Pirates in Higher Education Wales
Sam and I met Felicity Healey-Benson at an event in Swansea in April 2019, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. She is passionate about changing education so that it isn’t an endless box ticking exercises but actually equips her students with the employability skills they need. She has since formed a Pirates in Higher Education crew to facilitate positive disruption in the education sector in Wales.
Here is why she describes herself as a pirate:
‘To empower learners, and future leaders & influencers.
To impregnate a positive attitude to sustainability, voice and challenge.
To encourage the address of the complicated, the uncomfortable & the unjust. To steer the profession that sets the bar in quality of care, humanity, justice, equality & respect.
There is an alternative to waiting: we can reclaim our belief in the power of inwardness to transform our work and our lives. We became teachers because we once believed that ideas and insight are at least as real and powerful as the world that surrounds us. Remembering ourselves and our power can lead to revolution, but it requires more than recalling a few facts. Re-membering involves putting ourselves back together, recovering identity and integrity.
I work to facilitate positive disruption in the education sector. Underpinned with ‘Entrepreneurial Learning’. I hope to shape and transform educational outcomes for sustainable development and social justice.’
In the words of Nadya Tolokonnikova from Pussy Riot:
“BE A PIRATE. Look for the truth that explodes existing boundaries and definitions. Follow your instincts and you’ll get a chance to break prevailing rules so beautifully you may even end up establishing a new norm, a new paradigm. Nothing frozen is perfect”.
You can find out more about her crew on her website Emergent Thinkers, and read all her blogs outlining her journey to become a pirate:
Get in touch: [email protected]
Image copyright or (c) Felicity Healey-Benson 2020