baroque_mongoose | Entries tagged with ou

I was brought up not to expect to be allowed things that other people in a similar situation would take for granted. So it was just normal that everyone else in my class had things I didn't have (primarily parental support and encouragement). It was just normal that my father withheld a significant proportion of the money that was supposed to get me through my degree, but didn't do the same to my sisters. It was just normal that they got expensive school trips, and (later) work experience at the company where my dad worked, when I not only didn't but was told off for asking for these things. It's quite hard to explain to people that the reason I wasn't resentful about any of this was not that I was some kind of saint, but because that was just how the world worked in my experience. If I ever complained that things weren't fair, I'd be met with "Life isn't fair!". Which it isn't, but that wasn't the point. The point was that they weren't interested in making things fairer, because they were firmly convinced that if they tried to do that I would end up "spoilt", and that was the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to a child. I probably need to keep on underlining this, because objectively the way my parents treated me was awful; but you really have to remember that they were not in any way malicious, and they did it because they'd managed to convince themselves that I was such a problem child that I had to be put down at all times or I'd become this... monster, I suppose.

It is one thing to forgive people. It is quite another thing to recover from the consequences of what they did to you that needed forgiving. To this day, I still struggle with those. For instance, there was the matter of how I ought to price my bead earrings (they're for sale on Folksy). Making these earrings is skilled work which requires an unusual level of fine dexterity, so I decided it was fair to price them in such a way that I would earn just above minimum wage... because it's me. I know very well that if someone else were making similar earrings, I would tell them, "well, that's skilled work which requires an unusual level of fine dexterity, so it's worth at least twice minimum wage". But that's someone else, so it's different, because that's how things have always been.

But... I had a little victory the other day. It suddenly occurred to me that, even for me, it was not unreasonable at all to expect that if I put in the work needed to get a degree, I should get that degree, given that there isn't any doubt that I do have the ability required. So far, in the various attempts I've made throughout my life, I have put in about twice the work needed to get a degree, so... I should get my degree, right? Even I should be able to do that? But if I don't get the money from the legacy, I won't be able to continue with it, as things stand.

So, this is what I did. I contacted the Open University. I explained to them all about the situation with the legacy, and I asked if there might be any other avenues by which I might be able to continue to study if I don't get this money. And it felt very defiant and transgressive, as though I was trying to get hold of something I shouldn't really be allowed to have.

To hell, and I mean that 100% literally, with feelings like that. Objectively, I've been denied the degree that I should have been allowed to gain from all my hard work, and no childhood mind-tape is going to tell me any different. I may never to my dying day be quite able to accept that I'm as good as other people, but there's a line. I do stick at the idea that doing more than twice as much work as other people to get a degree is not good enough to get a degree in my particular case (by the time I've finished, it'll be something over two and a half times as much work).

It's good to know there is a line. Let's see if I can start moving it a bit closer to where other people have theirs.

Current Mood: groggy

I haven't said a lot about my studies lately because they did get rather messed about. My mother being ill was obviously stressful (from October we didn't know how long she was going to last, but we knew it wouldn't be too long), and of course I wasn't well myself for most of December; so what happened with this module was that I got off to a terrific start, then didn't do much for quite a while because it was so hard to concentrate, then got back into gear and am now motoring along with it. It's really just as well it's not a maths module this time, as those tend to require much more sustained effort, whereas with this one as long as you get the assignments in on time (and I did have to have one extension in February, when the Mum-related stress was particularly bad) you can do everything else whenever you like.

Being back in gear, however, is very satisfying. I have just finished a short course called "Moons of our Solar System", which you can, if you wish, find here: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/moons-our-solar-system/content-section-overview?active-tab=description-tab Most of these short OpenLearn courses have been excellent, but this one has been so far the best of a very fine bunch. I have enjoyed it immensely, and if you have any interest at all in planetary moons, including our own Moon, this one is for you. It's free, it's nominally 24 hours (though it probably won't take you as long as that, even though it's quite video-heavy, unless you delve into all the extra bonus material, of which there is a lot), and you get a badge at the end to show that you've passed it. And it is a whole lot of fun.

Obviously, there is a fair bit about our own Moon; after all, so far it's the only moon in the solar system where we've managed to land anyone. But there's plenty about all the others too. Every major moon in the system is covered, along with several of the more interesting minor ones. (Did you know some asteroids have moons? I didn't; but there it was, a photo of the asteroid Ida and its tiny moon Dactyl.) I knew Europa probably had an ocean of liquid water under its frozen crust, but I didn't realise it's not alone in that respect. A number of other moons of Jupiter and Saturn probably also do. I learnt all about tidal heating, which is the reason many of the outer moons aren't totally frozen; it's probably also what powers the huge amount of vulcanism on Io. (You like active volcanoes? Io is your dream destination. It's covered in them.) I also learnt about cryovulcanism, which happens on worlds where the rock is primarily water ice with an admixture of other ices, and the "magma" is mainly liquid water. I learnt about different types of terrain and how they were probably formed.

And then, of course, there's my favourite moon of all. Titan. I just love Titan, so I already knew a fair bit about it, but I still learnt some new things. Titan is one of Saturn's moons, and the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere (indeed, the atmospheric pressure on Titan is about 1.5 times that on Earth). This atmosphere is about 97% nitrogen, but that other 3% mainly consists of hydrocarbons, predominantly methane and ethane, so you have smog, basically. You can't see the surface of Titan through the atmosphere - it took the Cassini spacecraft and the Huygens probe to do that. Titan is so cold that methane (with a bit of ethane) does exactly what water does on Earth; so there are rivers and lakes on Titan, and it rains, and it's even possible there may be lightning. I mean... that's wild. Not only that, but due to Titan's unique combination of dense atmosphere and low gravity, if you wore a suitably insulated bat-suit you could fly there under your own power. What is not to like here?

It's not all text and videos, either, no matter how informative. You can play Moon Trumps, too. (Do not put that in a search engine. You'll just get images of an obnoxious politician superimposed on a lunar background talking about how he wants the Moon, pretty much.) Moon Trumps is a card game devised by the OU; for some reason, the first time it's linked in the course, the link doesn't work, but the second time it does. You play against the computer, though I have to say I'd love a set of actual cards. The way it works is that each card has a photo of a different moon (some well known, some very obscure), together with some data: size (I think in terms of diameter), density, orbital period, and orbital radius. You pick a card at random and then choose one of the data points about your moon; so, if you got our Moon, that's pretty big, so you'd generally be safe selecting the size. If the data point you've chosen is larger than the corresponding one on the card your opponent picked, you win both cards (unless it's orbital period, when the smaller one wins). Otherwise, your opponent wins the cards. It's a good game and you learn quite a lot by playing it.

I reckon today it'll probably be more astronomy (White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars, anyone?). But I suspect that whatever course I do, it'll have a hard time beating that one.

Current Mood: geeky

I am getting better far too slowly, but at least I am getting better. I'm certainly going to be in a fit state to be recorded this afternoon; the OU is putting together a video to encourage people to do the module I'm currently on, so they asked for volunteers from among the students currently doing the module, and I volunteered. So I'm going to be filmed, remotely, at three o'clock today, and I get to yak about the module, which will be fun. I think I'm probably not so pale now that they'll actually need to post-process me. (I'm pale by default, but obviously these last few days I've been pretty much paper white.)

So I rang the surgery again this morning to ask them for advice on preventing any further episodes of this sort, because it has been pretty unpleasant. (I think whatever happens I'll continue to sleep with my feet raised; it's not just helping with the blood pressure, but I'm also sleeping better and not waking up in the middle of the night.) They said I needed to speak to a GP, which wasn't too surprising, and they were going to make me an appointment... until I reminded them that I already have one. It's booked for two weeks today.

Now that is exceedingly convenient. It means I don't have to wait 5 - 6 weeks to see a GP (they will see you the same day if it's urgent or potentially urgent, obviously, but this isn't). And it also makes me feel a lot better about having the appointment booked in the first place.

The reason I originally booked the appointment is that someone in my family insists on trying to diagnose me with autism, despite the facts that a) I clearly do not meet the clinical definition, which is a communication problem severe enough to cause difficulty in everyday life; b) I have never had the specific problem with non-literal expression that is the main characteristic of autistic communication problems; c) on scientific tests I come out as non-autistic; and d) the only other person who's ever said I was autistic was, bluntly, off their head at the time (they also randomly accused me of being a paedophile, so, y'know). And this person simply doesn't accept any of that, which I find not only frustrating but extremely hurtful. Not because "autistic" is a negative label (it isn't; I know a lot of great people who are on the autistic spectrum, plus there are things in life it makes easier as well as things it makes more difficult), but simply because it is, in my case, false. I would be equally annoyed if they went around trying to convince me I have blue eyes. I don't. They're green... well, somewhere between green and hazel, but more green. And I have particular problems with people sticking false labels on me because my parents stuck so many of them on me as a child; granted, almost all of those were negative, but the falseness was as much of a problem as the negativity. When you've believed that you are [X] for years because you've always been [X] by parental fiat, and then you find that's not even remotely true... you're annoyed. Relieved, of course, that you're not really [X] after all, but still annoyed that you've been made to believe a lie all this time.

So, I will accept no more lies. Consequently I booked this appointment around a month ago so that I could be formally diagnosed as non-autistic by an actual doctor, hence hopefully putting the whole thing to bed once and for all. I was a little anxious about booking it, as I didn't want to waste GP time; but the receptionist assured me that it was a perfectly valid thing to do in the circumstances, since I was clearly quite stressed about it.

It will take the doctor about five minutes to determine I'm not even remotely autistic, and then we can spend the rest of the appointment talking about my dratted blood pressure. And that all works out very nicely.

Current Mood: okay

I am currently doing a BSc (Hons) in mathematics with the OU. I've tried to do a degree on two previous occasions, once at the usual time and then again some years later; but on both occasions I was rendered unable to complete it by circumstances beyond my control, so I am very keen to finish this one before I shuffle off my mortal coil. And the reason I specifically picked maths, despite the fact that I have a lot of interests and it isn't the one at the top of the list, is that I already have quite a lot going on in my life, and at this stage of proceedings I don't want to be busting a gut doing a degree. I chose the subject I knew I could get a First in with minimal effort.

At which point, my audience is going to split neatly into two groups of people. There will be the ones who are nodding their heads because they know exactly what I'm talking about, and then there'll be the ones who are going "what?!" If you're in the latter group, I know what you're thinking: you're thinking maths is hard.

Don't get me wrong. I do 100% get why you've been finding it hard. But I'm still here to tell you that, intrinsically, it isn't, unless you have dyscalculia. Bear with me for a little while, and I'll explain why.

Maths, more than any other subject, builds on itself; and for something to build on itself, you do need all the bricks to be there in the lower courses. If you're trying to build a wall and you have one brick missing at the bottom, that brick should be helping to support the two bricks on top of it, but it's not there so you can't put them in. That means you now have two bricks missing in the next course, and in the same way three in the third, and so on, till after a while you can't build the wall any higher because you have a massive triangular gap and nothing there to build on. And this is exactly what learning maths is like. If you were ill when they were teaching how to divide fractions, and you didn't have another way to catch up, that won't have made a lot of difference at the time, but it would have caused increasing problems as you went on.

Anyone without a specific learning difficulty can learn maths perfectly adequately, provided they have a teacher who can go back and find where the initial brick is missing. I once demonstrated this with a friend in Sheffield. She said she couldn't do maths. I said she could, showed her a first-year university maths textbook, and assured her that I could explain to her any topic in there that interested her and she'd understand it. So she took me up on that. It's a long time ago now, so I forget what the topic was, but very soon we got to something she didn't understand. So I worked back a bit (to where the next two bricks should be, if you like), and found out which one of those was missing. And again, and again, quite a long way back, till I finally got to the basic problem: she didn't know what square roots were. I explained square roots, then built it all back up again and took it from there. And, lo and behold, she understood the whole topic.

My friend had missed square roots in school due to illness; unfortunately there is also a lot of bad maths teaching about. (For two or three years I had a bad maths teacher myself - she was lovely, but she had no idea how to teach; fortunately I had both a solid existing foundation and a really good textbook, so I was able to teach myself during that period.) When I was growing up it was just the odd poor teacher, but these days I suspect that even some good teachers are not teaching maths very well because a) they don't have the time to give pupils enough individual attention, and b) there's so much pressure on getting good exam results that there is a huge temptation simply to teach black-box techniques without giving pupils a proper mathematical understanding. Here's the quadratic formula, stick your numbers in, crank the handle, and you'll get the right answer. We, however, were taught how to derive that formula; I can still do it. And, consequently, I don't forget the formula, but I also know that if I did forget it, I could just derive it for myself with a little thought. Someone who has only been taught the formula and not how it works is going to have no clue what to do if they forget it.

Anyway. This is the point in my degree where I get to do a non-maths module, so I'm doing one called "Making your learning count" in which you get to do a whole slew of short OpenLearn courses and discuss them. You can choose anything, so I've picked mostly courses in two areas of interest I'd like to bring up to date (cosmology and linguistics), but the one I am on at the moment is called "Teaching mathematics". It's about how younger children learn mathematical concepts, which is interesting as I haven't taught anyone under about 15 or 16; it's useful to see exactly what sort of things children are likely to get hung up on, and why, and how you'd address that.

And the authors of the course are very clear that the aim should be to get the children to understand why things work at all points, so that they aren't just memorising formulae and techniques by rote. I'm delighted that we're on the same page!