Half thinking of starting an #AcademicVenting hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.
Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail. #Universities#AcademicChatter#neoliberalism
@pvonhellermannn But, but…..it’s such an important and rich area of study. So much indigenous knowledge is lost because many younger ppl see it as old and boring. (Context here would be South Africa)
So much for the hope and idea of sleeping in until 6. Just too much stuff up in my head. I really hope that after the big hoohah of today, I'll feel more at ease and I'll be able to do some extra sleep.
(Edited to replace kickstarter link because KS owner is a evangelical self-defense missionary person and creeped me out: this version goes to the infinitely less-dodgy Adafruit.)
Probably one of the hardest things about growing up autistic + ADHD for me was waiting my entire childhood to grow up to adulthood so that I could have the things that really bothered me and upset me handled in a way that wasn't invalidating and be allowed to be myself. Only to discover, once I got to adulthood, that other people felt the same way as me and that empathy and understanding had been options the entire time, it's just that I didn't get to have them
@hazelweakly I hope you get to have them now.
My parents certainly didn't understand why I was so "difficult" - and there was very little information available about neurodivergence around at that time.
@JeremyMallin@actuallyautistic I think it could also be a comfort thing for other neurotypes. But then, I only figured out I was autistic after raising two autistic children!
A call from my sister just after midnight that she’d taken mum to the hospital.
Been holding bedside vigil while sister goes home and gets some sleep. Doctors running tests and whatnot. Morphine for the pain. Machines that go “bing”.
It’s about 4:30am and mum’s snoring with a plethora of tubes and wires.
Eyes are heavy. Chair is uncomfortable. The nurses showed me where I could make a cup of coffee for myself.
Grading. I hate it. Big, summative assessments. I don't hate the process of grading - I hate the deep sense of failure that comes as I look at ALL THESE KIDS WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN THE BASICS OF MATHEMATICS.
It's that time of year when I question whether I would do more good to society cutting verges or packing shelves in the local Aldi.
@grrrr_shark@PatrickoftheG Yup. ☹️ There's damage to be undone. When my daughter was about 10, her therapist told us that they were only then getting to some of the damage that her 5 months of "regular" school had done when she was 6.
Go easy on both of you. You both need a recovery time. And it's so much faster to learn individually than in a class. Also - no rush.
@grrrr_shark It's sooooo difficult. We were so lucky to find a group of like-minded homeschoolers in our area. (Plus I didn't have to do the teaching - my mom, a retired primary school teacher, did all the heavy lifting).
@grrrr_shark Online with your dad, maybe? It's very helpful not to have to be the parent and the teacher. (I teach my son in the regular school. It's a bit weird.)
@grrrr_shark Cool. Don't overestimate what she needs at uni though - as far as I can tell, at least here in NL, most computer science courses start quite basic. You would know more about that.
And maths is probably just up to calculus and some fun statistics / matrices. It depends what school leaving qualification you want to end up with. I have Opinions. (with a capital O).