Collection KIR - Kirkwood papers

Colin Kirkwood grew up in Caithness, Galloway and Ayrshire, Scotland. He studied at Ardrossan Academy, the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Scottish institute of Human Relations. He has been described as a Scottish generalist, with interests in literature and the arts, moral philosophy, politics, education, religion and psychoanalysis.

From the 1970s onwards, he played leading roles in adult and workers education and community action, promoting the ideas of the radical Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. Between 1976 and 1986 he was employed by the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) South-East Scotland District, initially as Tutor Organiser and then as District Secretary. He was heavily involved in the community newspaper and writers workshop movements. Community newspapers with which he was associated include ‘Staveley Now’, ‘Castlemilk Today’ and ‘Scottish Tenant’.

He subsequently qualified as a counsellor and psychoanalytic psychotherapist and became head of the Centre for Counselling Studies at the Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh. Following retirement from the University, he worked for five years as Senior Psychotherapist at the Huntercombe Edinburgh Hospital, where he worked with women and girls with severe eating disorders.

He wrote several books including ‘Adult Education and the Unemployed’ (1984), ‘Vulgar Eloquence: Essays on Education, Community and Politics’ (1990), ‘Living Adult Education: Freire in Scotland' (second edition, 2011) (with Gerri Kirkwood), 'The Persons in Relation Perspective: in Counselling, Psychotherapy and Community Adult Learning' (2012) and 'Community Work and Adult Education in Staveley, North-East Derbyshire, 1969-1972' (2020). He also published poetry and literary criticism.

Gerri (Geraldine) Kirkwood studied at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Scottish Institute of Human Relations. She began her career as a teacher of French and later became a Reporter to Children’s Panels and community activist in Glasgow. In 1979, she joined Lothian Regional Council to work on the Adult Learning Project (ALP) in the Gorgie Dalry area of Edinburgh, as a community adult educator, along with Stan Reeves and Fiona McCall. The aim of the project was to devise new methods of working educationally with adults in the community and was based on the ideas of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. She spoke about Freire at national events in Ireland and England. In 1989, she was appointed Assistant Principal and Head of Community Affairs at Wester Hailes Education Centre, a community school in Edinburgh. Following retirement, she taught English to international students.