George Hay: T.E.A.C.H.

(In an earlier issue of IC we included a brief mention of this organisation and said a further account would follow. Here it is.)

T.E.A.C.H. stands for Technology, Education and Change, the subjects with which it deals. It came into existence as a result of the very strong feedback from the conference on Education and Automation held at the North East London Polytechnic at the end of 1978. Addressing this conference, the late Chris Evans made the point that the new information technologies were going to oblige educators to look very hard at fundamentals: to realise, for example, that very few people seemed to know what teaching was, about or how it worked. Eventually it was going to be necessary to look with some urgency at the possible effects on society’s patterns of behaviour of these new technologies, and, where necessary, to press for the adoption of adaptive measures in and between public administration and private enterprise.

A year later we have proof of the effect of these statements in the fact that we have over five hundred names on our mailing-lists.

Members of T.E.A.C.H., individually, or in concert, have written articles, broadcast, and run seminars and short courses, and continue to do so. Issue 2 of our Bulletin contains our four-point policy for education and micro-technology, a policy which we are urging alike upon Members of Parliament, the relevant Ministries, and private enterprise. We hope that by early in 1980 we shall have our own premises in central London: in the meantime anyone interested in further information should write to:

Colin Mably, School of Education and Humanities, NORTH EAST LONDON POLYTECHNIC, [address]

On matters concerning academic applications in microtechnology or other new areas of change. queries relating to commerce, social change, general promotion etc should come to me at:

[address]

George Hay, General Secretary

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PROVOCATION: “Development which is fruitful must proceed by correction and antithesis, no less than by positive addition” (Wallace, Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel’s Philosophy.)

from Ideological Commentary 5, February 1980.