Darren Harper BA (Hons), PGCE, DipBSoM

I have been an adult education teacher for about 10 years. Earlier in life I served in the Royal Navy, where I was fortunate enough to travel widely, but I had a great yearning to learn. It was after I had the left the RN that I became a mature student, and gained a 1st class honours degree in English & Creative Writing in 2012 with the University of Cumbria. I then went on to do a PGCE and taught GCSE English and A Levels at Carlisle College before becoming a self-employed adult education teacher.

I now travel around different parts of the UK teaching Philosophy, Philosophy & Literature, Global Philosophy, Philosophy for Life and Stoicism, amongst other related subjects. Though based in Northumberland, I also teach regularly in Cumbria and Newcastle upon Tyne, as well as taking termly teaching trips to the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institute in London, the Guildford Institute, the Bristol Folk House and the Morrab Library in Penzance. I teach several residential courses each year at Higham Hall in the Lake District, and have also taught at Dillington House in Somerset and Knuston Hall in Northamptonshire. I also teach an annual Creative Writing break at the Green Park Hotel in Pitlochry, Perthshire.

More recently, as my interests develop, I tend to focus on Global Philosophy and Stoicism, and from 2024 will be offering an annual Stoicism retreat abroad, the first of which will be in Morocco. My research into Global Philosophy has rekindled my interest in Meditation, and so in 2023 I qualified as a Meditation Teacher with the British School of Meditation, gaining a Distinction. I am also beginning to explore the Philosophy of Spirituality, and am building a range of courses offering a secular and philosophical approach to spiritual ways of thinking, and spiritual ways of being.