Ronald Barnett, Ph.D: Higher education is found in criticality, not university

Ronald Barnett, Ph.D: Higher education is found in criticality, not university | Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. | 1 Min Read

Posted By: Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

April 12, 2024

How might we re-think higher education to be about our ability to discern the world and take action, not the diplomas we receive?

I speak with Ronald Barnett. Ron has spent a lifetime in higher education as a scholar, institutional leader and manager, researcher, and writer. He is recognized as having introduced and developed the philosophy of higher education as a field in its own right (and he is the President of the recently established Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society, and co-editor of two major book series. Since 1990, he has been on the staff of the Education Faculty of University College London, where he is now an Emeritus Professor. Over the years, Ron has written and edited more than 35 books and over 150 papers has been cited in the literature over 25,000 times. There are about 3 million words of his in the public domain. He continues to act as a consultant to individual universities around the world on higher education matters, and also with his work in examining, reviewing, editing, and mentoring. We discuss:

🥥 Higher education as a process, not an institution;

🥥 The conspiracy that involves all stakeholders in grade inflation and the degradation of standards;

🥥 Ethics as the platform from which the critical thinker seeks to make the world a better place.

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Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. is the co-founder of Coconut Thinking, an advisory that supports schools and learning organizations to co-create, co-develop, co-stress test, and co-implement ideas that nurture the conditions for emergent learning. Benjamin is also the Head of Upper School at Green School, Bali. He was previously the Whole School Leader of Learning and Teaching at Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Thailand. He was the Academic Coordinator at Misk Schools, one of the most prestigious and high-profile school in the kingdom. In 2018-2019, he was also the Head of Upper Primary and Middle School at Misk. Prior to this, he was Vice-Principal of the Middle School and High School at the Harbour School in Hong Kong. He holds a Ph.D. in History, an MSc in Education, an MBA, an MA in International Relations, and a BA in International Affairs. Benjamin was born and grew up in Paris, France. He moved to the U.S. when he was 15 and spent 11 years there in different cities before living in the U.K., Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and now Bali, Indonesia. He started his career in consulting for Internet start-ups in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s, working with people whose ambitions were no less than to change the world. This experience had a profound effect on Benjamin's outlook on education, innovation, and entrepreneurship.