Emotional Wellbeing As A System

I didn't really fully understand control theory when I took my Engineering degree at Glasgow Uni. One of the lines of study was how systems react to "impulses" - for example how a helicopter behaves when hit by a sudden fierce gust of wind (does it start to flail around and drop out of the sky?) or how an electrical system reacts to a voltage spike (does it immediately shut down or go on fire?). In general, the more "reactive" a system is (which might make it more manoeuvreable) the more unstable it tends to be. 

Well engineered systems find the right balance between stability and reactivity. A system that reacts swiftly to "correct" inputs can also tend to react swiftly to "incorrect" inputs.

Your emotional wellbeing is a bit like that isn't it? Looking after your emotional wellbeing is a bit like considering whether you have the right balance between stability and reactivity. Daily life is full of "impulses" (the engineering kind, not the emotional badly thought-out decision kind).

Your alarm fails to go off at the right time. Your car doesn't start. You forget your umbrella and it's raining. Your partner was rude to you about something. Your bank balance is lower than you thought. These are all impulses that impact on the system that is our emotional wellbeing.

Helicopters are actually quite stable - they have control mechanisms that allow them to absorb sudden gusts of wind without falling out of the sky.

F1 racing cars are pretty unstable - they have to be to allow the driver to accelerate, brake, change direction extremely quickly. It's also why you see regular examples of a glancing blow between two cars causing them both to spin off the track - race finished. F1 vehicles are specifically banned from having systems like ABS and traction control which provide more stability.

I think it helps to consider your own emotional wellbeing as an engineering system. I like to think I'm pretty good at absorbing life's daily impulses and not flailing around before dropping out of the sky.

Do you need to be more helicopter?

The Unusually Good Cohort

 It was never going to be the perfect process. When SARS-COV-2 landed on our shores back in February, the exam season was essentially cancelled immediately (although we didn't know that at the time).

No exams for pupils meant of course that the assessment process was going to consist of teacher-estimates (backed by professional judgement and whatever evidence we could remember for individual pupils based on how they had performed over the course of the year).

That raw process was always going to show a statistical aberration from what formal, invigilated examinations produced by way of grades produces, year-on-year. The usual process provides a reasonably good level playing field for pupils across the country and can be relied upon to ensure that pupils from every school in the country are graded on how good they are at sitting in front of a formal question paper (yes, indeed, we don't all agree on the suitability of that model for setting kids' life chances).

When the teacher-predicted results were submitted, gathered and analysed it became clear that there was a problem. Curiously the class of 2020 had performed significantly better than other years - a situation unlikely to have been the result of unusually good teaching and learning taking place between August 2019 and March 2020.

So. A problem. What to do?

Of course, dead easy. Look at the performance of pupils in each school in each particular subject across a three year period and determine where a cohort has clearly been over-estimated. Then take a statisical mallet to those results and hammer them down. Brilliant!

This will, of course, address the cases where for example new teachers have been too optimistic in estimating a pupil's performance (it happens; we all did it in the first few years of our careers because we believe in our awesomeness as teachers and we believe that pupils will ultimately perform well on the day).

So the "statistical mallet" will tease out and rectify those cases. No doubt about that.

But at this stage we need to consider the Unusually Good Cohort. The UGC comes along every few years. We recognise them quickly. They are usually a joy to teach; they work hard every lesson; they do their homework; they do well in early-term class tests. They are what we all imagine every class is like when we decide to become teachers.

And they stick out like a sore thumb, come exam time.

They exist. When I met my old French teacher six years ago for her ninetieth birthday celebration, she waxed lyrical about my year group (who left school in 1981). She described how my year group had been "noticed" in primary school in 1974. For the avoidance of doubt, although the UGC were my friends. I wasnt one of them.

I had a UGC a couple of years ago. Higher Physics. With a "normal" nationwide average of about 30% of pupils achieving an "A" in the exam, this cohort delivered just short of 50% A grades come exam-time.

But UGCs are statistically unusual - and this year they have been hit with the mallet.

Schools teaching pupils with fewer socio-economic challenges (please don't call them "good schools") don't have much headroom for unusually good cohorts to shine. Their results are usually high. But schools who don't enjoy such freedom from "challenges" have lots of headroom. UGCs will appear like a flashing blue light alongside (and indistinguishable from) over-optimistic estimates.

So, this is where the headlines about deprived pupils being disadvantaged have come from. Pupils with significant challenges, who have listened to teachers and parents, who have buckled down and worked unusually hard and who have done their school proud and who have shown that "good" schools and "bad" schools is nothing to do with postcodes have been slaughtered.

Part of an Usually Good Cohort? Tough.

This needs fixed. And quickly.

A Bedtime Battle

"Just close your eyes and go to sleep"

"I'm not tired"

"Look, it's been a long, long day and there's a lot to be done tomorrow"

"Look at that bug crawling across the ceiling. Can you not see it?"

"It's late. Go. To. Sleep."

"I told you, I'm not tired"

"Just close your eyes, and try to go to sleep".

"I'm..........still............not............"


And with that she fell into what looked like a restful slumber. I probably had dozens of bedtime battles like this with my daughter over the years, as my mother probably had with me fifty-odd years ago.

But this was the here and now, and it was me imploring my 85 year old mother to rest her shattered body and confused mind. Dosed-up with morphine, her broken left arm immobilised by a surgical brace and her left hip a dizzying array of bone fragments visible only to the prying eyes of the x-ray machine.

I smiled at the role-reversal.

The morphine - while nullifying the pain of her injuries - had demanded the modest fee of minor hallucinations. Sadly no elephants on unicycles, just some benign bugs walking across the ceiling.

Her death certificate says "multiple organ failure" resulting from a "mechanical fall". My ostensibly healthy 85 year old Mum went - in the space of 25 hours - from preparing her evening meal to dying. All because her slippers caught on the kitchen floor and sent her crashing to the ground.

It's difficult to process when it's written down like that. "I fell" is usually the refrain of the child and accompanied by tears and snotters. It's usually treated by a hanky to a grazed knee and a kiss to make it better.

But it killed my Mum.

The utter brilliance of the NHS was breathtaking. The 999 call was followed within 10 minutes by the arrival of an ambulance. The paramedics' professionalism in quickly and effectively treating her immediate physical needs was mirrored by their utter brilliance in calming the atmosphere and soothing the panic of the uninjured. A second ambulance soon followed in order to expedite Mum's mechanical stabilisation and evacuation; all the while, apologies from the patient for being stupid and ruining everyone's night.

A couple of hours or so in A&E, with a CT scan clearly pointing to hip surgery within 48 hours and subsequent months of recuperation. Coupled with a broken arm, the medium term future for Mum was going to be her worst nightmare. Even if she did manage to return home, she was going to need personal help with everything from food prep to you-know-what. Now was most defintely not the time to share with her her prognosis.

Eventually we were admitted to a ward - sitting with her for a further couple of hours. It was here that we had the bedtime-battle, good-natured and clearly an opportunity for her to gently wind me up.

But, thankfully she fell asleep.

Arriving home at 2:30am - getting a reasonable four or five hours sleep - the morning call to "come to the hospital as soon as you can" was like a thunderbolt. She had deteriorated overnight and - although still very much alive - was not responding to verbal stimuli.

The day progressed. Further diagnostics revealing intestinal stalling. Blood pressure inexorably falling. Heart rate rising in an attempt to maintain blood-oxygen levels. Kidneys not playing ball.

Lunchtime saw admission to ICU and the administering of meds to artificially sort the blood-pressure issue. But to no avail. By 4pm it became clear that we were about to watch my mother die.

It's been said that everyone dies alone, but thankfully not my Mum. As we sat around her bed we chatted about normal stuff : about her granddaughter's upcoming wedding; about work; about the weather. And as she drifted off, as her breathing became shallower and her pulse grew weaker I hope and I think that she felt everything was "normal". No fear; no panic. Just peace.

"Night, night. Don't let the..........?"

"........bed bugs bite".

Life And The Three Needles

Early August is often when I think about stuff. Having seven weeks off work, and having been on holiday, my brain starts to ponder. Sadly it sometimes makes me write stuff down (some of which even got published a few years back. Thank you Jane).

I had a beer-induced revelation on holiday. It concerns happiness and the meaning of life and I think I managed to develop a monitoring system for life-contentedness. It requires a regular review of your three dials - "needles" if you will (I'd like to believe we're all familiar with the crap voltmeters we used in Science at school - the old analogue ones with needles to indicate the reading).

I'd submit that contentedness requires three things : money, time and health (OK, four if you count "fulfulling personal relationships", but indulge me here).

Now, by "money" I don't mean "shitloads": I mean enough money to do the things you want to do. I think it's a common mistake to try and maximise the money you have, but the problem with that is that in increasing the reading your money-needle, you often lower the reading on your time-needle (not to mention the potential impact on your health of working too hard to earn said money).

No, I think it's important to decide firstly what you want your life to be like, and set about earning enough cash to fulfill it.

In experiencing my beer-induced revelation, I reflected on the stages of adult life and my own recollections of navigating my way through it.

Early years. Perhaps we go to university; perhaps we travel; perhaps we are carefree with little or no responsibility, perhaps we're starting out on our careers in lower paid jobs. Time-needle high, health-needle high but money-needle low. Two out of three ain't bad - it's why we reminisce about our youth and often yearn to be young again. It's also vital that young people capitalise on these years - they may never come again. But - y'know - money. It'd be nice to have more.

Middle years. We might have done well in those early years. We might have got ourselves into better paid jobs; we might now have children. Those better-paid jobs are drawing more of our time - as are our children (if we have them). Hopefully our health-needles are all reading high, and our money needles are getting up towards the top of the scales. But our time-needles are lowering - all that professional stuff is competing with family stuff to ensure that our days and weeks are planned across the year. Little time to stop and admire the view. Jeepers if only we had enough time to relax.

Later years. If we've done well, the money-needle might be maxing out. We might be thinking about retiring or taking a less-stressful job in order to raise the reading on the time-needle. Great. Trouble is, the longer we leave it the greater the chance of the health-needle taking a hit and heading south. We all know folks who have worked hard in order to maximise the money and time, only to find that life slaps you in the face with a health problem that laughs in the face of your cash and spare time. Feck, if only I didn't have that health condition that stops me travelling.

None of this is particularly perceptive or enlightening. So I must have a point, right? Yes, I do.

Life makes it difficult to get all those three needles reading "green" at the same time. I think for most folk, getting a few short years when they are all green is a real challenge, and I think we can all be guilty of failing to recognise if and when it happens. For many of us (if it happens at all) your sixth decade is when it might all come together. Your 50s may well be a golden opportunity to enjoy life when all three needles are in the green - because the chances are, one of 'em won't stay that way.

A few weeks ago, I sat outside the house of friends who live in France drinking beer, talking pish and watching the sun go down. It occurred to me that - here I was, not hugely wealthy but with sufficient time, sufficient money to drive a car to France, and with good enough health to spend eight hours in a car to get there. Needles not necessarily at max - but all green for the first time in many years (possibly ever). Who knows - it may not last; but while it does I'm going to keep checking those dials.

Are your needles all green?

A Toast To Britain's Racists

Let's get one thing straight. Leave voters are not all racists. I cannot stress that enough. I have (a small number of) friends and family members who voted Leave - and racist they ain't.

But a recent article by Matthew Parris (go on, read it) gave me a chill - it crystallised what I had been mentally analysing since the 24th June. That is : Have Britain's racists have decided Britain's future?

Oh come on. Really? Isn't it England's working class railing against the Metropolitan elite ? Years of them being failed by politicians? Protest votes against years of austerity (albeit austerity not directly caused by the EU) ? People with vision and confidence in Britain who see much more opportunity outside the EU?

I need to stress again - not all Leave voters are racist. Many of them know way more about the EU than I do, and many had a clear idea of Britain's future as a world player outside the single market. However, we need to face up to some uncomfortable truths here.

Remember the British Swocial Attitudes Survey in 2014 ? The one that concluded that at least a third of Britons openly identify as holding racist views? That's uncomfortable. Did they all vote in the Referendum? Who knows, but let's make some assumptions.

Assumption 1 : The survey was an accurate reflection of the number of openly-racist people in the UK.

Assumption 2 : Of the thirty million (plus) votes cast, a third of them were people who are openly prepared to state they hold racist views. Let's assume therefore ten million "openly" racists voted, and that it was their racist views that drove their vote.

Assumption 3 : In any "normal" election or referendum, the votes of these individuals will not gravitate to any one option on the ballot paper. They will be evenly spread across the ballot choices. (Unless of course, you're prepared to state Labour/Tory voters are more racist than the other). Of course UKIP votes muddy the waters a bit here, but let's continue.

Assumption 4 : The vast majority of these individuals voted "Leave".

If these assumptions are correct (and I accept they are open to challenge) it leads to a very uncomfortable conclusion. That is (to continue David Cameron's nautical analogies) that Britain now has an openly racist hand on the tiller. How so?

The "ten million racists" - if we imagine a "normal" scenario whereby their votes would have been evenly spread across the ballot options (thus nullifying their overall influence) - we need to re-assign five million votes from "Leave" to "Remain".  That makes for stark reading:

"Leave" : 12.5 million votes and "Remain": 21 million votes.

Ludicrously simplistic? Of course. Who's a racist and who isn't ? Indeed. However, in the days following the result, I had personal experience of Leave voters who - when asked about their reasons - replied "too many Romanian beggars on the streets". No other answer provided.

And that, dear reader, is racist.

So the question is this : was there a significant group of voters who voted Leave purely out of racist motivation?

You may think no. Excellent: sleep well. However, you may think yes. If so, how big was that group? It only needs to be around four million for the result to have been effectively skewed.

I was on the losing side in 2014's Scottish Independence referendum, but I accepted it. I accepted that the argument had not been made and that a clear majority of Scots believed (with the best of intentions) that Scotland's best future lay within the UK.

But the EU referendum feels horribly different. Some empirical evidence, coupled with some flimsy methodology, anecdotal evidence and personal experience leaves me unable to answer "no". I think it was yes, and I think it was statistically significant. I think the "actual" result was much, much tighter and that naked, racist opinion had the casting vote.

So, congratulations "Leave". You fought a winning campaign. But you need to be honest and recognise that your economic argument utterly tanked. You managed to corner the racist market. As you lead us into an economic and cultural dark alley, please raise a glass and toast Britain's racists.

You couldn't have done it without 'em.

Better Than Private

Lying here on the sofa recuperating after minor surgery yesterday. I've had a perforated eardrum for as many years as I can remember, but my hearing has recently take a small (but clinically measureable) turn south. One to one conversations are fine, but I've noticed a bit more of a struggle in crowded environments - especially isolating the urbane and witty conversations of my friends and family against background chatter. So, I find sometimes that I just give up and let the conversation happen around me: which is OK in a pub or restaurant.

But not really in a classroom when I'm a teacher.

So I approached my GP, got referred to an ENT consultant and was offered/advised to undergo a myringoplasty - a "closure of the pars tensa of the tympanic membrane" (thanks Wikipedia). I had a failed attempt at this very procedure when I was 22 and in 1985 the whole event took a calendar week in Glasgow's Gartnavel General Hospital.

Now, in 2017, admission to discharge was precisely 7 hours and 30 minutes in the New Victoria Hospital. The day went like this:

8:00am : Having arrived early and sitting in the waiting room among approximately 40 other day surgery patients, a team of nurses appeared right on-time and called patient names to go to their respective wards.

8:20am : Discussion with consultant anaesthetist. Risks clearly explained. Fantastic people skills - put me totally at ease.

8:30am : Discussion with surgeon. Reiterates procedure. Answers stupid patient-questions. Again, excellent people skills.

8:40am : Most importantly, in the absence of any mobile data network, ward-nurse issues patient-wifi password. Wifi is reliable. Doesn't drop out once.

8:50am : Advised I am second in the queue for theatre. Probably in just over an hour.

10:00am (I checked) : Invited to proceed to theatre. General anaesthetic administered.

12:00pm (I didn't check) : Return to ward and doze for a couple of hours.

2:20pm : Offered sandwiches, biscuits and proper in-a-mug tea.

3:30pm : Discharged, with prescription painkillers.

This is where I start to compare and contrast a modern NHS hospital with a similar private hospital (of which I've had experience twice in the past five years). While not quite "chalk and cheese", the NHS experience was noticeably better. Beautiful modern building, bright, spotless, clean, efficient compared with a well-known Glasgow private hospital which - while ostensibly clean - was dark, dog-eared and claustrophobic.

Staff, everyone from reception-guy at the main entrance through clerical staff, nurses and consultants were brilliant. Enthusiastic, engaged, keen to help. But more importantly they were as keen to help every patient there - from the well-off to the less well-off. I'm relatively financially comfortable, but it's reassuring to know that if I wasn't, I'd still get the same awesome care.

My assigned nurse - keen to chat as most nurses are - was interested in my story about previously "going private". I had a poor experience, with my surgeon going away climbing for the weekend and being incommunicado at the precise moment my surgical stitches failed. Presenting at the hospital, I was met with an unwillingness to deal with the problem. It felt like nobody wanted to "mow the lawn" of a colleague.

I haven't had private healthcare for a couple of years now, and yesterday re-affirmed my view that it's a big fat waste of money. I was treated in a wonderful, modern, well-equipped facility by wonderful staff. I was operated on swiftly and effectively; fed and watered well and discharged with prescription medication. I have 24-hour telephone support in the event of any post-operative problems. For my American friends and family : I was presented with no bill.

The nurse in question - almost apologetically - offered the opinion that "I think we're as good as private".

I offered mine - "I disagree. You are miles better".

A Fate Worse Than Brexit

We seem to be entering peak-madness with brexit. Chlorinated chicken for pity's sake - a process deemed fine in the US and yet outlawed in the the EU might soon be coming to an ASDA shelf near you. An icon of buffoonery, a simple picture of the lunacy that we're inflicting on ourselves. The more of these icons the better though - voters seem to be incapable of dealing with rational arguments, so the more of these daft wee images of doom we get, maybe the more likely we are to abort the whole mission. 

Maybe. 

The problem is that human beings are useless at admitting that they may have made a mistake; and that is where the real problem lies. Where does a brexiteer go when they realise - in their heart of hearts - that it's a mistake of gargantuan proportions? "Oh well, if I'd *known* how complex/damaging/isolating it was going to be, I'd never have voted Leave". 

And there is your problem - there are no unknowns. No new revelations upon which a brexiteer can pin his/her hat. We were told how damaging it was going to be - and 48% of us believed it. But what possible intellectually valid reason can a brexiteer now give for 'fessing up and accepting Remain were right? In order to do this, you'd have to openly admit that, in full possession of the evidence and arguments, you made a horrible mistake. And *that* is the problem. Human beings are shite at admitting that. 

If you've ever debated a Leave voter, you'll probably have been given the argument about "getting to make our own laws without them being handed down by undemocratic bureaucrats in Brussels" nonsense. I mean, that's it. *That's* what you get when you challenge a Leave voter to give an example benefit of leaving the EU. An argument so thin it can be answered by ".... but what about the Financial Transaction Tax that we vetoed, you total ballbag?" 

They must know. They must know it's a mistake. Some people are that stupid - but 17 million? 

I suspect there are huge swathes of Leave voters who now, finally, get it but are faced with the hideous choice of brexit or public embarrassment. 

I also suspect there are sufficient numbers who - chillingly - find the latter to be the unbearable option. 

So perhaps Parliament will have to go against The Will Of The People in order to reflect the will of the people. I suspect many brexiteers do actually want this. It would allow them to continue to whinge about the EU without having to endure the impending catastrophe.

And without having to admit they were wrong.