Foreign Perspectives

The library as child minder

Arnold — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:40:12 PST

We go to our local library twice a week for the kids Kumon class and it’s quite noticeable how different the mix of people in it are.

On Tuesday afternoons, the place is packed with school children. So packed, that it’s difficult to find a seat and indeed today we couldn’t find a seat at all. On Saturdays it’s more of a quiet library atmosphere. Fairly full alright, but there are always seats to be had.

The difference is down to it being used basically as a child minder service during the week. School age children use it basically as an after-school club and in a number of cases parents simply drop the children in and go off on errands or whatever. We’re talking down to fairly young primary school kids too.

Still, at least it hasn’t reached the extremes that Wendy experienced in one Australian library where the library had to bring in a rule that kids required an adult to accompany them. Somehow I can’t see it being long before that happens.

The male role models in our primary school

Arnold — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:26:37 PST

There’s only one in fact and he’s the caretaker so to make a start on balancing things up they’re having a Dad’s reading week at the moment.

It turns out that it’s not quite so easy to get the Dad’s to do this. Besides the reluctance of people to volunteer for anything, there’s the matter of getting out of work to do it. There’s also the little problem that the Dad’s very rarely go on the school outings and therefore don’t have the necessary criminal records check. Net effect is that there’s only three of us doing it for the entire school so I’m taking three sessions of the kids this week.

Choosing the books for that isn’t quite so simple as I thought it would have been. After all, we’ve our own small mountain of Ladybird and Usborne books to pick through. The snag is that our library was chosen with our own little guys in mind and in practice it doesn’t seem to fit the bill terribly well in a “reading for a group” context. For one thing, the Ladybird books are basically all aimed at P1 and earlier or at least the collection that we have are. The Usborne books would be great for James’ class but the stories in them are just too long for the time slot we’ve been allocated. Great if it was an ongoing thing but not so good for just one 45 minute session.

In many ways it does seem a shame that it’s only a one-off opportunity to do the reading. OK, it would probably end up being something of a chore if it was every week but it also doesn’t seem so good that the kids are all seeing schooling as an entirely female affair. That affects us in the homework too as they often prefer Wendy to do it with them which I imagine is at least partly down to the exclusively female teaching staff that they encounter.

Anyway, by the time you read this I should be well into my first reading session.

The October courses open for registration with the Open University

Arnold — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:49:39 PST

Now that I’ve sort-of decided on what courses I’ll be doing over the next couple of years it’s more or less a matter of waiting ’til the registration period opens and signing up.

Of course, it’s not quite as perfect as that given the OU change the courses on offer each year so if you’ve a reasonable list of courses you’d like to do chances are that there will be at least one change in the running order each year. Complicating things even more is that they’re gradually moving from a February to October cycle to an October to June one which means that if you’re planning more than a year or two in advance, you’re going to have to make some changes. This year there’s also the matter of them doing away with the named science degrees so me and many others are rethinking the sequence of courses that they’re doing with a view to hitting their named degree while it’s still available.

Thus far, I’ve been lucky this year in that there’s been no change in The physical world (S207) which starts as planned in October. However, there is the option for me to accelerate my progress with the physics degree my slotting in Using mathematics (MST121) next January. That would mean that I’d be overlapping one of the major courses (S207) with what should be the relatively easy (for me) MST121. That does beg the question: why do MST121 at all if it’s going to be so easy? Well, thanks to the regulations for the physics degree I need to either do that or something like the introductory science course (looks interesting but gives me 30 points more than I need) or a technology course (also interesting). In principle, MST121 seems to be the most useful of the trio of options.

It’s usually not necessary to enrol incredibly early for the OU courses but given the number of people who admit to intending accelerating the progress on their science degrees I suspect it could be prudent to enrol somewhat earlier than usual this year. That will certainly be the case for the summer schools which are in their last run in 2011 though enrolment for them doesn’t open ’til mid-October.

How many simultaneous open university courses is “too many”?

Arnold — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:35:44 PST

Due to a peculiar combination of circumstances, I find myself doing four courses simultaneously at the moment which doesn’t seem like an overly good idea on the face of it.

However, whilst I’m now at the “worst” of it with three assignments due over a two week period about a month from now, it doesn’t seem that bad in practice. That’s down to planning (or “panicking early” as some would say) in that I’m running more than a month ahead with all but one of the course texts and have, in principle, a couple of weeks slack to play with if need be.

What’s taking a surprising amount of time is the cardiology course which, as a level one 15 point course, should be taking the least. The final assignment for that looks like it’ll take getting on for twice the time that the comparable assignments in the two level two 30 point courses will take. That’s not so surprising with hindsight in some ways though: 15 point courses aren’t long 10 pointers but 30 point courses done over half the time which in turn means that I’m effectively doing 100 points worth of courses right now.

Still, one of the four finishes next month and another the month afterwards so I’ll be back to a normal workload for a while.

Over that critical pass mark already!

Arnold — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:17:27 PST

Although I’ve just got the second human biology assignment back that’s enough to get me over the pass mark. Well, apart from the exam that is.

Since I don’t now need to submit any more assignments (there are two to go) any that I do submit can only serve to increase the overall mark which is a nice place to be in. If nothing else, it removes any assignment pressure that there has been to date.

That’s not to say that I won’t be working to improve the mark in the last couple of assignments. The marks have been good but not evenly distributed amongst the various sections of the assignments which means that there’s a lot of marks still to be had and, seemingly, the majority of them relatively easily since I’ve been doing rather well in what’s arguably the hardest question category and not so well in the one that should be easiest.

I’ll have to get going on the next assignment this week as otherwise I’ve assignments for three separate courses due in the third week of March which is a pile-up that I’d much rather avoid.

Is a very high IQ useful when studying with the Open University?

Arnold — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:24:59 PST

“Ok, I’m high IQ and easily bored” is how a recent comment on one of the Open University forums begain and it pretty much immediately sparked off something of a war which is still running. I’ll grant that the original poster was rather insensitive to say the least in her post but it is an interesting topic.

To begin with the OU is an open access outfit which means that for almost all courses you don’t need to provide any kind of proof that you can do them before you sign up. The net effect of this is that the dropout rate in first year courses in any subject is generally 40 to 50%. This isn’t solely because people are signing up for courses that they just don’t have the brainpower to do though. As with all part-time courses the dropout rate is a little higher because people have real lives that interfere with their studies. And, of course, there’s quite a lot of people who sign up for courses and don’t fully appreciate what’s involved before they begin.

But, does a high IQ actually help you when you’re studying? Well, yes, obviously it does. The question though is just how much it helps and that’s a more difficult question. One that I suspect is impossible to answer before you’ve tried out one of the OU courses.

From my own experience, it would appear that you can try out just about any course to get a general feel for how well you will do with them taking into account your IQ and indeed all your personal experiences. For example, although the OU recommend around 16 hours per week for a 60 point course and 8 for a 30 point course, I find that in most cases I need less than half that time. The one exception was a 60 point English course which I managed with about 3 hours a week vs the 16 recommended.

Obviously the IQ will be a significant factor in helping you to understand material that is radically different from anything you’ve done before. However, don’t underestimate the effect of previous experience. The reason that English course took 3 hours a week rather than the six or seven that I’d expected was that I’d done similar work in French & Spanish to that in parts of the English course. Similarly, I am going through my current astronomy course at a frightening rate because I’ve met a number of the concepts before.

So, yes, a high IQ will certainly help with the OU as it does everywhere else. However, don’t underestimate the benefit that you’ll get from prior experience of the subject as that seems, for me, to be at least as significant.

Isn’t it amazing the way even some non-tech products have dropped in price?

Arnold — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:37:15 PST

We’re all used to the price of computers and electronic items generally dropping in price over the years but it happens to some surprising items outside that arena too.

One major example I spotted lately was the Encyclopedia Britannica. Way back in 1981 that cost £600 for the full set yet now you can pick up the 2007 equivalent for £450. Granted, that’s on an offer at the moment but even without that offer it’s still only £745 (although, oddly, the 2010 edition is only £712!). That gets you a LOT of books: the 32000 pages spread over 32 volumes add up to over four feet of shelf space and weigh in at over 60 kilos.

Yeah, I know, people tend to look towards DVD or online versions of these things these days and, yes, I know that the paper one will date a whole lot but I still quite like having the books sitting there to leaf through. Besides, in reality, knowledge doesn’t really date that quickly. Sure, the likes of the Haiti disaster won’t be in even the 2010 edition but then it’s not so much the immediate information that you want in an encyclopedia but the more historic stuff and that doesn’t change terribly quickly.

Now, if only I could find a corner in the house to fit them in…

Eeek… three assignments in the one week!

Arnold — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:31:36 PST

One of the problems in doing three separate Open University courses at once is that the timetables they run to are completely independent of one another.

Thus I find myself looking at the prospect of doing the End Course Assessment for the cardiology course, the third TMA for the human biology course and the first TMA of the astronomy course all in the same week. Fortunately, that week is the third week of March so at least I have the chance of spacing the assignments out over the next month and a bit. Not quite so much as I’d like to though as part of the cardiology assignment involves submitting an essay plan to the tutor sometime in February and the astronomy assignment requires some practical work to be in hand by then and with our weather that’s very much hit and miss.

What I’m still amazed at is how quickly I’m managing to get through the courses. All being well, I’m on schedule to finish the course text for the human biology course in the next week or so which should let me get going on the notes for that which’ll definitely be required come exam time in June. I finished all of the reading for the cardiology course before Christmas so it “only” has the end of course assessment to be done which looks fairly doable at the moment though I’ve not actually started on it yet so that opinion could change very easily. I’m getting through the astronomy reading quite well though I suspect that I’ll be needing to go over a few things again for the assignment as it’s proving to be a more difficult course than originally expected.

Interestingly, courtesy of the astronomy course I have been assigned a “pathway tutor” as part of the pilot project. What that means is that I will retain that tutor throughout the course of my physics degree with the OU. Previously, one of the consistent comments that they’d received was that all the courses were entirely independent which, whilst nice in some respects, meant that a lot of people felt a little at sea when they’d finished a course and weren’t always that sure what they should do next or for that matter how they should go about designing the perfect sequence of courses for them. In the past that planning assistance has come from the regional centres officially and a number of course forums inofficially. Neither are ideal. The official source involved people who didn’t always have the knowledge of what was entailed in particular subjects whilst the unofficial route produced advice that might have been intended to be helpful but wasn’t always as it couldn’t take into account the particular backgrounds of those enquiring nor did those replying have anything like the full picture of what was coming up in a particular degree programme anyway.

So far, it’s in typical OU style: it’s there if you want to use it but if you’ve your own ideas you’re free to ignore it.

Progressing too fast with the OU course?

Arnold — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:33:40 PST

Thanks to the Reader I find that I’m getting much more time to read the text books than I ever had previously. It might be only 10 minutes whilst wandering around a supermarket, 20 minutes waiting for James & John to finish their class, or even just 5 minutes when I’m a little too early for them at school but it’s all been adding up.

Thus I find myself likely to be completing the biology texts by the end of the month which is getting on for four months early and when the course is officially 9 months that’s saying something. Even with the astronomy which I only started on at two weeks ago when I checked the timetable I’m at the point I should be at the end of February!

That’s not to say that I’ll have completed both of those courses because I still have the assignments to do and, of course, the exams to revise for. However, it looks like the summer will be much less busy than I had ever expected it to be this year.

One handy consequence of all this is that I should have quite a lot of time to make decent notes on the topics which I’ve rarely gotten around to in the past. All being well, I’ll be getting going on the biology notes (definitely required!) early in January. I might even consider the astronomy notes after that although so far most of the text has been largely revision from my astronomy readings many years ago.

Andrew Barrington Montgomery

Arnold — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:33:02 PST

Andrew, the second son of my granny, was born in Killinchy on September 18th 1920. and almost made it to 90, dying just a few days ago on January 16th.

Growing up in the depression obviously limited the options open at the time but even so after starting off in the day school of McQuiston Memorial Presbyterian church in Belfast, he went on to Euston Street school and then to Belfast tech (now the Belfast Metropolitan College). By the time he’d passed through those the war had started and Andy joined the merchant navy rising in due course to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. During his time in the navy he was stationed in Jamaica and New York from whence he sent various momentos back home and picked up a number of medals along the way.

With the end of the war he joined Mackies which was one of the big engineering works of that era in Belfast. He remained there the rest of his working life. Following the death of his father in 1963, Andy cared for his mother through to the end of her life in 1988.

Although born in Killinchy, for the majority of his life Andy lived in the family home at 16 Lecumpher Street. When that was earmarked for redevelopment at the end of the 1990s, he was forced to move on to the Clarawood Estate where he spent a few brief years before moving into the Tudordale Nursing Home where he spent most of his final decade.

Andy was quite keen on cars and motor transport generally. Over the years that I knew him he managed to get around in a variety of them including a “mods” type scooter in the early 1960s and an Austin A40 (one of the tiniest cars you ever did see!) and latterly a Mini Metro. A number of these would never have passed a modern MOT and at one stage he ended up driving the A40 minus the floor of the car! Added to this was a keen interest in photography with quite a steady build-up of photographs over the years although perhaps his best photos were taken the time when he’d managed to forget to put a film in the camera!

Whilst he’d travelled the world with the navy, afterwards Andy limited himself to Northern Ireland and specifically Killinchy where he spent the summer months in a cottage rented by the family for over 30 years. From that base he went on numerous day trips with his favourite destination being the reservoir at Silent Valley and the Mourne area generally. In his latter years though he found that the travelling became too much and gradually the trips became shorter and in his final decade he never travelled more than a few miles from the nursing home.

There’s no mention here of surviving children because Andy never did get around to having a family. That’s perhaps the saddest thing about his death because though he loved children he never had any of his own. It does seem particularly sad to go to the funeral of someone like that: though there are probably more tears from any children when a mother or father dies at least there is a continuation whereas here that’s not the case.