow in terms of education is often very close-minded and judgemental. Comparing to a scale that is fundamentally racist in its construction.
No matter what I have ever achieved I have never belonged in education because of my literacy level.
Once people discover what I can’t do – I don’t deserve to be in the room. I learnt this valuable lesson the hard way in my first PhD viva all those years ago. I got a lecture on the pyramids of education and a stark reminder I was never to have a place in education.
For many others when they obtain education levels they have arrived at a place of recognition and belonging. I never will with the scale we judge everyone on. And for many others, it is a but aren’t they great kind of backhanded compliment.
It’s time for something new but with a great deal of consideration to what I really leave behind. Am I helping to take down the barriers or helping to build new ones? A constant fear to be navigated daily.
