Two conversations over two days

Each conversation is to be reduced to its component parts.

Conversation 1 (with a clinical psychologist at The Water Poet on Folgate Street in the City of London):

• Pub life is an interesting set of rituals.  Ordering at the bar leads to the emergence of a broadly cooperative group of people with a single shared purpose.  Subtle signals of coordination, including nods of thanks and eyebrows raised in admonishment, do most of the work.  A set of full glasses leads to sensible movement and passing permissions that would not otherwise be afforded.
• Cooperation is a hard thing to organize at a conscious level.
• There is a distinct lack of successful coordination in the public sector, especially the NHS.  So many bodies, and perhaps not a shared purpose, make it impossible to impose true coherence.
• Perhaps bar life could instruct us a little.  Perhaps having local health services, at the block or neighbourhood level, with visible doctors, clinical psychologists etc. who all drink at the same bar, all shop in the same shops etc. would lead to the kind of self organization we admire in The Water Poet?
• Certainly recognizing the person and their humanity would build the kind of trust required for a good clinical relationship, over a long period of time.

Conversation 2 (with a senior primary school teacher in my home):

• A number of children who have recently moved to the UK have a lot of trouble with their schoolwork, and in particular with mastery of English as a second language.
• This is not because their parents do not want to help.  On the contrary they all want to learn English to a higher standard themselves and thereby be able to better support their children.
• What can be done?
• Well, it would make sense for the government to expect schools to act as local community centres and provide adult education in the evenings, to support these parents in learning English, but also other parents to pick up a variety of skills.
• Some schools do this, but it is not an expectation and it is not resourced.  We have idle buildings over the evenings, weekends and vacations which could form a cornerstone of the community and enable people to meet, work together and support one another.  The next generation would benefit, as would the present.