{"id":9660,"date":"2016-10-20T10:04:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T10:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/?page_id=9660"},"modified":"2016-10-24T11:12:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T11:12:28","slug":"9660-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/?page_id=9660","title":{"rendered":"Edwards, Martyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations, you have found the biography of Martyn Edwards!\u00a0 If this was by accident, escape now whilst there is still time.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve already met me and wanted to know more \u2013 I\u2019m sorry, its too late for you, you may as well keep reading.\"\"\"untitled\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i>I have travelled a long way but a short distance to get to the University of Manchester.\u00a0\u00a0 The \u2018short distance\u2019 is literal, about 5 miles, as I was born \u2018up the road\u2019 in Droylsden and still live locally.\u00a0 I now live with my wife of 21 years and our youngest son, our other son having now left home and got married.\u00a0 Yes I am really that old!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i>The \u2018long way\u2019 to the University of Manchester started when I dropped out of University.\u00a0 I had gone to University at the age of 18, as expected by my parents, despite underachieving at both GCSE and A Levels.\u00a0\u00a0 It soon became apparent that a change in academic fortune was not imminent.\u00a0 I was a square peg, trying to fit a round hole and once I realised that I was, technically, an adult I left university and spent the next 18 years working within the UK manufacturing sector.\u00a0 I started out, fresh faced and full of hope, selling health and safety equipment and ended up designing warehousing systems for companies like Marks & Spencer, BAE Systems, Toyota and Jaguar.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Determined to further my career I talked my way onto an MBA with Derby University.\u00a0 This was supposed to enable me to reach the top management positions from which I was excluded by my academic history.\u00a0 But then something happened which was not supposed to happen.\u00a0 \u00a0I found that I loved studying, and wanted to share my new love.\u00a0 In a move which my wife likes to call my \u2018mid-life crisis\u2019, I took redundancy and started a PGCE along side the MBA.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i>For my Masters\u2019 Dissertation I researched the motivations of students undertaking an undergraduate degree via work-based learning.\u00a0 This dissertation earned me a distinction in my MBA and I became a Chartered Manager.\u00a0 This, together with my PGCE was meant to be the end of my education.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Then one Friday evening something else strange happened.\u00a0 I had been complaining about my teaching role, and the frustrations of a broken education system when my wife \u2018advised\u2019 me that I should \u2018put up or shut up\u2019 and showed me the advertisement for a PhD position at the University of Manchester, on the Learning Gain project.\u00a0 After realising that she was serious, I looked into the project and its aims.\u00a0 It turned out that other people were interested in understanding how a students academic disposition affects their ability to achieve at university.\u00a0 I thought I had wasted a full weekend writing a PhD proposal, to meet the closing date, but here I am. \u00a0Not so fresh faced but full of hope once again.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/i>If you have made it through the entirety of this biography, then congratulations again.\u00a0 If you want to know more then you will have to contact me.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations, you have found the biography of Martyn Edwards!\u00a0 If this was by accident, escape now whilst there is still time.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve already met me and wanted to know more \u2013 I\u2019m sorry, its too late for you, you may as well keep reading. \u00a0I have travelled a long way but a short distance to get to the University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":0,"parent":4186,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9660","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9663,"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9660\/revisions\/9663"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}