Chapter 1: 

Anthony the Croupier
Barriers to Success for Adult Learners.

The problem. 


Anthony is a croupier taking bets seven nights a week in a local casino. Supporting a young family and elderly parents. He has a couple of vocational qualifications in catering and food hygiene but he is also a very talented and as yet untrained artist. His heartfelt desire is to go to art school and university. So he applies for and is accepted onto the level 2 diploma in art and design. 

He excels at illustration and Graphic Design and is good at speaking about art, has opinions and joins class debates. He realises he has a stark choice to make, that of a well-paid career in five years time (after graduation) in a graphic design company or back to the Roulette wheels. This choice rests on a resistance to reading and writing, a fear of failure, past catastrophe and defeat haunting him, blocking his ability to succeed, or even ask for help as well or because of the possibility of undiagnosed dyslexia (based on his initial assessment). 

The first deadline and hand-in looms and during tutorials it is revealed that he “hates books” and has not written a single word in his journal, in six weeks. The next day he doesn’t come in to college, nor the next week and eventually he emails to say he is withdrawing. 

Anthony’s story has no easy solutions. Why does he hate books and avoid writing? The heart of the problem is a difficulty with or a resistance to reading and writing. How can I change the culture, the curriculum, the way knowledge and language is used to convey the contextual background of practices in art and design?

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