Ruskin Mill - Inside Looking out

Ruskin Mill. - Inside Looking Out.

Ruskin Mill is a further education centre in Nails worth in the rural
countryside of Gloucestershire, unlike many colleges for 16-25 year
olds it does not focus on purely academic achievement. It offers fresh
and innovate approach to learning, a holistic view of the humanity and
the natural world that was devolved from the work of William Morris,
John Ruskin and Rudolf Steiner lie at the foundation of what Ruskin
Mill works towards.
Students at Ruskin mill have a wide range of abilities and
difficulties, but the collage provides a safe and supportive
environment to allow the young person to develop the skills and
confidence needed too to thieve in society, Moving away from dependence
and in to independence as any young person would. Some just need a
little more time and help Ruskin Mill provides them with this
opportunity.

I have recently failed my second university first year, in two years.
Not because I'm Stupid, or just got drunk every night - that actually
isn't my style I'm a very peaceful, calm person, just I couldn't cope
with the pressures of living a lone, washing my self, washing clothes,
feeding my self and all the other things people normally do as routine
on top of my desire to get good grades in my assignments. I couldn't
juggle them both. It's not I didn't want too, I would love nothing more
to be a "normal" student - but I couldn't have the skills - as through
out the whole of my life my academic work came first. My learning
difficulties have been evident for many years; it was only this year
that I was finally referred to Ruskin mill.

I've had 21 years of societies prejudices ad labels. I know to some
people being labelled as "disabled", as I will be, is a source of shame
and brings with it the prejudices of society. That's because society
looks on colleges like Ruskin mill as an institution rather than a
place of learning.

Learning at Ruskin mill is very hands on rather than the theoretical
academic way many are used too; many of the lessons are based in the
"outside classroom" than desk sessions with notebooks and textbook.
Although students do have Maths and English classes to attend as well
as there craft subjects. With subjects such as horticulture, animal
husbandry, iron work and green wood work, many of the classes take
place in the market garden used to stock the farm shop, run by
students, the 45 acres Old Gables Farm of arable and pasture land
producing organic vegetables and meat. There is also the 30 acres of
broadleaf coppiced wood which hosts the sessions for Green woodwork,
the Iron Age forge and Pottery with clay pit and dragon kiln. Each
craft is used to teach the student to respect them selves, others and
their natural environment through working the land and taking care of
animals and plants. Students also gain self-confidence by experiencing
success in craftwork and the satisfaction
of following through the process from raw materials to that the
students have helped grow and produce, to final product. That even
applies to three-day assessment students, as I recently found a source
of confidence and satisfaction of being able to produce a wooden
rolling pin, sliver ring, felt ball and coconut cakes in my short
two-hour sessions. Proof that maybe despite my disabilities I can do
some thing.

Learning doesn't stop after 4 pm like many colleges; students live in
the community with house parents who support the young person carry on
the social, domestic and personal learning. All is aimed, however, at
the student becoming an individual, more independent member of society.
Each Student has their own back account, and taught to budget for them
selves, lessons such as cookery and clothes mending also gives students
the practical skills to live independently. This becomes more important
when the students are ready to move towards independence

I'm looking forward to taki9ng my place at Ruskin mill in September, I
will be starting like the rest of them on a new path, with people who
have finished their schooling with no qualifications or with good
grades in their Gcse's or even A Levels - It doesn't matter that I'm
going to be coming from university we will all be treated as
individuals with support to our own needs. So I'm going to have spent
two maybe three years at a special needs college, I will be labelled as
disabled, but by people who don't know me, have never met me and are
unlikely ever to meet me. Those people don't matter to me, they used
to, I always wanted some one else's approval, but I have my own dream,
my own life, people who know me know who I am and what my ambitions
are. To achieve that then Ruskin Mill is what I need right now, what
others need too. As long as we get there, to where everyone else is, in
our own way in our own time. We're no different to any one else. Yet
people from the outside make judgements on something they have never
experienced and from the inside looking out you see just how
stereotyped, narrow-minded and prejudiced the general society is.