06 March 2014

Notes - preemies / follow your bliss /

         The article below reinforces your ideas about how it was growing up having been premature. Earlier iUniverse wrote and said they did not allow ebooks to be distributed free. Thus you are taking them off your list. You sent a polite reply however. - Amorella

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SCOTLAND

5 March 2014 Last updated at 19:23 ET
Premature babies may be disadvantaged later in life

By Eleanor Bradford
BBC Scotland Health Correspondent

Children born prematurely may be disadvantaged for the rest of their lives by poor understanding of their needs, according to experts.

Paediatricians' research has shown premature babies are more likely to have difficulties at school but few teachers are aware of this. The number of children born prematurely is rising because women are having babies later in life.  Researchers say the education system should adapt to reflect this change. They are calling for a child's gestation to be recorded on their education records as a way of flagging up any problems.

'Greater risk'

"We know from a Scottish study that the earlier you are born the more likely you are to have have problems at school", said Glasgow paediatrician Dr Nashwa Matta.

"But these children may still be clever and the problems don't appear until the workload increases at primary or secondary school." Children born prematurely are more likely to be emotionally immature, lonely and at greater risk of bullying. They may have visual perception issues, including difficulties with numbers and mathematics. Further traits of prematurely born children may include short memories, attention spans and problems with multi-tasking.

Some premature children are also disadvantaged if they are born at the end of the school year because they are effectively sent to school a year early. If they had been born full term they would have gone to school the following year. Around 4,000 babies are born prematurely every year in Scotland.

'Behavioural issues'

Dr Matta has organised a one-day conference to highlight the issue at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. "The simplest thing to do is to put child's gestation on their school entry form," said Dr Matta. Then, when a teacher has a child with difficulty with attention, certain work, and memory then they will know he's born prematurely and can find out what can be done so gap doesn't get bigger."

Three-year-old Findlay Masterton was born three months early. His mum Lorraine is worried he won't be able to cope when he goes to school. "He has behavioural issues, there's a strict regime of how he likes things done," she said. She added: "Findlay has different wee issues that a kid born full term wouldn't have and I think these might show up when he goes to school next year. "There's nothing stated for schools that they have to do anything about this or give them extra time for their lessons. "Schools recognise medical problems, but pre-term? I don't think it's taken seriously enough."

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) backed the call for tailored support for children with additional support needs. An EIS spokesperson said: "Teachers and other education professionals working in our schools are aware of the broad range of additional support that is sometimes needed to allow all children to benefit fully from their education. "There is a requirement for continuing investment in adequate ASN resources in all schools, and for teachers and other professionals to have access to ongoing professional development to ensure that they can continue meeting the particular needs of all pupils."

From BBC

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         0937 hours. Time to do some exercises and clean up for the day. I have worked on the Intros and am ready to begin the first chapter proofreading.

         Post. - Amorella


         Mid-afternoon. You had lunch at Penn Station and have been running errands. Presently you are at Tylersville Kroger’s with one more errand to go. Earlier you did your exercises and have been taking your blood sugar before lunch rather than before breakfast, as it is generally much lower. You are finding that lines jump up at you when to add and delete and are using this as a kind of automaticity. This is because you have what you need in the back of your mind as it were. This is the way you used to grade essays, now you are using it for proofing; you could not do this on the screen but paper is the standard, also in your head of thirty-seven years on the job. – Amorella

         1449 hours. It appears this is going to take longer than I thought because of the small additions, mostly for content and flow and the deletions. Some sentences just don’t need to be there.

         Follow your bliss, boy, just as Joseph Campbell instructed. – Amorella

         What a thing to say, and out of the blue.

         Part of your bliss was grading papers. Most teachers of English would not believe this, but those who witnessed you grading would know better. – Amorella

         I never thought of grading as blissful.
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blissnoun

perfect happiness; great joy: she gave a sigh of bliss.

• a state of spiritual blessedness, typically that reached after death.
verb [ no obj. ]

(bliss out or be blissed out) informal reach a state of perfect happiness, typically so as to be oblivious of everything else: [ as adj. ] : blissed-out hippies.

ORIGIN Old English blīths, bliss, of Germanic origin; related to blithe.
From the Oxford-American software
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         You returned from the grocery and bank and now Carol is walking around the lake at Pine Hill Lakes Park. You are facing into the sun so you can see the screen better.

         1535 hours. I don’t think I have ever heard the term “blissed out”. Many people with spiritual values have learned how to live through Joseph Campbell. I never got into trouble showing the first episode of “The Power of Myth” in my classes. Before that I used notes I had taken from Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces. I used it ever since the fourth quarter Mythology class in the 1970’s. Some could have complained that I was teaching religion, I suppose, but no one did. The only complaint I can remember along those lines was teaching from the Old Testament, one of the Bible stories in our British literature texts for as long as I can remember, mostly in reference to the KJV. One parent at Indian Hill said her daughter did not have to read it. I never had test questions relating to the subject so it made no difference to me. I didn’t have any test/essay questions on Joseph Campbell either. Testing wasn’t the point. I never tested to instill the concept of human values in my students. Now you have to teach to test only, at least that’s what I have heard. Probably not true in the classroom though. I would have continued anyway as I am sure many others do. I am sure I have written this before, sometime in the blog.

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The documentary, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth has six episodes:
                Episode 1: The Hero's Adventure (first broadcast June 21, 1988 on PBS)
About Campbell, hero types, hero deeds, Jesus Christ, the Buddha, movie heroes, Star Wars as a metaphor, an Iroquois story: the refusal of suitors, dragons, dreams and Jungian psychology, “follow your bliss,” consciousness in plants, Gaia, Chartres cathedral, spirituality vs. economics, emerging myths, “Earthrise” as a symbol.
From – Wikipedia Offline
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         You can almost picture the complete episode by reading the synopsis above. – Amorella

         1620 hours. This is true. I loved every section in this episode. The students, almost all of them, showed interest. Many had not seen such a conversational dialogue as presented by Campbell and Bill Moyers. Chartres Cathedral was wonderful. And the spirituality vs. economics fit right in my earlier lectures on “wants and needs” examples in my logic lecture as well as with “MacBeth” and “Hamlet” characterizations and with the propaganda lectures too. Amazing how a word or two brings back one thing or another from what I used in classes over the years.

         One more stop, at McD’s on Mason-Montgomery Road for reading time. Carol is on page 71 of The Eye of God. Go ahead and post. – Amorella

         1638 hours. I can work on proofing since I brought it along. 

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