I have just been looking back at the NSS project I was involved with LLAS last year. The report concluded with 12 actions colleagues from nine institutions were planning to take. Not everyone will agree with all of them, I though I would post them here for interest.
1. Using the NSS questions on first and second year questionnaires.
2. Encouraging students to make more use of timetabled advice and guidance sessions.
3. Providing a more comprehensive introduction to the library resources. One colleague plans to recommend making library sessions obligatory.
4. Informing Level 2 students about previous actions taken in response to the NSS.
5. Discussing ways in which the NSS can feed into broader staff development, including courses for early career teaching staff.
6. Promoting more staff use of discussion boards in the institution‘s VLE as a means of providing feedback.
7. Encouraging tutors on skills modules to put more emphasis on transferable skills.
8. Developing a better understanding between staff and students of staff availability.
9. Communicating assessment criteria more clearly in order to relieve pressure on office hours.
10. Harmonising teaching and assessment for different languages. Where there are exceptions a case should be made to the students.
11. Fostering a 'personal tutoring' culture in the department.
12. Promoting awareness to students of the importance of the NSS.
John Canning, et al (2011) Understanding the National Student Survey: investigations in languages, linguistics and area studies. Southampton , GB, LLAS (Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies), 13pp. Available from: LLAS website
Spent some time today trying to conceptualise the way potential (UK) students make decisions about where and what to study relative to the information available and advice they receive. Comments welcome. Been doing this is preparation for next week’s workshop for heads of department.
The news last week that London Metropolitan University has lost its highly trusted status from the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) is not that troubling in itself. After all if there are irregularities in the way London Met has conducted its affairs then it ought to be investigated by the appropriate authorities.
What makes me most angry about the situation is that the ruling affects existing students. These students (or their sponsors) have paid tens of thousands of pounds and spent one, two, three four years of their lives studying for a course that they are not allowed to finish. They have not broken any law in the UK, yet they stand to be deported or refused entry to the UK unless they can find another university to take them in the next three months. As anyone who works in higher education knows transfers between universities are academically and logistically difficult at the best of times. Few courses in UK higher education are ‘like for like’ meaning that even the most well-motivated transferees are likely to face some academic disadvantage.
The decision to apply the ruling to existing students is not only unjust for the individuals affected, but is totally irrational. Here are a few reasons:
It damages the reputation of UK higher education as a whole. This is the message which is being sent: “Come to our university! We’ll let you in but can’t promise you will be allowed to finish”. We don’t know if the London Met situation is an isolated case or the first of many. Either way it damages the reputation of the whole sector.
This will not just affect individual student decisions, but those of sponsoring businesses or governments overseas. If a company or other organisation is paying for an employee to acquire specific skills in the UK, they don’t want the UKBA deporting their employee for something which is entirely outside their control.
It sends the message more generally that the UK is not open for business.
It sends the message that law-abiding individuals who spend their money in the UK and contribute socially and culturally are at risk of deportation at any time.
It sends the wider message that individuals can be punished en masse for the actions of others.
I have spent the last couple of days trying to work out why the Government is behaving the way it is: Here are a few suggestions:
The Government wants to show its power over universities. It shows that the universities only operate with the consent of the Government.
The Government wants to show that is “tough on immigration” and cracking down on universities, where thousands of non-EU people are in one place are a “quick win”.
The Government has a specific vendetta against London Met. London Met has been in the news a lot in recent years for not very positive reasons. This may be a good way to get it closed down.
Just a few thoughts from me. The students at London Met don’t deserve this and neither does the sector as a whole.
Last week I was unsure whether or not writing about my experiences of depression was wise or not. I received many messages, both public and private from friends, family and colleagues wishing me the best, offering support and advice, and sharing their own experiences of depression. I am so thankful for all these messages. I would best describe it as a relief. Having gone public I plan to write a blogpost every so often, but I won’t be making this “John’s depression blog”.
One thing I understand for sure about depression is that everyone experiences it differently. You can’t tell if a person is suffering from depression just by looking at their demeanour. Last week many others came forward to tell me about their experiences of battling depression, anxiety and addiction. Like me, they don’t come across as depressed or unhappy. And perhaps like me the ‘darkness’ is not a 24/7 experience.
So why did it take me so long to a) seek treatment and b) start telling other people about it.
On the face of it these are separate questions, but in one respect they both have the same answer. I really believed that if I was ever diagnosed professionally as having depression I would be signed off work and become unable to cope with everyday life. And if others knew I was depressed it would become my main identity. I suppose this is part of the anxiety element. The prospect of being unable to work is not just a financial issue for me, but central to my sense of self. Some say that having too much of your identity invested in work is a big problem, but maybe I’ll write about that another time. Either way these fears are irrational. Recognising that you have a condition doesn’t suddenly make it worse.
I genuinely believe my depression to be fairly mild, but that does not mean it is not a problem. In the back of mind I almost felt the fact I was able to function at work meant it wasn’t proper depression.
My only real advice to anyone feeling depressed is to seek professional help. I’m one of those people who finds it difficult to talk about my feelings. Being a bad patient is also part of the problem—I never really told the doctor how I was really feeling. We all need to remember that doctors are not mind readers.
This is my first ever post which quotes from a Take That song, but for the university academic everything really is changing this year. here are a few big changes that everybody in academia needs to know about:
LLAS 'Thriving in an uncertain world": workshop for heads and leaders in languages, linguistics and area studies on13 September 2012 in London. As noted by Take That, everything changes.
These words are sung by characters in a modern day retelling of the Good Samaritan by the Veggie Tales. In the Veggie Tales version the victim falls head-first into a hole and just needs someone to pull him out. The passers-by recognise his predicament and sympathise, but they are too busy to help –an apt parable for modern times.
This article in the New York Times sums it up pretty well and rebukes me. Being busy is a “boast disguised as a complaint”. And in these times of economic hardship we prefer it to the alternative. We seek to be busy getting involved in things to keep busy. We worry what we would do without it.
In university life it seems that we are busier than ever. Not being busy is a moral failure. We have reached the point where anyone who gives any hint of not being busy is not pulling their weight. We take on extra work and get involved in anything that is going on. We must be there. How could the workplace function without me?
I am a latecomer to the Smartphone generation but since I got my Blackberry I’m checking email from work every time I pick up the phone. I check twitter when I wake up and before I go to bed. I reason that twitter is a good way of checking is there is anything in the news I need to be aware of and my fellow HE tweeps will help me there. I have to fight the guilt the feel when not ‘working’ on one another of my projects, whether its spending time with my kids or watching some TV with my wife after the children have gone to bed. Is twitter really work? It sure keeps me busy.
The New York Times blogger observes that people in minimum wage job aren’t busy—they are tired. I should know this. I am busier than ever, but am I working harder than ever? After my A-levels I worked for three months in an aluminium extruding plant working day, evening and night shifts. Some of the guys (they were all guys) were working 12 hours shifts with chemicals, extreme temperatures, jagged pieces of metal and in the case of the presses levels of noise I’ve not heard since. Those guys weren’t busy, but they worked really hard –many had been there over 25 years. This really is the case for millions of people in the UK and millions of others would like the opportunity to work hard.
I resolve to find a better word than ‘busy’ to describe my life.
I wrote this review of the The Shack just over three years ago to share on Facebook. It was causing quite a stir in Christian circles back then. Opinion was divided between those who saw the book as modern day Pilgrim's Progress and those who saw it as voice of the Devil himself. I've not heard so much about it recently so perhaps its influence was fleeting. Whatever the case I've decided to publish my review here.
The Shack by Wm Paul Young.
The Shack largely passed me by until about four weeks ago, but once I had heard of the hype surrounding it I decided to give it a go. Unusually for a contemporary Christian fiction book I (or rather my wife Michelle) found the book in Waterstones on the 'three for two' table. This was enough to convince me that this book was not just for the Christian market. Online reviews are divided –this book is either the greatest work of Christian fiction since Pilgrim's Progress or it has been penned by the hand of Satan himself to deceive God's people. Christians I know personally are divided, many taking the view that they shouldn't read it at all. So having made the decision to read it, what do I think?
Firstly, its literary merits. The storyline is fairly compelling, it has a good plot, and its perfectly readable. However, it is not a great book and certainly not a Pilgrim's Progress for our generation. It does not come close in the depth of allegory of Bunyan, nor that of C S Lewis. I cringed somewhat at some of the prose. I found that the depiction of God the Father as an African-American woman as much a literary problem as a theological one. Of course that's the point though-- the depiction of God in this way is supposed to challenge our preconceptions. I suppose that if this is a starting point that this is no bad thing. However, if we change our view of God from an old white man like Gandalf to a black woman who likes cooking, then we merely exchange one misconception of God for another.
This leads me onto the book's theological merits. Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church unpacks the unbiblical view of the Trinity depicted in The Shack. Driscoll is more qualified than I am to explain these points, so I'll leave my readers to consider his views for themselves. Many reviewers on Amazon claim that The Shack helped them to understand the doctrine of the Trinity [better], though I'm surprised that a work of literature can succeed where pastors and theologians have not. I suppose that my point here is that I, personally, don't seek to learn theology from a work of literature, not even Langland, Bunyan, Tolstoy or CS Lewis. I discover deep truths (and errors) in them of course, but them again, I should never assume that other people think in the same way as me.
So where does this leave us? Like Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life this book is both over-hyped and over-demonised. From both the literary and the theological point of view there are a million worse things to read than The Shack, many of them for sale in Christian bookshops. However, there are also many greater works of Christian fiction-- the Chronicles of Narnia and the Pilgrim's Progress for starters. When I next set foot in an North American Christian bookshop, I fear that I will see Shack notebooks, Shack pens, Shack mugs and Airfix model shacks in the 'holy hardware' section. Anyway these are my thoughts. I know many will disagree. I say if you needed to read The Da Vinci Code to see what all the fuss was about, then you'll need to read this too.
I have been thinking of writing this post for some time. I’m still not convinced of the wisdom of writing it, but I have been suffering from depression for some time and been taking anti-depressants for the past year. Most of the time I am able to cope, but occasionally I enter periods of what I can only describe as deep darkness. Those who know me or follow my blog will know that that work has been difficult over the past couple of years. The closure of the subject centres, being re-interviewed for my job, and having my hours reduced have taken their toll, but my struggles with depression pre-date these events. I’ve told very few people about my struggles. I think I’m actually quite good at hiding my depression. The medication I am taking is actually for anxiety rather than depression – my doctor even said to me “I don’t think you’re depressed”.
I am fortunate to have a very loving wife and family as I go through this process. I am grateful for my job and enjoy my work. As far as I know I am performing well at work. I have been keeping very busy and am working on some interesting projects. I am fortunate to work with really nice people. I have a strong Christian faith. Working four days a week has enabled me to set up my open access research website and take on some freelance work, which has been very enjoyable. It all sounds very nice and it is, but as anyone who has suffered from depression knows none of these things guarantee good mental health, and many face depression without any help.
There seems to be a lot of talk about depression on the radio and TV at the moment. I’m not sure whether this is due to the recession, heightened awareness of the condition or whether it is just heightened awareness on my own part. I’m not sure what the consequences of ‘coming out’ will be, but I feel that it is time to stop hiding what I am going through.
Today’s Daily Telegraph has an article under the headline “More pupils pushed on to 'Mickey Mouse' qualifications ”. Anxiety about league tables is leading schools to enter pupils for GCSE exams in less rigorous ‘Micky Mouse’ subjects rather than the more vigorous traditional disciplines. Schools have been found to be offering courses in cake decorating, warehouse work and stonewalling (I presume they mean making walls out of stone rather than obstructing their future work colleagues). One of the commenters on the article has noted that the actual percentages taking these courses are actually very small, but the raw numbers look quite large.
Firstly, I’ve never been comfortable with term “Mickey Mouse” course. The title of a qualification and the topic say nothing of the academic, intellectual or practical rigour involved in being successful in the course. There is no intrinsic reason why a course on dry stonewalling is less useful, valuable or intellectually challenging than a course in Ancient Greek.
Secondly, it is useful to remember that traditional disciplines were once, in modern parlance ‘Mickey Mouse’ subjects. In 1888 Professor Sealey, a historian at the University of Cambridge, suggested that the study of contemporary French literature could be as intellectually demanding as – shock horror— the study of Latin. It was 1907 before Oxford University offered a degree in modern languages. Perhaps in 100-years’ time the Telegraph journalists will see Media Studies as a traditional discipline.
Thirdly, and this is nub of argument, articles such as the one in today’s Telegraph, are based on the underlying assumption that all children need to be taught exactly the same curriculum and that any deviation from this ideal curriculum fails our children. Successive education secretaries of all political persuasions have sought to make sure that all pupils can meet some target or another; we only have to think about the recent debates about the amount of time pupils should spend doing Physical Education, and what sort of PE that should be. I don’t know how many hours per day or week pupils should be doing of different subjects but I am starting to suspect it exceeds the amount of time that they actually spend in school. I’ve never quite got the bottom to why, if all these targets are so important why academies and free schools are exempt from them. Both Michael Gove and his Labour predecessors acknowledge that different pupils need a different sort of education, albeit in a very perverse way.
Just as we mustn’t judge a book by its cover we shouldn’t judge a course by its title. For me, a course in putting up shelves or painting a room wouldn’t have gone amiss.
