Jacob Calland
Joined about 5 years ago.Bio
The Margate School (TMS) is an independent liberal art school with post-graduate provision and community outreach incorporated in 2015 not-for-profit organisation. A school in and for Margate, developing a wide range of short courses, technical courses and professional development across liberal arts and media disciplines ranging from MA courses to day courses as well as studios, workspaces and technical facilities whilst reaching out to the local community. Above all, The Margate School is about people. The curriculum is guided by project-based collaborative learning in the expanded field, nurturing independent thinking, inspired by Margate’s past and passionate about the future.
Our vision is the successful establishment of an international liberal art school which is operated independently and on a self-sustaining basis in and for Margate, whose scope, activities and benefits can be enhanced with the support of partners primarily in Kent and Northern France, but also the rest of the UK and international sources.
In our ambition to establish The Margate School we acknowledge that education is a privilege. Few can afford the time to reflect, to learn about what might be of value and what less so; to learn and apply skills in a meaningful, socially and environmentally sensitive fashion. For most of us learning takes place in intensive bursts in particular periods of our lives, institutionalised and structured. In a world of hyper-production and hyper-consumption, social inequality, human and environmental disasters the opportunity to learn should not be removed from life but be part of it.
As Paulo Freire (1921- 1997) pointed out “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” Here the learner becomes aware at the very moment of learning that she has entered the realm of verstehen, partaking in the onset of erudition, of enlightenment. In The Margate School we aim to extend that learning potential, we seek to do this in the expanded the field, through art practice, philosophical reflection, scientific exploration, technological enquiry, engagement in today’s environmental challenges and sociological investigations.