Father Christmas and why we lie

 Book illustration, pen drawing
Pictorial Miscellany for the Family Circle
1855 Mark Forrester  

In the last week Freya, our four year old, has asked, 'what holds the earth in space?', and 'who makes the things we don't?'  They're exciting and tough questions and not ones we can give an answer that Freya will be satisfied with, but at least she hasn't yet asked straight out, does 'Father Christmas exist?'

In our house we have believers, non-believers and everything in between for both Father Christmas and God.  We try to respect each other without denigrating, humiliating or generally annoying each other, but chatting about the existence of an omnipotent being does not require lying.  In the past we've parried the Santa question, avoiding any kind of direct question, but it gets more uncomfortable for me and gets more complicated with a range of different levels of  'belief''.  I guess it goes back to the old addage 'what tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive', and this has to be one of the oldest lies.  It gets worse as I watch our older siblings, learning from us adults, lying to their siblings, taunting them a little, exerting their superiority, having 'fun' with them.

Dorothy Roe's  is very clear about lying in her latest book, 'Why we lie':

'When we lie to others sooner or later our lies become apparent, and trust is destroyed'

I can't help agreeing, and remember the feeling as a seven year old when my parents finally told me they were separating.  I was more angry with my sisters than my parents for not telling me something I already suspected.

Isn't Father Christmas a harmless white lie?  I have met a couple of adults who recall bitterly the moment Santa was exposed.  I've also talked to disappointed children when finding out the truth, but is the 'magic of Christmas' in jeopardy if we give in to the Santa spoilers?

A primary school got into a fix when it exposed Santa:

The blunder came after the Year 5 pupils were given seasonal worksheets containing various festive classroom exercises.  

One began by informing the children that 'many small children believe in Father Christmas'.  It then went on to explain that thousands of letters sent by these children to Santa every year are actually answered by the Post Office.  

The youngsters were then asked to write a pretend letter from the Post Office to a child explaining why their requests for presents had been refused.

The London Standard went on quoting disgruntled parents for whom the magic of christmas had been ruined:

'What gives the school the right to decide when children should know the truth?'

What I think this story exposes is that this school, and we as a whole, are teaching our children to lie, and that lying in certain circumstances is not just acceptable, but expected - that lying is a social skill.

I can see that we use lies, as adults and children, all the time.  I also have to agree with Dorothy Roe that most lies, white or otherwise, land us in more trouble rather than less.

But it is with relief that I haven't yet had to explain what really happens to the magic reindeer food our school gave to Freya, at least for a bit longer...


Useful links:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/05/why-we-lie-dorothy-rowe-review

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/santa-claus-does-not-exist-school-tells-stunned-kids-7239395.html

Why we lie; The source of our disasters,  Dorothy Roe (2011: Fourth Estate)

Mythical Forest theme for Paganel Archives

 



It was time to present the ideas for our archive room, and we were not disappointed by the scope of ideas, vision and hard work of our archive team, developing how the archives and the archive room will be used.  Margaret Rees from the Rep has been working with our Archive team for 5 weeks to develop thoughts and ideas, using a range of team design techniques to develop a series of themed model rooms, from Myths and Legends to Underwater (very Lemony Snickett - I'll  have to ask if any have read A Series of Unfortunate events).  We are combining the themes and ideas in a 'Mythical Forest theme', with castles, monsters, soft floor seating, and multimedia tree, among the many great ideas the group came up with.

The term has been very busy and exciting in the Archives room itself, with archives training for the first five weeks with Birmingham Archives team, and the start of a weekly 'Archives Club' - an after-school club additional to all our archives plans, born out of enthusiasm of our Archive team and again supported by Birmingham Archives team, interviewing more and more fabulous people connected with the school and local area.

Next we will visit the Crescent Theatre to see exactly how lighting and props can be used to effect mood and create a truly fantastic atmosphere in our Archive room.  Over christmas some of the work will be carried out in our room, ready for the Easter term, where again our team will help decorate and finish our room.

In January we have plans to explore 'Make do and Mend' as part of a sustainability and recycling theme.  We will be visiting Sellywood House, a local old people's home to interview residents, reviewing archive material alongside interviews and doing our own'making and mending', based on the interviews and material we will find.

It really is very exciting to see real plans for our archive room take shape, and the enthusiasm and dedication of so many people to make a proper repository archive, and most importantly to develop archives representative of Paganel school

Highbury Trust Consultation

Tonight sees a consultation on for (another) Trust, and perhaps a critical meeting at Queensbridge School.  This time it's the Highbury Trust, a large space formally the Chamberlain estate between Kings Heath and Moseley.  Here's the concept plan, and more info.

I worry that signing over large parts of our assets to be managed for many years (in case of golf clubs, 25yr freehold) means we, through the City Council, have less say in what the organisations that take them over do with (technically still) our assets.  It leaves the door wide open for abuse, and reduction in access to what we own.

But that's not to say there are people out there who are willing to put time and energy to ensure our assets are put to good use - below an open letter from Laura Watts from Dens of Equality:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing on behalf of Dens of Equality, a community inclusion development agency which supports a range of projects for children and families across Birmingham. With regard to the current consultation we have a longstanding relationship with Uffculme School children through our play outreach projects run in the school and notably Parks for Play the local charity we support. Parks for Play delivers an array of play services in the constituency from large, free parks- based holiday playschemes, fruit and flower garden parks based projects, children's Saturdays clubs prioritising children with additional needs and Playwell, the first and only specialist after school play care in Birmingham run from Uffculme school. Playwell has benefited from productive partnership work bringing school and play practitioners together and enabling families with disabled children to start and stay in employment. 

The key point I would like to make is that children at Uffculme, like most children thrive on being educated in amply spacious surroundings. They have endured three years, particularly the new teenagers, of totally inappropriate prison style Portakabin accommodation whilst the building they were due to renovate on goodwill has been deteriorating at a pace savagely raising renovation costs. 

Children with autism are extremely likely to face extensive social isolation, an experience with massive consequences which we fail to recognise alongside the many indexes of deprivation. These children and young people do not need or deserve additional obstacles to impede their pursuit of well being .It should also be acknowledged that if Uffculme is sited at Chamberlain the Parks for Play charity is likely to commit to a programme of long term fundraising for neighbouring areas of the park, particularly in terms of access and to the benefit of the wider community. 

A measure of our community is how well we treat our more vulnerable citizens and in this instance those of us who have stood back or impeded the progress of this development have cause for individual and shared shame.

The early majority

This week I have presented at and attended more extra thingies (forums, surgeries, debates) than perhaps I should - there's quite a backlog of stuff I didn't do, and here I am writing a blog.  Oops.

It has been a mind expanding and twit expanding experience.  One completely new concept to me (probably something pretty basic to you social sciencie types) is the 'early majority'.  It was only mentioned in passing at The ESRC acting local thinking global event I'd been representing HGA at, but led me to consider how it applied across other areas of my life.

At the ESRC event we were discussing car culture, train stations, anti-social youths and how, more generally to influence people to change their habits and make social change.  It was a challenge to, I think, a somewhat fatalist attitude, that you can only work 'with' market forces rather than attempting to change them.

Moving on to the digital surgery, the next evening, a good number of students had come out, or stayed out at Campus to meet up and discuss their use of ipads, tablets and mobile devices.  In some ways it was frustrating to see the university as a whole is clearly at the 'early adopters' stage, and we were looking at the 'chasm' of barriers to make more effective and systematic use of these devices.  But there was awareness of the problem, plenty of suggestions how we can go ahead, both as a group, and actions we can take to make it easier for students to use their own devices, apple or other.

The next evening I had off - Nikki was working in Kingstanding interviewing young folk, so still had discussion around how to change adult attitudes to young people late into the night - again huge challenges, and frustrating to change attitudes to young people - are we still at early adopters?

Next evening was Teachmeet, which I had been looking forward to, and maybe foolishly put myself forward for a presentation I knew I probably wouldn't have time to adequately prepare - note to self, even if presentation is short, doesn't necessarily mean less time to prepare.  Again we were looking at the barriers to effective use of ipads, and some of the fantastic examples of uses across education.  there was one particularly impressive presentation by  Finham Park students who were training their teachers to use ipads.  I'm going to suggest this to our students on our iLearn ning - I'm sure could develop something interesting on these lines at University.   Thanks also to @danielharvey9 for organising a great event.

I suspect I'm placing myself into 'early adopters' role, even if I'm looking to early majority, when really I fit in all of them for a whole range of issues, or for the same issue across the many different communities of which I am a part.  And sometimes things don't go past 'early adopter'  -  I've definitely put a mental block on that one.  But if you were to put yourself in a social sciencie box, wouldn't you rather be 'an early adopter' too?

Tonight?  That's our office social.

Useful links:

http://suewaters.wikispaces.com/Rogers

Birmingham Beards

As Movember approaching I've been looking at exotic whiskers and found some inspiration in Birmingham Archives.

Here's a few of my favourite Brummie beards from history from Birmingham 'Faces & Places' Volume 5. Those Victorians sure were out and proud when comes to facial hair.

Good Writing

I'm no expert on academic writing.  I'm even less of an expert on medical stuff, but in the last month I've been spending the time I'm not playing with my kids, to help develop on-line writing resources for students at University of Birmingham Med school to encourage academic writing.

My experience of academic writing began with Sigmund Freud.  While I was working at Brooklands Hospital, I'd spend my lunch break reading paper after paper - it's good stuff, and as he covers issues as diverse as  creativity, medicinal use of cocaine and, of course, family relationships.  It's good mainly because it's readable.  You don't need to be a doctor to understand it - Freud is amusing, playful, conversational and maybe a little mischievous.  He knew how to write a story, isn't afraid to be opinionated, or indeed 'subjective', and most importantly knows how to construct a good argument around his findings.  This does not fit into Gillet, Aveyard et al, Levin, and many University guidelines on what 'academic writing' should be, but the influence of Freud, the audience he has reached cannot be denied, and must be, in large part, to his writing -  he lectured extensively, and also wrote letters documenting at least part of dialogues with Jung and others, but his published material reached a much wider audience.  

Over one hundred years ago publishing was very different, and the options to promote your scientific findings far more limited.  Academic journals, the monograph, and monographic series were an important means of reaching an audience, and a valuable means to find out about quite specialist subjects.  They represented a 'who's who' of important people within a discipline.  

In the last ten years we have witnessed an explosion of writers using the internet to publish, while at the same time more traditional peer review academic journals, on-line  and paper, have declined.  More and more people are writing, just not for the same academic journals and monographs that previously were so important.  Doug Belshaw, Stanley Chodorow and Gideon Burton are three of the many 'education technologists' and others who go further, suggesting 'we are gathered here around the comatose body' of this form of academic writing.

Wikis, including wikipedia, blogs, discussion forums of all kinds, are all promoting writing from a wider number of people, some of which is every bit as 'good' as any academic journal.  You don't have to wait months to see if you will be published.  You won't be beholden to experts within your field, who may have considerable vested interests in either delaying or promoting your essay.  You will get valuable feedback from people who read your stuff.  As a research tool you will be contributing to a far more significant shared knowledge than any journal, and as your reputation (hopefully) grows, so will your readership.

You don't have to be an expert to write.  The more you write, the more feedback from your readers, the better your writing.  Peer review academic journals may not always be the best for this, but if that's what you want, writing in other media will make it more likely you'll get the invitations to write for peer review journals anyhow!

Useful links:

• Academic writing

• On (not) working in academia

• The Forever Decline: Academia’s Monograph Crisis

• The Specialized Scholarly Monograph in Crisis: Or How Can I Get Tenure If You Won't Publish My Book?

• Peer review is vanity publishing

• Sigmund Freud

Other academic writing aids:

• ABC Study Guide. Advice about writing an essay. 
• Aveyard, H., Sharp, P. and Woolliams (2011) A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Thinking and Writing in Health and Social Care. Open University Press
• Dunleavy, P (1986) Studying for a Degree in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, Macmillan
• Levin P. (2009) Write Great Essays 2nd Ed.  Open University Press
• The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery.Introduction to Academic Writing. 

And (in case you were wondering) my own limited contribution to published writing

Torch relay lights my fire

Today I'm watching the last of the torch relay live an event I've been following ever since it's dramatic arrival at Lands End, through to Birmingham and on, finally now, to London.

I've been involved, on behalf of Hall Green Arts, in supporting two major events in parks in our constituency, and attended a handful of the tens of thousands of Torch relay planning meetings across the UK to coordinate certainly the largest single event I've ever been a part of.


Logistically it is truly incredible - to organise a rolling road block across the 8000 miles it journeyed over 2 months.  Then there's the promotion, marketing, coordinating other events around it, bad weather, the sponsors, safety and security issues...


There have been celebrities, there have been dramatic stunts, all around the raw simplicity and symbolsm of a torch relay.  But that's not what I find most exciting,

As Bruce Forsyth, one of the last torch bearers, put it:


      You can't beat a big crowd getting excited

It's the way it has brought so many people together, to celebrate the olympics.  Whatever that means to each of us, it's likely to be the closest many of us get to it.

Useful links

• Torch highlights
• Photos taken by our 'young paparazzi' team at Calthorpe Park
• Sunrise at Sparkhill
• Sunrise at Sparkhill 2
• Sunrise at Sparkhill 3
• Olympic Torch celebrations at Farm road Park