My dad, John Barkham, who has died aged 82, was an inspirational teacher of ecology and a lifelong naturalist. As the first ecologist to join the new University of East Anglia in 1969, he taught students over three decades in the pioneering School of Environmental Sciences. After studying the person-centred theories of Carl Rogers, whom he visited in California, John experimented with bold new teaching techniques, one year informing baffled students that they would design their own syllabus and teach themselves. Although he reined in some radicalism, his kindness, distinctive knitwear, non-hierarchical attitude and sensitivity towards his students’ wider needs
If I think about what this means, I want to cry: what happens when a city loses its university?
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