bad, bad, bad

The arrogance of these students is simply a characteristics of their sub-culture in which to be modest is to be a victim. It appears to be a culture based upon power/victim dichotomy. In my class, their destructiveness was a means of controlling the class.

bad, bad, again

The vociferous and destructive students from last term did not of course produce any work, well not individually. I received one set of assignments that I believe was concocted by them all. One was clearly meant as a joke but the remainder was not very, very bad. They were only in the classroom to disrupt. What were they disrupting? Other people's chances? Their lives are probably very different and there, between young children and anarchic boyfriends, education plays little part, coming way down in a list topped by cunning. Their views reside in a past of troubled schools where teachers were authority figures, redundant with middle-class values. We are the people who once, they believe, controlled their lives.

Although they lack respect for others, they are immensely arrogant about themselves.

Education:2

In the colleges in which I occasionally work, many of which are grocery stores, that is you pay your money and select a qualification, students demand a qualification whether the do the work or not. For many, there is no concept of their actually being eligible for awards. They see others with certificates therefore they have a right to the same.

But many colleges work on the same principle. Students, whatever their ability, must be helped through courses. Failure is not an option.

Is this a good or bad thing?

Is it fraud?

I had a response in History Today-see earlier blog-in which the writer accused me of an irresponsible, dismissive approach towards sufferers of mental illness. Of course I was attacking the construction of mental illness by the medical profession and our willingness in general to accept their largely self-serving position. This is my reply:

I feel Mr Roberts has not actually dealt with the matters I raised but nevertheless his arguments require a response. First, I have to take issue with his recommendation of drug treatment for those experiencing grief as not only are such drugs wholly unsuitable but also likely to cause long term harm. Even British psychiatrists have strongly criticised such practices. The evidence that mental health services have successfully cured anorexia is very debatable, as much of the present decline may be due to changes in the media, which probably initiated the problem with its obsession with female bodies. This may be an instance of the inevitable NHS propaganda whenever the potency of different illnesses fades. NHS websites display a flawless service, with no mention of recent disasters and scandals. Mr Roberts has simply reasserted the medical model.

     My argument concerns the ideas behind the concept of mental illness, methods of treatment and diagnostic processes.  I will begin by pointing out that prevailing notions on mental health/illness have been historically constructed by the medical profession, an autonomous, powerful elite body, at present symbiotically connected to the pharmaceutical companies, without reference to public debate. These notions are rarely critiqued by other bodies, but simply accepted as true. Any medical history, such as those written by Roy Porter or Paul Starr in his Social Transformation of American Medicine, adequately testifies to this disconcerting development. Mental health professionals have, in the process, excluded better, more sophisticated ideas on human mind and personality from public health and public consciousness. Although I believe mental illness exists, I suggest it represents a small percentage of those diagnosed and that the lack of accountability of mental health professionals, particularly psychiatrists, who normally have no knowledge of psychotherapy, counselling, family or interpersonal interactions, leads to arbitrary and subjective decisions.

     The rare instances of independent research into the neurobiological approach of the profession tend not to confirm its validity. Recent research for example, indicates that psychotropic drugs, such as valium and anti-depressants, in 75% of cases have only a placebo effect.  The remaining 25% can be ascribed to falsification. Psychotropic drugs contain and control individuals and, of course, are highly addictive with damaging psychological side effects. Precisely why they should not be given to those who have recently experienced bereavement. Here, the real success story is bereavement centres, not GPs. The above evidence, not produced by the medical profession or pharmaceutical companies, concludes that patient trust and belief in the treatment process provides any beneficial effects.  Ben Goldacre in his recent book Bad Pharma deals with these matters at length, itemising missing or adjusted data.

    Mr Roberts argues that modern life presents different challenges, causing the enormous increase in mental illness. I have come across this argument before but it is rarely followed up with reasons as to why modern life can have this affect. It is merely, it seems, an assumption based upon feelings of regret and nostalgia. Let me again present an alternative view backed up by recent independent research.

     There are now far more mental health professionals, many of which can diagnose mental illness in others. Add to these GPs, and the number is considerable and growing. Once an individual is thus labelled, both the diagnosis and prognosis is fixed. A patient might have for example just been made bankrupt, feeling their life is spiralling out of control, and go to their GP, the only source they are told that will help them, to be instantly prescribed psychotropic drugs. In the statistics, they are now part of the growing body of mentally ill. Since the last World War, GPs have taken on roles once assumed by kin, communities, and religious representatives. Not only that, but many other groups offering help, such as SANE and MIND, propagate the medical model. They do not tend to challenge its basic paradigms.  Outside of the medicalisation process, it is difficult to find other forms of help for life’s difficulties. With the influx of Moslems and those with other cultures and beliefs, it will be interesting to see if this process continues and if instead people learn once again to seek advice and help within the community, bypassing the medical profession when confronted by misfortune.

     Dr Peter Breggin, an American psychiatrist, decades ago suggested that prescribed drugs actually caused the strange behaviour of those labelled mentally ill. Jeremy Reed’s Bitter Blue confirms the nightmare effects of tranquillisers. It is therefore highly likely that many people with short or long term periods of mental instability are affected by psychotropic drugs given by GPs for all kinds of social and emotional upsets.

     Let me now throw anecdotal evidence into this discussion. A fellow lecturer of mine, who also has worked and works within the mental health field, confided to me, without prior knowledge of my own conclusions on the subject, that mental health treatment appeared to be an attack on creativity. Her words not mine. She also noted how professionals identified themselves as normal and their patients as abnormal, and the importance of this artificial division to the former. For them, their patients were substantially different. Another, much older, colleague of mine confided in me about the entire (probably an exaggeration) occupants of a housing estate prescribed psychotropic drugs in the 1980s during a period of mass unemployment. She surmised if this was treatment or a strategy to prevent social unrest. Last year, a student of mine lost her sister. In her distress, she went to her GP who prescribed anti-depressives. My colleagues and I directed her instead to a bereavement centre and by doing saved her sanity.

     Mr Roberts scolds me for being offensive to patients and service providers in my short review. Let me counterbalance this complaint with an examination of recent behaviour of GPs and the NHS in this area.

    For several generations, GPs have prescribed the aforementioned dangerous psychotropic drugs, such as valium and ativan, to their patients for a variety of reasons. Over this period of time they failed to notice the addictive and psychological effects they had on their patients. When the alarm was raised by outside groups, neither GPs, nor the NHS as a whole, made any attempt to wean patients off their addiction. No facilities were set up for that purpose. When confronted, they blamed their patients. The government of the time stopped court action, claiming the payouts would cost the state too much in view of the number of claimants. Was this because the medical profession is such a powerful, independent group or because many claimants were from the lower sections of society and largely powerless within our society? You will not find any reference to medical drug addiction on NHS web sites, or, to be fair anything there that reflects negatively on the profession at all.

     To conclude: as can be seen in the works of Roy Porter, ideas of mental illness have been formed by an autonomous assembly in concert with its own development as a powerful, elite group during a period of scientific and medical professional triumphalism: the ideas of this group are rooted in 18^th century notions of rationality, which requires those deemed irrational to be contained and controlled: in the present day drugs are the most effective way of doing this: as the experience and evidence of the efficiency of taking  drugs is controlled by pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession, the drugs employed may be causing inestimable long term harm.

Education

Adult education today is made up of two different viewpoints. On the one hand are the traditional colleges and universities which hold that students earn their degrees and that some people have less ability than others, on the other hand are the private colleges, government colleges, minor universities which take a more democratic approach, believing higher education is for all.

This weekend I marked over two hundred course papers. Exhausting, labourious and boring work. Nowadays, all papers look the same, or the majority do. There seem no original ideas now and no doubt if there were the clever students who produced them would be penalised. Everything and everyone is becoming homogeneous. The same thoughts are constantly reproduced and only style and skilled use of format distinguish one from the other.

business types and intelligence

Having met and known a number of businessmen throughout my life, I am usually bothered by one observation general in its attribution. Without fail, they seem to lack intelligence. I do not believe this is the case with all businessmen, and that some may be of very high intelligence, but of most. Am I misjudging things, misunderstanding bad manners and offensive attitudes as some kind of uncontrollable idiocy? Surely, to run a large company requires above average abilities? Except that viewpoint does not necessarily reflect reality as so many business people I know have acquired their money in a multitude of unethical ways that only the very stupid could engage in. Success in business seems not to require intelligence but other aptitudes.

Follow learning outcomes

I am marking Edexcel papers but this exam is quite simple to pass. It has sets of learning outcomes and the student needs to meet each. But in fact, it is very easy to get a merit as well if you implicitly follow the outcomes.

How to write essays

All essays can be written to a formula, acquired from lecturer or course material. Most academic and vocational courses are clear about what they require from the student.

One: You read the books you are given to read and use them to construct your essay. Originality is not expected of you, nor thinking. The essay assignment brief will give you all you need to work on. Do not attempt to think outside the box or take the essay into un-prescribed areas.

More later:

trouble

We left Lagos and its overcrowded, dangerous streets as night fell to avoid the life-destroying congestion. We headed out towards the Benin Republic on the single, if well-maintained, highway. The car was packed for safety. After we crossed into Benin, we were stopped every mile by menacing police and military carrying obsolete weapons. My companions thought that word had reached them that a European was travelling through the country.

The border crossing was an arrangement of huts and bungalows. When we arrived most of the officials were asleep. It had the disquieting atmosphere that bleakness gives to dawn in some parts of the world. We hung around, showing documents, providing bribes for an hour or two. Then we passed through into Togo. My companions went back to sleep as the car sped along. I stayed awake, squashed and uncomfortable. My back hurt squeezed up and in a fixed position.

As daylight emerged in full fury the highway became crowded with sellers. They were young and old, offering cartoons of raisons, bottles of water, orange juice, phone cards, fruit, and rice. They ran alongside the assortment of motorbikes, scooters, vans, lorries, trucks and cars. They were constitutionally and habitually unbothered by the increasing heat.

Eventually we reached Lome, Togo’s capital city situated on the Gulf of Guinea. It has something of paradise about it.  The city is built on red soil that emerges from the sea and rolls inland. Scattered around are isolated palm trees. The city is only a few yards from the sea. The beach is a strip of white sand that straddles the entire coast like a beautiful necklace. Squat off-white buildings boasting wide, ragged, brightly coloured canopies. The dust rises as the day progresses. The sun pours down its light and heat, growing fiercer by midday.

We got a cab into the city centre, a wide sandy boulevard. The redness prevails. From a distance it looks like a huge open wound. It has an astonishing beauty.

Gabriel buys a melon from a stall. Everywhere there are men, but few women. They look hard but happy enough. They scrutinise me as a walk around, taking in the flavour of the place, scolded by the heat. I am the only white man around. I guess they are curious as to why I am there. Gabriel keeps a practised eye out for trouble.

We get another taxi for the embassy. The city’s dirt roads are full of holes. We have a bumpy ride as the car sinks into the road, groans, and speeds upward again from some deep rupture. The car jerks sideways and to our surprise and joy the road disappears. We get out. The road seems to continue again ten feet below. The cab driver smiles and shrugs. I smile and shrug. It’s different. Its fun all this disorder and disruption. Everywhere are herds of goats. Chicken appear from every shadow. Swift lizards scurry across walls.

The embassy is a two storey bright gleaming white building full of plants and flowers. We purchase a visa into Ghana. It costs us a small bribe. Bribes are cheap here. Afterwards we head further into the city. The heat isn’t uncomfortable. I’m enjoying it after the miserable months of northern climates, rain, wind and cold.

The café was on the main thoroughfare. Gabriel ordered rice, peas and chicken. I had spicy chicken. We ordered mango juice each. The food was delicious. I ordered more feeling like an over aged Oliver Twist with freedom of choice. Compared to many African countries, there were few people around. Those that were, were not rich. There were few cars around. Fewer trucks. The men wore robes. The women wore cotton headscarves and plain pinafores. There was something relaxed and genial about the city, something wholly enticing.

We stayed there only one day, but I wished it had been longer. In late afternoon we crossed through into Ghana.

While I relaxed in the back, Gabriel drove. I looked out. We were racing along a narrow slip of road. On one side was a calm, flat lagoon. On the other was the ocean, rolling away towards and over the horizon. The road was red. It was a red gash running across the disunited water. On the other side was a line of dark green trees, hiding the land beyond. I already missed Togo.

NEVER MORE

Walking over the moor on a sunny day, the wind at my back,

I saw before me a woman over-burdened by a voluminous rucksack

She trudged along face against the wind

Reached a gulley filled with bramble bushes and turned around a bend.

I looked for her when I reached her point of departure

But could see nothing. In fact as I looked I became increasingly unsure

That I seen her that day. The moor was full of mist,

And in truth, I was fairly pist. 

Walking over the moor the following day

I searched the land for the best possible way

To reach Croven, a village first settled by the ancient Brits,
Whom the Romans had routinely cut to bits,

Where I had left my wife and car.

Going around in circles, up and down, lost in the mire

Of marsh and bog, the mists kept descending

And my return to Groven, wife and car, seemed never-ending

When I saw the woman approach me again

The rucksack straddling her back like a fin

I called out in a tired and plaintive voice

She walked through me over the purple grass in a trice

Stopped, looked back, noticed my agonised expression of a man completely lost,

Squealed, dropped the rucksack and began screaming about a ghost

I did the same belting headlong into the marsh

Dying swiftly there, which I thought was kinda harsh!

I still see the woman when I trudge a sad spectre through the moor

But we greet each other now, knowing each is Nevermore.

 Rod Simon

Medical Profession

I am at present writing what will hopefully be an extensive piece of work on the medical profession, its origins and how it has manifested itself into self a powerful group. Many reading this will say, of course because they save lives and are essential to our continued well-being. But is their influence and power a necessary part of their benevolent function in modern society? Most people do not know how powerful the medical profession is and so ignore these factors. Are we perhaps, by and large, blinded by sentimentality? What is the reality of the triumph of modern medicine? Hopefully I will answer some of these questions.

Agony

As this week I have been marking, I have been thrust amongst my fellow lecturers more and therefore face to face with their sheer lack of genuine intelligence and ability. A sympathetic lecturer informed me that many of the younger ones were students at the college, who were then hired to lecture. It doesn't surprise me. Forgive my laspse here-but they are sooo thick!!! Its an agony to work alongside them.

GOLD DUST

Gold Dust is an online and printed magazine that offers literary work, or purports to. It has a readership of approximately 5000. Its presentation values are very high although I've seen the web setup it employs elsewhere. It has the advantage of having different editors, for example, one for poetry and another for short stories.

Both poetry and short story sections are good, but conventional in tone. None of the published pieces would create a wave in the general literary world as they lack adventure. Summing up: good, efficient work but not brilliant. The poems appear to be chosen for wordiness and ubiquitous pronouncements. Still, well worth a buy.

Sun sets

When the sun sets
the snow rises
When the moon descends
flowers grow
As a man dies
A child is born
As a man dies
A baby cries


Ying Cao

DRUGS

Is depression truly helped by drugs that merely squash feelings and memories? Is it so reprehensible to live with negativity? Do we always have to be positive?

A population fed with drugs is one that does not rebel. The triumvirate of drug-companies, medical profession and government is benefiting from this smothering of thought and action.

history today-earlier this year

Letter, posted in History Today: Comments welcome

I was very interested in your article of February 2013, volume 63 issue 2, A Curse and a Blessing. May I put a slightly different twist on the matter? As someone who has worked in mental health for a number of years, occasionally lectures in the field, and has history degrees, I see the matter from a slightly different perspective.

Since the Second World War, in part the result of the growth of the NHS, there has been a growing medicalization of human nature. Much of that process has been in the area of mental health and this has increased over the past twenty years. Now almost every façade of human behaviour is subject to labelling. For example, if you constantly work you are considered, or likely to be considered, as suffering from some kind of disorder. If you don’t work, your behaviour is labelled as a different, if connected disorder. Grief, part of the natural human experience, is treated with drugs and considered yet another disorder. Each condition is accompanied by an expert sooner or later. All human behaviour is now subject to medical analysis. The treatment invariably involves drugs.

May I suggest that not only is this process colonising the present, it is also now colonising the past. Although neither the writers of the book under review nor your reviewer intended it, it conveys the notion that Churchill’s immense character traits were the product of a bipolar condition. I would firstly strongly contest that he had such a condition but also point out that this is how the medicalization juggernaut works. Now, Churchill’s exceptional qualities are subject to medical scrutiny. Also, although Lincoln’s wife was difficult and neurotic, there is no evidence she suffered from schizophrenia, an illness with clear symptoms. This juggernaut seeks to reconstitute exceptional behaviour and ability into mental health issues, imposing increasing conformity.

What would have been the fate of these exceptional people had they lived in the present day? They would have been classified, prescribed highly addictive drugs which would have altered their behaviour and swamped their judgement and creativity. I’m afraid like everything else stigma against mental illness is there for a reason; to provide credibility and greater influence for the medical profession and more money for the pharmaceutical companies. I have worked in the psychiatric field for over twenty years and I strongly hold that it is 80% charlantanism, based mainly on the acquisition of professional power, prestige, status and money.

jupiter

Although Jupiter Mag, a sci-fi webzine and printed magazine, was recently slated for a certain amateurishness as it is run by one person, this is not the case. The stories it publishes are excellent examples of the genre, well written and accomplished and bear comparison with many other more esteemed sites. The stories are often original and thought provoking.

See what I mean.....

Circadian Schism

So there we are down by the old canal
Me, Jonesy, Rodent Matt, lost in banal
Contemplation, the kind that always comes
From smoking too much white. Not so much dumb
As deadened, quite detached, though erudite
Enough to stall the ever-present shite
Spilling from the gutters as stars vomit
Their message on the sky – I need a hit.

Rodent Matt is looking awfully ill
Today. I think I blame the dodgy pills
We nicked from that old pikey in the park,
Spesh in hand and piss down his trousers. Dark
Pits for eyes and a dribble for a smile.
He won’t miss them, he’s only got a while
Left I think. It’s cirrhosis of the soul,
The creeping rot that turns a heart to coal.

Back to the point, in case you’re wondering
How Rodent got his name, now here’s the thing:
He’s terrified of rats, petrified stiff
Of their furry bodies. Just one small sniff
Is enough to make him roll up and cry.
Maybe in a past life he was mugged by
A gang of them. Nothing surprises you
In London. I swear it’s usually true.

I have only reproduced a portion of this long poem by Ben Powers, which can be found on Middlebrowmagazine, an online literary mag. Although composed in unfashionable couplets it displays an originality of metre and of subject matter that can stand beside many more revered pieces. The conversational style, of someone talking to reader or an acquaintance-with the reader evesdropping-is excellent. Look carefully at the lines-It's cirrhosis of the soul/The creeping rot that turns a heart to coal- combining wit with everyday references.

I want here to change tack and look at an area of literature rarely scrutinised, at least not by serious people. Short story and poetry websites I believe have recently been producing excellent material in a number of genres including ScFi and Horror. Now of course you may throw your hands up in shock and horror that anyone would bother reviewing such literature but it is surely time. I have published in a few and therefore know a number better than the casual reader. Whatever claims made for ScFi and Horror websites and webzines a strong claim can be made for the poetry variety.

WHY?

Why do a large section of the students act boorishly and rude, exhibiting unusual aggression towards the staff?

• They are not genuine students, only there for the grants, something to do, to have a bit of fun by acting destructively.
• They have been told the college passes everyone anyway.
• Lack of intelligence.
• They know nothing will happen to them no matter what they do because the owners want their money. They can therefore be as challenging as they choose. 
• This is the way they normally behave in the outside world on some council estate in the darkest parts of London.
• Get this! I spoke to the student officer who reckoned they were like her when she was young and clearly is on their side. But this is a college! This is about education! People are supposed to grow up surely? What about the lecturers? Do they not have the right to be treated with respect? Not to this student officer who looks well past 50 and perhaps should know better. She sees disrespect as a positive quality rather than the unacceptable behaviour it actually is. But this is a private college! Such facilities acknowledge money not learning.

Ying Cao

My thoughts are like clouds
drifting slowly
My thoughts are like fire
Burning fiercely
My thoughts are like air
Invisible but life-giving
My thoughts are mine.

GOD HELP!

I'll now drop my professional mask:

Only another day before I go in to teach the thugs in this appalling college from which the owners are making a fortune. Of course, all the students are not that bad. Some, a small proportion are excellent, but most are moronic! I hate to use such words but it is true. Rude, ignorant, lacking in either intelligence or grace! Such a bunch, by and large, of ......And they will be working in health and social care! God help our relatives in care homes throughout the land! Bullies, brainless, and banal.

Although I've commented on this before, as per my previous comment, it is not unusual for private colleges not to pay or to pay at a much later date than scheduled. It has happened to me, and many other lecturers, numerous times.

1) The owners might have had to pay large company or personal bills and place lecturers at bottom of the pile for payment. This certainly reflects on what they think of lecturers. They are business people and view lecturers as only tools, easily replaced.

2) Many lecturers are immigrants themselves, and view such behaviour as commonplace in their own societies where college owners rule like mini-emperors. They usually do not question such behaviour or fight back.

Ex-Colleague

An ex-colleague from a West London college I worked at earlier this year complaining that the college had not paid her. A usual problem with private colleges. She asked me what she should do and I explained the legal processes.

This college is interesting in that it pays lecturers very little but achieves this in a very odd fashion. Lecturers are not paid for marking or designing assignments. This can nevertheless absorb ten to twenty hours a week! They are pressurised if they do not get the unpaid work in on time.

Derby University has recently included them in a partnership. Should they really do that?

Unlike my present college, the majority of lecturers are well qualified and experienced. What a way to treat them!