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dgeorgea

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About dgeorgea

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  1. While there are fewer jobs in terms of the sciences this doesn't mean that there are none. Chemists, doctors, vets, medical research, to name the obvious few where these subjects and occupations are needed. The two expanding job markets you mention are incredibly easy to get into and are well geared for adult education to get the necessary qualifications needed to get into, and are well funded by the government so often can be done without cost to the individual. Indeed once you get away from the formal education for young people most courses now available are focussed on training people for particular jobs rather than academic subjects, more often than not for these type of service jobs, or particular trades for which there is a current demand. Personally I don't see what the Russell group want having an affect on computer subjects or the recent introduction of coding in schools. These were introduced to help cover the growing IT companies and the current lack of talented people in this area and the need to depend on people from other countries. I guess the question you are asking is what we want from our schools. As I said I believe at this level it should be a broad education, I would hate to see it reduced to what ever is required for either elite jobs open to those who concentrate on the sciences or for a particular mass job market. With regards to the proliferation of study books, growing up my local library was three floors of books covering a huge range of subjects. I remember spending one summer at the library with a pencil and note book studying algebra which was holding me back at school. When I returned after the school holidays I went up two grades. Today the chances are I can go to my local library and buy a coffee while lamenting at the lack of books.as people sit with their laptops enjoying the free wifi. With home schooling more popular these books often enable parents to offer a wider education for their children. With the state of the local schools my daughter attended they also provide a much needed resource for brighter students. When a 6 year old is threatened with expulsion for trying to correct a teacher who said that everything we eat turns to blood, than tried to cover her mistake by saying she was talking about animals, just compounding her initial mistake parents will do what they need to do to help their child's education.
  2. Hi Canopus, I don't have a problem with the selection you have shown above, but then I believe that education up to the age of 16 should be broad, with the option to either specialise in a smaller number at A level or to continue with a broader education with ebac or bac. I am sad to hear that a combination of Geography and HIstory is restricted in some schools. Yes some subjects are harder, while some are easier, but I would disagree that because a subject is easier it is necessarily useless. My education was unusual as I attended a special needs school. So while we did the main subjects maths, English, general science, history, maths, history, geography, technology (ICT we didn't have a single computer) we also did less traditional subjects such as child development, home economics and typing. Over the years I also did canoeing, archery, abseiling and rock climbing, as well as PE, swimming and sport. One of the current issues with education is it has been such a political football over the years. One of the most damaging is the league tables. This has resulted in some schools restricting or removing some subjects, such as history because previously poor performance has lowered their place in the league tables. Another crude measurement has been the introduction of SATs. This toxic combination has caused many schools to concentrate on results at the expense of a proper education. Fall behind on one of the basics, maths or English will have a knock on effect with students falling further behind. But teachers have little choice to move on to the next part of the curriculum. Yet while parents are expected to use these two measures to determine their child's future, and politician are too happy to compare to very different performing schools, the government has one main criteria to comparing schools, which is the number of students on free school meals. One of the most pathetic spectacles I have seen is a primary head from a school in a high deprivation area going to a primary school in an affluent area to see how she could improve things for the students at her school and come back with only one suggestion. For parents to buy spelling books and get the children to learn how to spell ten words each week. This in a school where many students did not own a book or used the local library. It is no wonder our education system is failing so many children.
  3. My daughter took 12 and got 12 A* to C, most at A* and A While she chose to do GCSEs there were a number of courses she could have taken which would have given her several Level 3 certificates (GCSE equivalents) I know there are subjects which are seen as 'soft' or worthless, but I do not prescribe to this. My daughter was not keen on textiles, seeing very little value in this subject. After school she got into Cosplay, and makes most of her own clothes and props. Once I was happy this was not just a quick phase/interest I bought her a sewing machine to make things easier. If she needs something embroidered she asks me, a skill I first learned at school, and has given me a lot of pleasure over the years. Another skill I learned at school which has stood me in good stead over the years was typing. This has helped me to move from manual work, I am no longer able to do to office based work. However I agree with Pinklemon it will depend a lot on the individual.
  4. Sorry for coming to this a little late. I wouldn't worry too much, it sounds you are being a great dad. Why do you always have to be the teacher? An important part of the learning process is being able to teach skills/knowledge to others. Why not be the 'student' and let her teach you? She will love it and will have a great time. Just follow the instructions. If you make mistakes who cares? Your daughter won't and whose opinion is more important? While I know what you mean by monotonal books, but they are only monotonal if the reader lets it be. When I was reading these type of books to my daughter when she was your daughter's age I used to explore the sounds with her. Usually by over emphasising certain letters in the word, like the B sound in blue. I started reading to my daughter the day she came home from hospital and read to her every day until she was 10 and decided to inform me she was too old to be read to! I wouldn't have minded but she was finally getting into books I could enjoy and we had got to a good part of a book and I wanted to know what happened next Reading is one of the best gifts we can give our children. My daughter went on to university to do creative writing and got a first. Some of her best childhood memories are us reading together and making up stories. It also helped us to bond and see us through the rough patches. Yeah, when they get older it gets easier The friends she made I would not have picked for her, and while I wondered if her first boyfriend would be a biker or skate boarder he turned out to be a skate boarder named Pinky. Then there was all the fun things like her friends wanting to know if waxing hurt, so it was decided I would be the ideal test subject. Or how it would be fun to dress me up and put make up on me, for my wife to then decide she needed something from the shops which could not wait. The Goth phase was real fun, Kind of glad she came after the punk era. Or the day the parents at school were up in arms because the girls had got the 'special assembly' to discuss female issues. One of the parents asked my daughter what she thought and the awkward silence when she said it was okay but dad explains it much better. Sadly the years seem to fly by, and against my explicit orders she grew up anyway. Why do they never listen to us? While we went through a rough patch just prior to her beginning to be tested for Aspergers I have a lot of memories and enjoyed the roller coaster ride. It can be difficult and frustrating but the best advice I can give you is to try and relax and go with the flow. Don't sweat the small stuff because there are much bigger things to come. Something you might appreciate, we got her a video scope when she was 8. While we created some of the normal slides with different materials her favourite was when we decided to dissect lice and make slides with the different parts. She loved it so much she showed them to just about everyone. Secretly I think she got a kick out of everyone's reaction.
  5. Especially when I was younger people giving me the wrong instructions. Driver:Watch me back into wall Me: Okay... One reason I love my about my current employer and the people I work with they actually appreciate me asking questions so I don't have to make the wrong assumptions.
  6. dekaspace, While the internet can be a wonderful place with a lot of decent people there are some who get a kick out of attacking others and trying to upset them. Responding to them and particularly showing them you are upset just feeds them. They are not worth the upset or stress they cause. I know they can be hard to ignore, if the forum allows it I just people like that on ignore. They can rant and rave as much as they like but don't get the kicks as you don't respond. As others say, while it is quieter here you and the response slower it will be without the abuse.
  7. Rampant capitalism that causes people to step on anyone they see as less than them, constant stress and no rest, gossiping about each other and turning us against each other - all very white ideologies. As most of these existed long before capitalism it is not the only source but does have a huge impact on modern living. Other cultures still actually have a concept of community, but what do we have? Concept of and active communities. Yes these still thrive across much of white cultures. Nothing. We live in huge, anonymous cities where hardly anyone knows each other. Cities are much more complex organisms and concepts of community can be much more fluid. Without doubt though city life can be much more stressful and it is easier to become disengaged. Friendships now revolve around work. This is not healthy! This has been the case certainly for much of the last three hundred years, if not before. Many communities were built around different industries where people lived close to each other. Considering the amount of time spent with those you work with it is not surprising friendships often revolve around work. With cities where you can travel great distances to get to work and the workforce is found on a much larger geographical area this is where the complexities of city life can play a negative role. Different work patterns can make friendships more difficult. For example I worked 12 hour night shifts for 10 years including most of the bank holidays which made maintaining friendships difficult. And yet we are expected just to deal with it, act as if it's a natural progression of humanity when in reality, it's the fault of various global corporations being too greedy. While global corporations have a lot to answer for I don't believe they can be blamed for this. London was a city long before capitalism and larger communities are the result of a growing population and people living longer. Also we each have choices we can make. I have been involved in my local community for many years. While people moan about the loss of community it is often by those who cannot be bothered to be part of the community. I lived on a council estate where residents run their own affairs, deciding on the standards of repairs, what services or activities are available on the estate etc. Yet very few get involved. At one meeting I offered to bring in independent help so residents could decide what information they wanted us to report on to make the board and organisation more open and accountable, though I had made changes towards doing this. No one was interested. It is often easier to sit back and criticise than get involved. That said I love the local community as it does look out for itself and each other. It is far from unique.
  8. people on buses who insist on blocking the exit even though there are plenty of seats and standing space. kids on buses who insist on standing on the first step of the bus so every one has to squeeze past. One young girl who then decided to call me a pervert and paedophile when I told her I don't get my kicks from rubbing up against young girls and could she move. I asked her why because I had refused to rub against her, or was she there to pick pockets? She must have realised it was her stop after all because she got off. When the bus is late but idiots have to hold it up longer by moaning at the driver and delaying it further. People who are rude or abusive to shop assistants who are trying to do their job. Security guards in shops who insist following me around ignoring those who are actually shoplifting. Head lice, and parents who cannot be bothered to treat their kids. Main reason I bought a hair trimmer and use it without attachments. People who comment on headlines in newspapers who cannot be bothered to read the actual article. The biggest thing at the moment which makes me tear my hair out - I have plenty on my chest - I don't have a passport because I have never been abroad, I don't drive so don't have a drivers license, since splitting up with my wife I rent a room in a family home so no tenancy agreement and as my wages used to go in my wife's bank account I have no bank account. Although I have no interest in travelling abroad I am going to have to get a passport to be able to prove I have the right to live in the UK, get a job in the UK, be able to find somewhere to rent in the UK, and get an account so I can control my own money. So having been born and lived in the UK for over 50 years I am finally getting a passport so I can finally function in my own country. At least with a national ID card it would have been cheaper.
  9. It's called echolalia and is common with aspergers, though does not affect everyone.
  10. It was probably the best thing we did, as she got older she would begin to recognise the signs for herself and take herself to her room. There were times I was concerned she was spending too much time there, but most days she would choose to spend some time with us. I've separated from her mum now, but still spend a lot of time with her, and stay sometimes when her mum is away. Usually she spends a lot of time in her room, but there are times when she chooses to spend time with me talking about things, having a laugh, or just watching tv together and making comments about what we are watching. I love those times with her not least because I know she has chosen and wanted to spend that time with me. It is difficult to explain how much that means to me.
  11. Hi Sunworld, I know how you are feeling at the moment as we went through this when Aspergers was first mentioned when my daughter was 10 though she was 12 before we got the diagnosis. First of all drop the guilt trip, it saps your energies and a piece of self indulgence you don't need and your children don't need. Diagnosis has not changed your son, but it can help guide and identify ways you can help your son. Regarding your son's Jekyll and Hyde behaviour, the best way I have found describing this is imagine the worst day at work when you want to lash out either physically or verbally but cannot. You look forward to getting home to wind down but when you get home for whatever reason you cannot. Away from the confines of work and in the safety of your own home you are more likely to be snappy and express how you feel in ways you wouldn't at work. Now imagine this happening everyday but without the skills most adults have to cope or the skills to express yourself. While you don't want to end up walking on eggshells around your son as he gets older you may need to make some changes around the home to make things less stressful for you all. For example as the boys have their own bedrooms a simple rule like they are not allowed into the others bedroom without being invited. With our daughter when she was 10 we agreed that we would not enter her room without knocking first getting her permission to enter. This was important in establishing a safe area in our home and where she felt some control in her life. It also meant as she got older we were able to help her recognise when she was getting stressed and to take some time to calm down. Her behaviour was often bad when getting home from school and by allowing her to go straight to her room and listen to her music until she was ready to join us calmed life down a great deal and made things a lot easier. Understanding what was going on also helped us to be far more relaxed in dealing with it. If she started to kick off I would send her to her room. Later on when she was an adult we talked about this, as she always found it amusing that to punish her I would send her to the room she wanted to be in as it had everything she wanted in there. As I told her it was not about punishing her, but giving her space to calm down. She always chose when to come out. Once our stress levels went down hers began to become more manageable for us and she began to be less stressful around us. One of the hardest things was to find where some of her challenging behaviour was coming from and finding the right way to deal with them. For example when she started making friends there was a rough patch where she was hitting her female friends as hard as she could on their arms. They tolerated it initially but it quickly started to annoy them. Fortunately one of them mentioned it to me and when i asked her about it she said it was what friends do and the boys do it all the time she was just joining in and they didn't mind. At that stage I knew trying to explain the differences would not work so spoke to her friends and explained why she was doing it and asked them to tell her they didn't like or enjoy it and girls don't do that sort of thing. It worked out well. The reason for picking up this behaviour was because it was obvious and as it made the other boys laugh she thought it was normal and part of being a friend. If it helps I often describe finding out she had aspergers as stop seeing a child and discovering the individual. She was still the same person, it was us who had to change. Its not always easy but worth the effort. One thing I used to worry about was her future. At the age of 22 she came out of uni with a first and new friends and has a job she enjoys. I have a couple of weeks off coming soon and she is taking me lazer tagging as I've never been. Personally I think it is to fulfil some childhood dreams of 'killing' me off. But then it can be good to realise some childhood dreams.
  12. The forum rules don't allow me to post a link, but if you google Centra Pulse, then click on the link for the gps watches. They show the prices for the Everon Vegas, but not the Limmex which my daughter uses. Not 100% sure of the purchase price for the Limmex as my daughter was a tester for this. though they were talking around the £200 mark. The price quoted is for service element to the call centre. The GPS side of Limmex is not very accurate when we tested it. They can narrow it down but this does take time. So it is more suited to those who can communicate and being able to exactly locate where they are is not a major issue. When it is answered your information comes up on their system so they will be aware of your needs and communication skills. I was impressed with the communication side, it is like having your phone on speaker, clear and easy to understand what the person is saying. It is the hardware and software in the watch which pushes the cost up. Vega while more expensive has a much superior gps tracking. Where as the Limmex send out a single signal for gps locating Vega sends three allowing for quicker and more accurate location find.It is more suited to those who are less able. But if you are interested speak to them first to ensure it will be suitable for you. The watch section is a little thicker than normal, I mention this because of your concern about wearing a bracelet. Both my daughter and I are big fans of the Limmex watch, but for transparency while I do not work for Centra Pulse I do work for a company which is part of the same group.
  13. My favourite method of relaxing is ironing. It is one of the few times I find my mind relaxes and goes blank. I enjoy walking in the rain watching the world rush by and not feeling part of it.
  14. I'm not a christian, but many of the christian people I have known are wonderful people and real ambassadors of their faith. I have also had a lot of run ins with fundamentalists and will admit to having a little fun at their expense. The problem is many christians do not understand their own religion. The Jewish relationship with God is one of a covenant of law and obedience. This 'failed' and so God sent Jesus to set a new covenant, one of grace and forgiveness. Yet so many still revert back to the old laws when it suits their prejudices, often failing to see their context. To give an example on one hand many believe abortion is wrong and is murder dooming those involved to eternal damnation, on the other they are happy to quote 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' to justify themselves. The quote appears once in the bible, and it is discussing the penalties if two men are drunk and fighting resulting in harm to a pregnant woman. In the same section if they cause harm to an unborn child the law is clear about what should happen. The father, not mother, can set a sum to be compensated for the loss of the unborn child. However if the person who caused the loss of life feels this is set too high they can take it to the judges to make a final decision. So the value of the unborn child is what the father decides what it is but can be tempered by another man (judge). Another thing often overlooked is the only example of Jesus sending his apostles out to speak to people about him and his teaching he specifically told them to ignore the gentiles - non Jews. It wasn't until after his death and ascension that men decided to include gentiles. Talk about the dilemma of dying and finding you picked the wrong religion. Nothing however demonstrates the personal prejudices of the religious bigots than their attitude to sexual matters, and gay sex in particular, but are far more tolerant toward adulterers, fornicators etc. On a lighter note, do you know the oldest make of motorbike? In the old testament it says of King David that they heard the roar of his triumph across the lands.
  15. Sorry I should have been a lot clearer on this. My experience of working with communities is there is a lot of youth on youth crime. In some areas this seems to be predominantly gang based, especially in cities like London. In others it seems based more on differences and non conformance. For example when my daughter began getting into the goth culture was the same time Sophie Lancaster was beaten to death for being a goth. But these two different causes of youth crime often bleed out to drag in others. However disability hate crime is not restricted to young people. I often witness too often adults who seem to believe when they meet someone with learning difficulties or mental disabilities it gives them the right to abuse the person, usually verbally. Medic alerts used to do just that, alert those who needed to know that there was something to be aware off with further information to be found either on the back or inside. Googling medic alerts I notice they are far more obvious now about what is wrong. For diabetes, epilepsy or allergies this might make sense. What I was trying, very poorly, to say is it might be better to have something which tells others you have specific needs but doesn't broadcast those needs. But at the same time contains the information you can choose to share with others when you choose to. For example with my daughter, and she was 12 when we first got her a medic alert we chose the snake around a staff pendent, on the back we had engrave 'Aspegers' and mum's number on the back. The pendent was something we knew she would like and wear when she went out. These days she wears a watch with a button she can press which puts her through to a call centre with trained staff. Where necessary they can talk to someone to explain her difficulties and help, can stay connected to her until she is somewhere safe or if necessary speak to the police or ambulance to get her help quickly - important as she works in a shop where they sometimes get very difficult customers and where potentially she could be followed after leaving work, or connect her to mum or dad via our mobiles. It is not a cheap solution. The solutions we have chosen have always been discrete. I guess one of my main concerns is not to put young people off from travelling independently or pursuing their interests. My daughter has been doing so since she was 12, with one of us going places with her in the first place until she was confident to go on her own. It has enriched her life, given her confidence and helped her to make some very good friends based on shared interests. She has been the victim of crime once, she had her mobile snatched out of her hand while talking to mum. A bad 20 minutes for us as the last thing my wife heard was her screaming and as she was in Liverpool having to wait for someone to call us to let us know what had happened. The main point I was trying to get at is the solution you choose should also allow you to choose who you share the information with. The advantage of medic alert is it tells someone there is probably a good reason for your 'strange' behaviour without jumping to conclusions like your drunk or on drugs which initially could result in a negative experience with individuals of authority, as well as getting appropriate help quickly.
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