Cloisters 17

We are Only HUMAN - The New Curiosity Shop Philosophy

Arthur Chapman

 

Why are we here? (The NCS that is!) What are we trying to do? Why bother? These are some of the questions I will try to answer in this piece on the NCS philosophy.

The NCS has been operating now for almost four years with the central aim of providing good quality online courses in a variety of subjects. We are here because we believe there is a need for people to gain knowledge and understanding in non-vocational subject areas and that many people have an innate curiosity about the world that we in our small way can help to satisfy.

So, a thirst for knowledge, a desire for understanding and a sense of curiosity are fundamental to what we are about. Education may be about improving job prospects or increasing earnings but if those are the only aims then it’s a very reduced understanding of education. We believe that ‘lifelong learning’ – a term not heard much these days – or continuing education is a central element in what it means to be human.  To be inquisitive, to want to find out about new ideas, to travel to new places, to see new sights and make contact with new people are central to our make-up.

We also believe that the Internet provides an ideal medium for enabling people to access material on areas in which they are interested. At the NCS we try to draw people together from all over the world – students and tutors – providing a means of virtually widening their horizons – we hope, to the benefit of all. In our war-torn world bringing people together – if only virtually – has to be a small step in the right direction.

The NCS is small – we have no desire to be a dot com miracle, more on that some other time. So, being small we have the advantage that it is easier for all involved – students, tutors and partners – to be treated as individuals not just cogs in some vast educational machine. So one of our aims is to ensure that we provide the ‘personal touch’. Another way of saying this is to say that we try to emphasise the human element in education.

 

Not so SMART

Contrast this approach with the use of SMART targets which is commonplace in much of what many of us do - SMART being an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time related (or similar words). Now SMART targets and goals do have their place but they are in danger of being overused and misused. Not all things that are worthwhile are measurable. For example, we might not be able to achieve our goal, but the effort might well be worthwhile. So let’s consider how having HUMAN goals might affect an educational programme. What might the letters H, U, M, A and N stand for?
Here are some suggestions but the list is not definitive – there may well be more appropriate words – your suggestions are welcome.

H might mean helpful – that is the educational process makes a positive contribution to all those involved.

U could stand for universal availability. As mentioned above, by using the Internet as our medium of communication we reach out, in principle, to people world-wide. Accessibility, for various reasons, is not as widespread as we would like but the numbers linked to the Internet are increasing day by day and the costs of connection are being reduced and, although for the most part, it’s those of us in the rich third of our world who have Internet access, there are indications that many more people in the two-thirds world (developing countries) will have such access in the near future. (Already broadband is commercially available in 166 countries worldwide [see www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2006/report.html ].

What about M? Meaningful might be an appropriate word to use here. So education needs to be meaningful – not necessarily useful, but certainly meaningful. Education that is full of meaning will help the individual to understand a little more about our universe, our world, our place in it, or just a small part of an area that is of interest to us. An education that poses questions about meaning, and that encourages curiosity or inquisitiveness might not, in fact very likely will not, provide many answers but it should help us to formulate questions about the meaning and purpose of our own life.

Ideally all education should be Appreciated – our fourth word. We at the NCS, hope that each student appreciates what they have learnt, the knowledge and understanding they have gained through taking one of our courses. But, not only that. We want all those involved in the process to feel that they are appreciated as individuals bringing their unique insights to discussions, chats, and so on. Again, this is all part of the personal (human) touch that we seek to engender at the NCS. Feeling appreciated, and being appreciated has the additional benefit of helping us to be more inclined to appreciate those around us and thereby increasing the sum total of human happiness just a little.

Finally we have N. A human educational philosophy is one that Nudges us in the right direction. Taking a course at the NCS might not be a life-changing experience (but then again it might!) but we hope that it will nudge the student in the right direction, he or she will have benefited in some small way from their involvement with the NCS. But again, all of us involved will be nudged in the right direction because of our involvement with the NCS.

So, to conclude, the New Curiosity Shop is committed to the personal touch, to providing a human educational experience, something that is Helpful, Universally available, Meaningful, Appreciated and Nudging us all in the right direction.