norman's website
  • Home
  • Blogs
    • Scraps of life blog
    • Creative Academic >
      • BYOD4L BLOG
    • Garden Notes
  • Books
  • Change
  • Creativity
  • Professional services
  • Contact me
  • OU employability
  • Qinghai
  • CISC
  • NTU
  • creativejam
  • CRC
  • GMIT
  • BNU STUDY VISIT
  • AIT
  • portsmouth
  • DIT
  • TLC
  • BERA
  • ICOLACE4
  • PDP
  • OUC
  • MMUni
  • Derby
  • dmucreatives
  • Chester
  • Brighton
  • Buckinghamshire
  • Hallam
  • St Marys
  • LIMERICK
  • kingston
  • UWL
  • SEDA
  • MACAO
  • Beijing
  • IFIUT
  • CRA seminar
  • FBSEworkshop
  • birmingham
  • Creativity in Higher Education
  • graduatestandardsprogramme
  • MAKING MEANING
  • Untitled
  • Blogs
  • SURVEY
  • bits and bobs
  • roger
  • luminate

Ecology of families

2/6/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
I am writing an essay on the ecology of learning for a seminar next week so the idea of ecologies has been very much in my mind.  The basic ideas underlying the ecology of family(1)  is that a family is a distinct closely related social group that interacts with their environment to form an ecosystem. Families carry out the following for the good of itself as well as the good of society: biological sustenance (have children and look after each other), economic maintenance (share resources), psychosocial nurturing (provide empathy and emotional support). Families and the environment are interdependent and they interact with multiple environments - typically each adult member inhabits a different physical/social environment. Adaptation is a continuing process in families.  They can “respond, change, develop, and act on and modify their environment.” Interactions between families and environments are guided by two sets of rules: Physical and biological laws of nature and human-derived rules (e.g., social /cultural norms). Our physical environments do not determine our behavior but pose limitations and constraints as well as possibilities and opportunities. Decision making is the central control process that directs our actions for attaining individual and family goals. Families are underlain and held together through shared values including its survival: maintenance and sustainability are important features of life and the “four great virtues that contribute to the ‘ultimate good’”: economic adequacy, justice, freedom and peacefulness. Other virtues that contribute to the quality of family life include: health, education and learning, loving and nurturing relationships, productive work and work environments, experiences and symbolic systems that sustain meaning and a sense of community, beauty and trustworthiness.

From an ecological perspective we might reflect on how our family functions and adapts to assure survival, how we collectively try to improve the quality of our lives, and how we contribute to sustaining natural resources. We might also consider how we allocate and manage resources over time to meet the changing needs of individuals and the family as a group. And how the environment (the meso-, exo-, and macrosystems of which we are apart impact on us.

Scanning  my blog I can see many references to our family and the ecology that sustains it and how the members of my immediate and the greater family impact on my life. For example, in my last blog I talked about my step nephew's search amongst family members for resources to enable him to finance some training to help him become a missionary both my wife and I have responded to him with financial and emotional help and he in return is coming to visit us in a couple of weeks.

This week has also been half term so I had the pleasure of looking after my six year old grandson for 24 hours. I have been very conscious since the twins have been born that I have spent less time with him and this sleepover, and the things we did together, were an important way in which we renewed our bonds. As we parted he said (as he so often does) 'I love you ganddad', which gets right to the point of good family relationships. 

Last Tuesday I, and my wife helped my daughter with childcare looking after all three of her children so that she could go to work. I suppose this is an example of family ecology in action to help sustain the family and enable resources to be brought into the family.

During the week my wife and I chatted at length to our two children at university listening to their problems (prep for exams and an important piece of coursework). They discussed their ideas for their future and we provided encouragement and practical suggestions where we could. Thanks to technology and mobile phones even when we are not physically together as a family we can remain in touch and have valuable conversations that sustain our family ecology.

Making full use of our physical environment, yesterday my wife took me and our daughter out for a light and chilly (we sat outside) lunch and after cleaning the house and working in the garden (maintaining our physical environment) we had some fun and went to the cinema to see The Great Gatsby. This morning I was made to jump on the scales to see how much I weighed fortunately I hadn't had any breakfast. I then proceeded to set the scales to give me my BMI. She had been reading a book about fasting and she passed on the science she had learnt on to me. The experience of public weighing and telling me that I was nearly obese was also intended to convince me that I needed to do something about it - the family ecology of nurturing our health and educating me was clearly in evidence.

Picture
On Sunday we celebrated the twins first birthday with a small family gathering for two of my children and their families including all four of my grandchildren. I guess that birthdays are symbolic in families when we pay attention to the particular member of the family whose birthday it is and the celebrations and gifts are tokens of valuing them as members of our family.

And as I complete this piece my daughter who is over from Dubai for a few days is staying with us. Last night we spent  time catching up and talking a lot about a particular matter involving another member of the family. I was struck by her deep concern and her willingness to provide both practical help and emotional support.

These simple stories of family life in the past week reflect the everyday functionings of our family. A family I am very proud of.  Each example illustrates the ecology that binds us together and gives us an important part of our identity and our sense of individual and social wellbeing. But these sorts of ecologies are learned. The values, attitudes and behaviours that underpin such ecologies are passed on from generation to generation propagated by parents who teach their children the importance of these things. I know that I and both of my wives learnt the meanings of family from growing up in our respective families and we have simply tried to practice the values and practices that were passed on to us through these lived experiences. I can no see the same patterns emerging as my children and step children find their own independent way in the world.

1) I found this powerpoint presentation which provided the core ideas for the ecology of family  www.public.iastate.edu/~hd_fs.511/lecture/Sourcebook17.ppt‎
Bubolz, M. M., & Sontag, M. S. (1993).  Human ecology theory.  In P. G. Boss, W. J. Doherty, R. LaRossa, W. R. Schumm, & S. K. Steinmetz (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theories and methods: A contextual approach (pp. 419-448).  New York: Plenum Press.

1 Comment

More on Wellbeing

17/3/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
During this week I began to develop a better understanding of the concept of wellbeing by reading reports and articles I found through google searches as I began to find information for the next issue of Lifewide Magazine. Four incidents triggered emotional and empathetic responses and helped me develop a deeper understanding. The first involved my daughter.. I suddenly got a call saying my grandson had suddenly developed acute stomach ache at school and she had to take him (and the twins) to A&E. I immediately dropped everything and rushed over to A&E where I found my daughter trying to cope with two screaming babies and a sick child. I took the twins back home and looked after them for the next five hours while she stayed with my grandson at hospital. It turned out to be constipation but what I experienced was a good example of my own wellbeing connected in a deep way with the difficult experiences of my daughter and her family. The second incident was watching a news report on the troubles in Syria and seeing the children victims of the civil war. It made me think of the comfortable and secure life I and my family were living and what a different meaning wellbeing had in such circumstances. In my searches on wellbeing I found an excellent article written by the International Medical Core called a Improving the Wellbeing of Syrians in Za'arari refugee camp. How different their sense of wellbeing was to mine many having experienced and witnessed terrible violence including the loss of relatives and friends.

The assessment showed that people in the camp were suffering from the camp environment (e.g. heat, dust, no electricity, unclean toilets), worry about friends and family in Syria, having nothing to do in the camp, safety concerns, and not being able to take care of their appearance (e.g. getting a haircut, clothes). The most common activities that helped men deal with stress were praying, seeking out time alone, talking and spending time with family and friends, going out, walking, and working. Most men were doing these activities in the camp except for talking with family and friends (due to being separated) and working. Activities that usually helped women were household chores, talking to family and friends, praying, walking, going to work, going out, sleeping, crying and smoking.  However, none of the women reported being able to do chores, walk, go out, or work in the camp. Suggestions from people to improve the camp included electricity and lights, play areas and activities for children, having more and clean bathrooms and showers, fans, better medical care, distribution of items closer to tents, paving roads, changing tents to cara vans, being able to work, education for children, better food and cold water, clothes, small stoves to make tea and coffee, hats/sunblock, financial help, moving the camp and meeting spaces for camp residents. The report came up with a series of practical recommendations to improve the wellbeing and comfort of these refugees.

The third incident involved bereavement in the family. My wife's auntie died in Iran and she made time to go and comfort another auntie before she flew to be with her family in Iran. It seemed to me that this was another example of how our individual wellbeing  is intermingled with other family members and how we give each other support in times of need. Such acts give meaning to our sense of wellbeing by giving something (time, empathy, practical support) to others and enable the receivers to maintain their sense of being through the love and support being given.

The fourth incident was also triggered by TV, this time the annual Comic Relief event which we watch as a family. There were many heart rending film clips of children in Africa starving or suffering from illnesses that are curable with the right medical treatment. Of course they are designed to disturb us, to shake us out of our comfort zone with the aim of making us give - and they do. This event raised over £70 million. But one clip brought home to me again that wellbeing was simply a matter of context.. being born to parents who were drug addicts meant that one man grew up without any sense of love, comfort and security in his life. And this was only a few miles away in London. How fortunate I was to be born into a family that loved and cared for me, and how fortunate my children and their children are to experience the same. We could all assume that our basic needs for security, food, comfortable home, love and affection, and a good education would be met and allow us to aspire to making the most of the opportunities we have in our fortunate circumstances with the support of family around us.


0 Comments

Alice's Bucket List: A life full of purpose

22/1/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
http://alicepyne.blogspot.co.uk/

The internet is a fantastic tool for connecting us to people we are never likely to meet and be touched in the process. A few days ago I came across a blog called 'Alice's Bucket List' written by a 17 year old girl who was terminally ill with cancer and what proved to be her final blog was written on Jan 1st 2012. Her mum's post explained that she had died 12 days later.

I read lots of blogs but there was something special about the way Alice's blog was helping her create new meanings and purposes in her life in the eighteen months she wrote it. She realised that she might not live very long and so had created for herself a 'bucket list' of experiences she wanted to have. As Alice explains in her blog the bucket list helped her live her remaining life to the full doing the things that she wanted to do and achieving her dreams and ambitions in the process with the people she loved and who loved her.

'I've created a bucket list because there are so many things I still want to do in my life ... some are possible, some will remain a dream. My blog is to document this precious time with my family and friends, doing the things I want to do. You only have one life ... live it!'

This list of things to do also gave her family and friends a list of things to help her achieve and so added meaning and purpose to their own lives. You cannot help but be moved by the stories Alice tells in her blog of the way she achieved her dreams and ambitions in spite of being very ill.

But her bucket list was not just about satisfying her own needs and desires. In particular, there were two items on her list that were focused on the needs of others, and of trying to make a positive difference to the world, in the time she had left. The first was to set up, with the help of parents and friends, her own charity  'Alice's Escapes'.

Alice’s Escapes is run by a team of volunteers committed to providing free holidays for families with a seriously ill child. The idea for Alice’s Escapes came after Alice and her family spent a week being looked after by the Torbay Holiday Helper’s Network (THHN), based in Devon. All accommodation, food, outings and activities were given with the compliments of local businesses. After many years of gruelling treatments, Alice and her family were able to step back and experience ‘normal’ family life. Alice, and now her sister, who is carrying on, with the help of friends and local businesses are raising money to help the families of very sick children to have a holiday together in the Lake District. You can find out more and donate http://www.alices-escapes.co.uk/

Because of her illness and treatment Alice was acutely aware of the need for bone marrow donors so at the top of her bucket list was her wish to raise awareness of bone marrow registers and to get everyone who was able to register. So far over 40,000 people have registered after reading her appeal.

Alice not only achieved most of what she had on her bucket list, she has inspired many other people to do things that they would not have done, and she has created a legacy that, through her family and friends, especially her sister Milly, will live on and carry on making a difference to the lives of others who are going through what she went through.

In sharing her thoughts, feelings, fears and ambitions through her blog Alice has had a profound effect on the world.  Reading her blog you feel her love of life and the people she cared for and who cared for her, her desire to do and to achieve and her happiness at doing the things she set out to do. But also through her words you feel her pain, suffering and despair and the way she bravely comes to terms with her own demise as she nears the end of a life in which she has created so much meaning and purpose.

This issue of Lifewide Magazine is dedicated to becoming the person you want to become. Alice had very little time to become the person she wanted to become but what she had she used in a way that enabled her to become that person. Her story is a shining example to us all of how we might create and live a life of meaning and purpose and inspire others around us to do the same.

Although I never knew Alice, through the thoughts and feelings she crystallised in her blog, I felt connected to her and her family and what she was trying to achieve. I noticed that I wasn't the only one  - I was the 4,776417th visitor to her website!!!!!  Why not be the next?  http://alicepyne.blogspot.co.uk/

Alice's Bucket List

·                     To get everyone eligible to join a bone marrow register
·                     To get EVERYONE to have a bucket list
·                     To get to the Royal Garden party in May
·                     DONE - To buy a static caravan for my charity
·                     DONE - To actually receive my B.E.M. medal
·                     DONE - To go whale watching
·                     DONE - To go to my school leavers prom
·                     DONE - To meet Take That
·                     DONE - To design a Emma Bridgewater Mug to sell for charity
·                     DONE - To stay in the Chocolate room at Alton Towers
·                     DONE - To swim with sharks
·                     DONE 'ish - To go to Kenya (got to go to Kent-ya)!
·                     DONE - To enter Mabel in a Labrador show
·                     DONE - Photo shoot with Milly, Clarissa, Sammie and Megs
·                     DONE - To have a private cinema party for me and my BFFs
·                     DONE- To stay in a caravan
·                     DONE - To have a purple Apple ipad
·                     DONE - To have a nice picture taken with Mabel
·                     DONE - To have my hair done
·                     DONE - To have a back massage

To donate to Alice's charity visit http://www.alices-escapes.co.uk/  or visit Alice's own website http://alicepyne.blogspot.co.uk/
Bone Marrow Registers WORLDWIDE
DKMS Bone Marrow Register
British Bone Marrow Registry 18 - 49 inc

0 Comments

Everything is learning when you are four

28/2/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
My grandson, who is nearly five stayed with us over the weekend. He is at the wonderful age where he lives half his life in an imaginary world and half in the social world of reasoning and rules and right and wrong.

To stimulate his imaginary world he will pick up something that wobbles and run around watching it wobble talking to himself.. you can see him transporting himself into another world. He gets very self conscious if he catches you looking at him and he only does it in front of people he trusts. He told me this.

The other part of his life is spent trying to comprehend the world through what I would call productive inquiry. He asks lots of questions which elicit responses from the people around him. 

I was burning some dead wood in the woodland area at the bottom of the garden when he came and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours chatting and feeding the fire with wood, then going off and doing something else and coming back and making the fire grow again from the ashes. We talked about all sorts of things, school, his friends, his forthcoming birthday, other countries, fire, family, the topics are endless and that is one of the nice things about talking to children - their minds are completely fluid.. there doesn't have to be a logic or reason for talking about something.

When I look back on the afternoon I realised that more or less everything we did and said was, from his point of view, learning to comprehend the world a little better.. apart from the time he wobbled of course.. 

0 Comments

Emotional rollercoaster

27/2/2012

1 Comment

 
Originally written 10/02/11

I had a call from my sister in Australia.. she was just pulling out of mum and dad's drive on the 4 hour journey home after taking dad to the hospital.. the wonders of modern day technology.. I expected the worst possible news but was delighted to hear that his illness and loss of weight wasn't due to cancer but to a none infectious form of TB and it was treatable with a cocktail of antibiotics.. Dad had also suspected the worst and he was bowled over with the news. Needless to say everyone is greatly relieved and the soldier soldiers on..

As if this wasn't enough, my youngest daughter's partner called me from Dubai to ask permission to marry my daughter.. Well that doesn't  happen every day so when I had gotten over the shock I made some enquiries about his intentions before giving him the permission he sought.. I was flattered if the truth be known.. my son in law didn't do it! A few days later my daughter rang to say he had proposed at a desert resort..very romantic.. So now thoughts of a family wedding are crowding into my already crowded head. What a momentous few days!!!

From a lifewide perspective you cannot prepare for the sorts of events I have described above. They shock you to the core and you have to deal with the emotional turmoil that ensues.. Certainly talking about the situations helps enormously and my wife has been a big help.. in fact she triggers even more stuff as you talk through the implications, reorganise your life and gain reassurance that your children are making the right decisions. The role of significant others becomes essential in dealing with  these sorts of unusual family situations.

1 Comment

Families are emotional places

27/2/2012

0 Comments

 
Originally written 04/02/12


I find that families are definitely the places where emotions are experienced the most. Perhaps because this is where our most significant relationships are. This week has been a bit of a roller coaster as simultaneously, in two different family spaces I have been hit with events that have both elated and disturbed me.

Thursday lunchtime my daughter Jodie called , a bit breathless because she was walking but she is expecting her second child and she had just had a 3 month scan and she wanted to tell me her news.. which was she was having twins - identical twins!! To say I was shocked (gobsmacked) is an understatement. There are just

It was only a quick call but its one of the moments when you feel your life will not be the same again and you start to imagine the implications, as I did over lunch with Taraneh (Jodie's step mum) who was just as excited as me..  That evening Taraneh spoke to Jodie and she told her that the person doing the scan had seen a possible abnormality..I felt totally deflated as the consequences flashed in front of me and thoughts of how my daughter must be feeling - she has an anxious three weeks wait until the next scan.

On top of this I also received the news from my sister in Australia that my 87 year old dad is likely to be very ill with lung cancer. He's always had a bad chest - bronchitis in childhood  and emphysema in later life but somehow he has soldiered on. The move from Lancashire to Australia with my five brothers and sisters in 1972 has also helped as has his 25 years of retirement in the beautiful seaside town of Narawallee on the south NSW coast. I always knew that one day I would get a phone call or something like this would happen. I spoke to him briefly and he seemed quite cheerful  reminding me that he was 87 and he'd had a good innings.. He is going to talk to his GP tomorrow.

So its been an emotional week with all sorts of emotions churning around and I know these will influence my decisions about what I do.
0 Comments

    Purpose

    To develop my understandings of how I learn and develop through all parts of my life by recording and reflecting on my own life as it happens.
    @lifewider1
    @lifewider
    @academiccreator

    I have a rough plan but most of what I do emerges from the circumstances of my life 
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archive

    January 2021
    December 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Categories
    these are the tags I've used 

    All
    5C's Of Social Media
    Achieving
    Applying Learning
    Appreciation
    Attention To Detail
    Awareness
    Band
    Beautiful Day
    Being Influenced
    Being Influenced
    Beliefs
    Bonding
    Book
    Bucket List
    Caring
    Climate For Change
    Cocreation
    Co Creativity
    Co-creativity
    Collaboration
    Collective
    Commitment
    Communication
    Compassion
    Conceptualising
    Conference
    Conflict
    Connected
    Connected Learning
    Connections
    Constructionism
    Creativity
    Creativity In Development
    Creativity Nurturing
    Crowdsourcing
    Cultural Exchange
    Culture
    Curriculum
    Dealing With Emotion
    Dealing With Emotions
    Dealing With Setbacks
    Dealing With Situations
    Designing
    Development
    Disruption
    Disruption In Life
    Ecology
    Emergence
    Emergent Need
    Emergent Opportunity
    Emotion
    Emotion (negative)
    Emotion (positive)
    Empathy
    Engagement
    Enthusing Others
    Environment
    Experience
    Experimenting
    Facilitation
    Failure
    Families
    Family
    Feedback
    Fulfilling Our Purposes
    Goals
    Good Ideas
    Great Idea
    Growing Up
    Guilt
    Health And Fitness
    Histrory
    Ideas
    Identity
    Illness
    Inflections In Life
    Influences
    Influencing
    Information Flow
    Insights
    Inspiration
    Interest
    Intergenerational Learning
    Joy
    Juggling
    Knoweldge And Understanding
    Knowledge
    Knowledge And Understanding
    Knowledge Development
    Knowledge Working
    Leadership
    Learning
    Learning Ecologies
    Learning Ecologies
    Learning Ecology
    Learning For Teaching
    Learning Through Experience
    Learning To Cope
    Learningtoday
    Liberation
    Lifedeep
    Lifewide
    Lifewide Learning
    Lifwide Education
    Liminal Space
    Looking Back
    Love
    Making A Difference
    Making Progress
    Making Progress
    Making Something
    Managing Self
    Men's Sheds
    Models
    Motivating Others
    Motivating Self
    Motivation
    Motivational Strategies
    Motivation By The Spirit
    Motivations
    My Fitness
    My Purposes
    Narrative
    Narrative Inquiry
    Narrative Inquiry
    Natural Beauty
    Nature
    Neurological Process
    Opportunities
    Partnership
    Paying Attention
    Performance
    Personal Creativity
    Personal Development
    Personal Development Planning
    Perspective Change
    Planning
    Play
    Procrastination
    Purposes
    Reflection
    Relationships
    Remembering
    Retirement
    Role Model
    Sadness
    Sarendipity
    Seeing Potential
    Seeing Potential
    SEEK SENSE SHARE
    Self Motivation
    Self-Motivation
    Self Regulation
    Self-regulation
    Significant Personal Events
    Slogging
    Social Age
    Social Leadership
    Social Media
    Sorrow
    Spiritual
    Stories
    Survey Monkey
    Symbolism
    Teaching
    Teamwork
    Technology
    Tools
    Tradition
    Trajectories
    Twitter
    Using Technology
    Values
    Vision
    Visualisation
    Wellbeing
    Why?
    Willpower
    Work
    Working Out What You Have To Do
    Workshop
    Writing

    RSS Feed