I’m tied to my phone again. To the email app more specifically, and the alerts, and the calendar. Sometimes it feels like I live my life through this thing. I make schedules out of the day, and attempt, as we all do, to keep appointments – to get things done. This state of mind works like a kind of vortex or black hole. It’s easy to think that the phone, or any technology for that matter, is the key to the doorway of success and connection, but it seems like sometimes we all get lost in this artificial world.
I think frequently about how perilous this technology is, and its profound effects on young people, many of whom have adapted to pressing a screen before they can walk.
Frustratingly, the technology that traps our gaze, whether that is social media or scheduling apps, is also the same technology that enables the Sam Harris ‘Waking Up’ app. I recommend you check it out, if you haven’t heard of it.
Moving from London to Cornwall, as my wife and I did some 15 years ago, was a kind of waking up too. It’s difficult now to precisely describe what it felt like to live in South London, but perhaps this will give you an idea: I sometimes hear the sound of the tube train arriving in a kind of aural flashback, the rush of wind, and then I remember the absence of connection on the train, and in the streets.
We woke up here in St Agnes 15 years ago, and Skool is a kind of waking up too.
The Wheal Kitty complex sits above Trevaunance Cove. It was once an industrial place, but that kind of industry now sits in ruins on the cliffs.
And the cliffs are startling. The afternoon light illuminates just how much awe, mineral and metal make up these cliffs, and they are ochre and orange. And the wild sea, which has been unbelievably wild of late, churns and breaks against the shore.
Working on the cliffs gives you an overwhelming sense of the power and beauty of the natural world. And every time I walk the South West Cost Path (metres from our door!), I feel not only closer to nature, but frequently less encumbered by modern technology, and the barbs and hooks of modern experience. Because in truth, Skool is to me both escape and work. And in some senses this is what I want our students to feel too. An escape and sanctuary, combined with learning and living in an environment which insists on its own presence. It’s a strange phenomena, but the sea pulls your gaze towards it. I have seen, in the expressions of every student and stranger to St Agnes, the desire to witness the Atlantic – and to stare at it, unencumbered by those mental black holes.
This is the design of the school in its essence: small adult classes, personalised tuition, and learning English in a spectacular location. We aim to help you improve your English, but also help you connect with where you are, and who you are. It’s why our class sizes are small, it’s why we are an adult only school.
We provide activities too, but what is on offer isn’t something to be consumed – it’s to be experienced. And remembered. Hiking the coast path isn’t just walking – it’s connecting with the natural world. The same is true of water sports – we don’t just surf and kayak, we connect with the ocean.
And the promise of Skool, and my own personal promise to myself, is to ensure that we cultivate and create an environment that helps you improve your English, where you feel comfortable, and fundamentally that helps you connect.
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