Colin Ward
Colin Ward (14 August 1924 – 11 February 2010) was a British anarchist writer and editor. He has been called "one of the greatest anarchist thinkers of the past half century, and a pioneering social historian." Life. Ward was born in Wanstead, Essex, into a family of Labour Party supporters. After leaving school, he worked for architect Sidney Caulfield before being conscripted and posted to Scotland. As a supporter of the radical journal "War Commentary", he was a witness at the trial of its editors, John Hewetson, Vernon Richards and Philip Sansom in 1945. He continued to work as  an architect after the war. He also edited the British anarchist newspaper "Freedom" from 1947 to 1960, and was the founder and editor of the monthly anarchist journal "Anarchy" from 1961 to 1970. Until 1961, Ward worked as an architect. In 1971, he became the Education Officer for the Town and Country Planning Association. He published widely on education, architecture and town planning. His most influential book was "The Child in the City" (1978), about children's street culture. From 1995 to 1996, Ward was Centennial Professor of Housing and Social Policy at the London School of Economics. In 2001 , Ward was made an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University. Thought. Anarchism. Ward's philosophy aimed at removing authoritarian forms of social organisation and replacing them with self-managed, non-hierarchical forms. This is based upon the principle that, as Ward put it, "in small face-to-face groups, the bureaucratising and hierarchical tendencies inherent in organisations have least opportunity to develop". Anarchism for Ward is "a description of a mode of human organization, rooted in the experience of everyday life, which operates side by side with, and in spite of, the dominant authoritarian trends of our society . In contrast to many anarchist philosophers and practitioners, Ward holds that anarchism in all its guises is an assertion of human dignity and responsibility. It is not a programme for political change but an act of social self-determination". Education. Colin Ward in his main theoretical publication "Anarchy in Action" (1973) in a chapter called "Schools No Longer" "discusses the genealogy of education and schooling, in particular examining the writings of Everett Reimer and Ivan Illich, and the beliefs of anarchist educator Paul Goodman. Many of Colin’s writings in the 1970s, in particular "Streetwork: The Exploding School" (1973, with  Anthony Fyson), focused on learning practices and spaces outside of the school building. In introducing "Streetwork", Ward writes, "[this] is a book about ideas: ideas of the environment as the educational resource, ideas of the enquiring school, the school without walls...”. In the same year, Ward contributed to "Education Without Schools" (edited by Peter Buckman) discussing 'the role of the state'. He argued that "one significant role of the state in the national education systems of the world is to perpetuate social and economic injustice"". In "The Child in the City" (1978), and later "The Child in the Country" (1988 ), Ward "examined the everyday spaces of young people’s lives and how they can negotiate and re-articulate the various environments they inhabit. In his earlier text, the more famous of the two, Colin Ward explores the creativity and uniqueness of children and how they cultivate 'the art of making the city work'. He argued that through play, appropriation and imagination, children can counter adult-based intentions and interpretations of the built environment. His later text, The Child in the Country, inspired a number of social scientists, notably geographer Chris Philo (1992), to call for more attention to be paid  to young people as a 'hidden' and marginalised group in society."