First published on the email group for he-special.org.uk
I thought I would post the soap recipe here as there are now a lot of families doing what we have done for year, educating their children themselves. Making soap is not only a chemistry lesson, but it is usual and necessary in combating the coronavirus.
Have fun and stay safe!
===========================
First let me say something about safety. Caustic soda burns and is not good
if you get it in your eyes, or on your skin. The books I have all say wear
eye protection, and rubber gloves.
I insist that everyone helping wear eye protection when measuring, mixing
and stirring. I don't always wear gloves myself as I know that my hands will
stand a lot of stuff (used to work as a builder with cement!) but I do wear
gloves if I am actually touching the stuff, for instance when I drop the
spoon into the mixture LOL!
So there you are. Wear eye protection and gloves, and don't sue me if you
don't and you burn yourself!
It is also very important to weight out the ingredients very, very
accurately. Right down to the last gram, so the chemical reaction is completed and
you don't end up with soap with too high a pH.
Do not use iron or aluminium as they will react with the caustic soda.
And try not to breath in the fumes when you add the caustic soda to the
water! Do it in a well ventilated place!
Ingredients:
454g lard, beef dripping, or vegetable fat
57g sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) (obtainable from ironmongers)
142g distilled or spring water (the water is to be weighted, not measured by
volume)
1 tbsp or 15g of your favourite essential oil - optional
1: measure out the fat and put in a stainless steel pan to melt. Using a
glass thermometer allow it to cool until it reaches approx. 54C.
2: weight out the caustic soda and water and pour the caustic soda into the
water (never the other way around) and stir until dissolved. Use a glass or
stainless steel container only and a glass not aluminium thermometer (many
preserving thermometers are aluminium).
Leave until the temperature is around 54C.
I find that I start the caustic soda and water when the fat is at about 60C
and they both end up at the same temp around the same time. It isn't so much
what the temp is, it is that they are the same. Anywhere between 40C and
60C will be OK.
3: Add the caustic soda solution to the fat and stir carefully. Leave to
for around 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until 'trace' is reached. Trace
is what they call it when the mixture is thick enough to leave a line on the
surface of the mixture when you drip it off the back of a spoon. It will take
different times depending on which fat you use, vegetable taking the longest
and beef the shortest.
4: Add colouring (a bit of wax crayon) and essential oil if wished once
trace is reached but before it gets too stiff to stir!
5: Pour the mixture into a greased mould. Plastic food trays are very
good.
6: cover the soap with clingfilm and a towel or blanket to retain the heat,
and leave to cure for 24 hours.
7: Cut and turn out the soap, and recover it and leave it to cure for four
weeks.
Note on essential oils. I find that just using one is the best. That way
there is no complicated smell. This is were personal opinion is important.
Some people like lavender, some don't. I like using benzoin, and vanilla,
and cinnamon. I make soap to sell at Christmas coffee mornings that has a
fragrance called Christmas Tree which is made up by an aromatherapies. You can
make soap without anything. Lard will smell a bit, but I find that both
vegetarian fat, and beef fat pleasant enough. The thing is to experiment. The
raw ingredients are very cheep in themselves, it is only the essential oils
that put the price up.
The longer you leave the soap to cue, the harder it gets. I am using a soap
I made 1 1/2 years ago and it is hard enough that is doesn't disintegrate in
water. Commercial soap is made and sold so quickly now that it is really
soft.
Commercial soap also has the glycerine taken out of it to be sold
separately, whereas home made soap has it left in.
This is just the basics of soap. There are lots of books and web sites
about it. You can get really creative and make really complicated soaps or you
can keep it simple. We also like to make floating soap!
There are also lots of sites that talk about the chemistry of soap - the
saponification. In fact, my son calls it The Chemistry Lesson!
The book that I use the most as I feel that it explains it in the best way
is The Handmade Soap Book by Melinda Coss, ISBN 1-85368-807-x.
Happy washing!
Sunday 22 March 2020
Thursday 13 July 2017
'Report Card' - for when you have to convert an autonomous education into LA language
Whether it is the neighbours, your mother-in-law or the Local Authority, someone always seems to be asking home educators about their child's education. When Ram was 6 his grandmother didn't think much of home education, and I realised it was probably because she had no idea what we did. So I decided to write a 'report card' based on the little report cards we had at school back in the 1960s in Canada. It was just a line or two about each subject that was taught.
The amusing thing is the whole exercise made me realise that I was doing more with my son than I realised. Caging it in a language that was understood by LAs and mother-in-laws meant that although we didn't alter our unstructured autonomous education, it was now seen as a 'real' education.
Apparently when my M-I-L got to the bit on tessellation she said, 'I don't even know what tessellation is, and I am 84, so I guess this home education is working after all.' She never bothered us about it again!
Report card for 'Ram' October 5th, 2003 age 6 ¾.
Reading
Reading Beano and Dandy.
Reading up to two sentences from literature books but dyslexia and dyspraxic tendencies are very clear.
Using flash cards
Is able to read nonsense words of up to 3-4 letters
Can do simple anagrams
Can read Pokemon information off the internet
Confidence in reading is behind the actual ability
Goal: To improve confidence in reading ability
Literature
Reading M.E Atkinson, Malcolm Saville, Eleanor Graham, Arthur Ramsone, and other classic authors
Reading poetry and making up nonsense rhymes.
Modern Literature
Reading Caroline Lawrence- covering Roman History, Susan Gates – Schlok Horror, but has generally found that modern books are badly written and prefers older books.
Grammar
Constantly asking for exact definitions for words
Learning alphabetical order
Refer to correct grammar labels and can recognise bad grammar in modern books
Knows nouns, verbs, adverbs and additives, and is aware of other parts of speech.
Maths
Counting by 1,2,3s etc. up to 11s as a way of reinforcing multiplication tables
Adding and subtracting in games as well as on paper. Can add up in columns.
Understands the concept of probability and algebra.
Knows most 2 and 3 dimensional figures, angles and properties of tessellation and circles.
History
Mediaeval history – visited several castles and has reproduce them in the sand pit
Has read about life in the middle ages.
Has had discussions on the negative aspects of inventions which have positively changed the world
Understands the lack of water, electricity and other amenities in this village 60 years ago.
Psychology
Discussions on why people make complaints about other people.
Can identify four emotions in himself – happy, content, frustrated, and angry.
Can now recognise that other people may have a different opinion to him, which is equally valid
Politics
Understands the basics of how parliament works. Can discuss why politicians do what they do.
Listened to speeches from the Labour and Conservative Party conferences. Doesn’t like Tony Blair!
Nature
Studying pond life, birds, insects.
Keeps stick insects
Reading Enid Blyton’s Nature book twice monthly
Physics
Using science to explain magic.
Does weekly Kramph experiments.
Has been watching Science Shack and doing their experiments
Sociology
Looking at class and understanding differences
Understanding the power of advertising
Rejected Ribina stickers on the basis that they shouldn’t be used to entice children into having something that is bad for them!
P.E.
Can swim the length of the pool unaided.
Has excellent trampolining skills
Is continuing to do exercises for SID as recommended by optometrist
Is playing racket games and ball games
Is not yet ready to play team sports
R.E.
Celebrates seasonal festivals
Astronomy
Saw Mars through telescope on the night that it was closest to earth and understood that the last time this happened it was cave men looking at it!
Ancient History
Romans- watching Time Commanders and learning about Roman fighting. Also learning about people from reading Caroline Lawrence books.
Watching What The Romans Did For Us
Watching and reading about ancient Greek myths
Engineering
Building with Lego.
Building and destroying sand castles
Helped build the tree house
Built a jelly baby and spaghetti tower of over 1 m, capable of holding an egg.
Watching Seven Wonders of the Industrial World
Art
Designed and coloured in a Halloween costume
Doing large painting on lining paper
Helping with weaving and basket projects
Making seasonal decorations
Biology
Continuing to investigate how the human body works including how it regulates itself and the importance of hunger and going to the toilet.
Taking an interest in the health and wellbeing of insects and the dog.
Life Skills
Learning to cook and clean
Learned to light both an open fire and a woodburning stove
Learning about making clothes and darning socks
Learning about hygiene
Chemistry
Doing weekly Kramph experiments
Making soap
Dyeing wool with natural dyes
Geography
Reading maps in preparation for outings
Monitoring temperature and rainfall
Learning about different cloud formation
The amusing thing is the whole exercise made me realise that I was doing more with my son than I realised. Caging it in a language that was understood by LAs and mother-in-laws meant that although we didn't alter our unstructured autonomous education, it was now seen as a 'real' education.
Apparently when my M-I-L got to the bit on tessellation she said, 'I don't even know what tessellation is, and I am 84, so I guess this home education is working after all.' She never bothered us about it again!
Report card for 'Ram' October 5th, 2003 age 6 ¾.
Reading
Reading Beano and Dandy.
Reading up to two sentences from literature books but dyslexia and dyspraxic tendencies are very clear.
Using flash cards
Is able to read nonsense words of up to 3-4 letters
Can do simple anagrams
Can read Pokemon information off the internet
Confidence in reading is behind the actual ability
Goal: To improve confidence in reading ability
Literature
Reading M.E Atkinson, Malcolm Saville, Eleanor Graham, Arthur Ramsone, and other classic authors
Reading poetry and making up nonsense rhymes.
Modern Literature
Reading Caroline Lawrence- covering Roman History, Susan Gates – Schlok Horror, but has generally found that modern books are badly written and prefers older books.
Grammar
Constantly asking for exact definitions for words
Learning alphabetical order
Refer to correct grammar labels and can recognise bad grammar in modern books
Knows nouns, verbs, adverbs and additives, and is aware of other parts of speech.
Maths
Counting by 1,2,3s etc. up to 11s as a way of reinforcing multiplication tables
Adding and subtracting in games as well as on paper. Can add up in columns.
Understands the concept of probability and algebra.
Knows most 2 and 3 dimensional figures, angles and properties of tessellation and circles.
History
Mediaeval history – visited several castles and has reproduce them in the sand pit
Has read about life in the middle ages.
Has had discussions on the negative aspects of inventions which have positively changed the world
Understands the lack of water, electricity and other amenities in this village 60 years ago.
Psychology
Discussions on why people make complaints about other people.
Can identify four emotions in himself – happy, content, frustrated, and angry.
Can now recognise that other people may have a different opinion to him, which is equally valid
Politics
Understands the basics of how parliament works. Can discuss why politicians do what they do.
Listened to speeches from the Labour and Conservative Party conferences. Doesn’t like Tony Blair!
Nature
Studying pond life, birds, insects.
Keeps stick insects
Reading Enid Blyton’s Nature book twice monthly
Physics
Using science to explain magic.
Does weekly Kramph experiments.
Has been watching Science Shack and doing their experiments
Sociology
Looking at class and understanding differences
Understanding the power of advertising
Rejected Ribina stickers on the basis that they shouldn’t be used to entice children into having something that is bad for them!
P.E.
Can swim the length of the pool unaided.
Has excellent trampolining skills
Is continuing to do exercises for SID as recommended by optometrist
Is playing racket games and ball games
Is not yet ready to play team sports
R.E.
Celebrates seasonal festivals
Astronomy
Saw Mars through telescope on the night that it was closest to earth and understood that the last time this happened it was cave men looking at it!
Ancient History
Romans- watching Time Commanders and learning about Roman fighting. Also learning about people from reading Caroline Lawrence books.
Watching What The Romans Did For Us
Watching and reading about ancient Greek myths
Engineering
Building with Lego.
Building and destroying sand castles
Helped build the tree house
Built a jelly baby and spaghetti tower of over 1 m, capable of holding an egg.
Watching Seven Wonders of the Industrial World
Art
Designed and coloured in a Halloween costume
Doing large painting on lining paper
Helping with weaving and basket projects
Making seasonal decorations
Biology
Continuing to investigate how the human body works including how it regulates itself and the importance of hunger and going to the toilet.
Taking an interest in the health and wellbeing of insects and the dog.
Life Skills
Learning to cook and clean
Learned to light both an open fire and a woodburning stove
Learning about making clothes and darning socks
Learning about hygiene
Chemistry
Doing weekly Kramph experiments
Making soap
Dyeing wool with natural dyes
Geography
Reading maps in preparation for outings
Monitoring temperature and rainfall
Learning about different cloud formation
Wednesday 28 May 2014
Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Spectrum Bias
Pettersson E, Anckarsäter H, Gillberg C, & Lichtenstein P (2013). Different neurodevelopmental symptoms have a common genetic etiology. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 54 (12), 1356-65 PMID: 24127638
Christopher Gillberg: "When children display problems in one area, it might be more important to, as early as possible, set up a strategy for helping with all related symptoms rather than trying to help only with a specific diagnosis (which often will change over time)." Dorothy Bishop: “We may feel comfortable with our domain-specific labels for neurodevelopmental disorders, but they do not capture the clinical reality.”
Did we end up going down this path because of spectrum bias? Most children that are seen in clinics are seen by a single focus practitioner. Even when they are seen by a team for diagnostic purposes, they are still treated individually by practitioners such as OT, PT and educational psychologists. In addition only those with the highest level of behavioural problems get past the GPs who act as gatekeepers. This has been thought to be the reason why more boys than girls are diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders; the boys display more extreme behaviours thereby getting more attention.
As much research goes on in secondary centres, that is within the hospital or with the community consultant, rather than in primary care, those that haven't made it past the GP gatekeepers will not end up being part of the research cohort. This means that the wider population of those with neurodevelopmental disorders will not have been studied, leading to a spectrum bias when formulating the diagnostic criteria and tests.
Additionally, because of spectrum bias, children will have been filtered into specific subgroups resulting in confirmation of domain-specific labels. One of the 'gold standards' for research in autism has been not the diagnosis of autism but whether or not the researchers have administered DISCO, ADOS or similar diagnostic criteria. This immediately excludes any children who do not present with the main core characteristics of autism as observed by the specific diagnostic test. Additionally it has been shown that children who receive a positive diagnosis under one of these tests at a young age, can often fail to meet the threshold at an older age, then again with the passing of time, perhaps to adolescence or young adulthood, with a different diagnosed test, will regain the specific diagnoses. This will result in not just very specific subgroups, but will concentrate the focus of any intervention or further observation into one small black and white clearly defined area.
The experience of families is very different. They 'study' a single subject, N=1. They see the whole child, rather than the subset of clinical features seen by each of the child's practitioners. They come to support groups confused by the long list of individual diagnoses the child has collected over the years, asking just what it is about their child that is making it difficult for them to access education or social situations. Often referral to practitioners is done serially, that is one after the other, not at the same time. There can be practical reasons for this, such as the increased anxiety caused by multiple appointments, as well as logistic concerns, especially if the different practitioners are spread over a wide geographical area. However, it also means that only one aspect of the child is dealt with at once, whereas in reality all aspects of a child's development will be interacting together. For instance speech and language therapy will be affected by visual disturbances, physiotherapy will be affected by receptive speech problems, social skills training will be affected by nociceptive hypersensitivity.
All of these situations will be well known by parents and carers, but because of the way that researchers and practitioners have been approaching neurodevelopmental disorders, the wider picture has not always been appreciated in the clinical setting.
Christopher Gillberg's paper is a welcome change to the way we look at neurodevelopmental disorders, but will that change filter down into the clinical settings that so may parents find counterproductive? Only time will tell.
The paper (behind the pay wall) can be found here
Dorothy Bishop's review can be found here
Friday 21 February 2014
Should Consultant Appointments be Treated Like Business Meetings?
We recently had an appointment with an consultant orthopaedic surgeon to discuss my son's longstanding (not sure if that pun is intended or not!) foot pain. At least that is what I thought it was for.
He did indeed take a comprehensive series of x-rays, the first Ram has had in his life (he is now 17) which showed no structural abnormality.
The consultant was good in that he showed us the x-rays, explained where all the bones were and said that as there was nothing there that could be causing pain, it is likely that his pain is caused by fat pad atrophy. That bit makes sense, because Ram has so much pain in his feet when he puts pressure on them, it makes sense that the fat pads on his feet are no longer right.
But that was not quite how it came out in the consultant's letter. You have to bare in mind that this letter is sent to our GP who originally referred us, not to us. I have no idea if the consultant even realises that I get a copy of all correspondence. So it is important that the letter reflect what happened in the appointment.
First off the actual wording of the letter is “Diagnosis: Pain in both feet, probably due to fat pad atrophy secondary to long standing disuse.” Then he goes on to say, “The history is somewhat unusual in that his parents report that from a very young age (around the age of 3) he appeared to not like walking and therefore took to putting him in a buggy out of doors.” Nope. We didn't even own a buggy! Living in the countryside with no pavements there wasn't much use for one. Once Ram grew out of the backpack he had no choice but to walk everywhere. We didn't start using a buggy until he was 8, and even then Ram was very active swimming, climbing, trampolining and tricycling after that. It was only when he hit puberty that the fatigue set in and he slowly lost all his fitness.
But secondly, and perhaps more bizarrely, he said, “He is currently understood by his parents to be on the autistic spectrum disorder. In clinic today I found him to be articulate and did not obviously fall on the autistic spectrum disorder although I will admit that I am not expert in such matters.”
Hmmmm...we were not seeking an opinion on whether or not our son is on the Autistic Spectrum and if we were, we wouldn't have gone to an orthopaedic surgeon! By his own admission he is not an expert, so why even mention it when it wasn't on the agenda.
Oh. Agenda? But there wasn't one! At least not a written one. I suspect there is possibly a hidden one, perhaps our GP made some comment in his referral letter that lead the consultant to think that the parents have made up all this stuff about their son. Or maybe the GP just mentioned it as a way of warning the consultant that this young man will show up wearing a strange hat and have a stim that involves spinning the cord of his hoodie.
And the report? Serious inaccuracies which have already be distributed to the GP and physiotherapist. How does this leave us as parents feeling? We feel that we have not been listened to, that the judgements were made before we even got to the appointment or at the very least within the first few minutes, and that we are not partners in our son's health matters.
So how can this be avoided? I got to thinking about various business meetings that I have been involved with. There seems to be two types, those that have someone taking the minutes; they are typed up, distributed for comment, then officially agreed at or before the next meeting. The other type is where the minutes are prepared as the meeting happens, being agreed on the spot.
If I had produced minutes that were that wrong, or if I was charing a meeting that strayed from the agenda, I wouldn't last as a chair for very long. So why should consultants get away with it?
Maybe it is time for appointments with consultants to become more like business meetings where there is an agenda, where people's contributions are valued, where minutes are agreed before they are distributed, and where people feel listened to.
As for our situation just now, our consultant will have a two page letter hitting his desk next week copied in to our GP and physio, telling him just what he got wrong in his letter, explaining a little more about ASD, and containing some of the history that he didn't bother to take in the appointment. Maybe next time he will be more careful and treat the parents of his patients more like business partners and less like bystanders.
He did indeed take a comprehensive series of x-rays, the first Ram has had in his life (he is now 17) which showed no structural abnormality.
The consultant was good in that he showed us the x-rays, explained where all the bones were and said that as there was nothing there that could be causing pain, it is likely that his pain is caused by fat pad atrophy. That bit makes sense, because Ram has so much pain in his feet when he puts pressure on them, it makes sense that the fat pads on his feet are no longer right.
But that was not quite how it came out in the consultant's letter. You have to bare in mind that this letter is sent to our GP who originally referred us, not to us. I have no idea if the consultant even realises that I get a copy of all correspondence. So it is important that the letter reflect what happened in the appointment.
First off the actual wording of the letter is “Diagnosis: Pain in both feet, probably due to fat pad atrophy secondary to long standing disuse.” Then he goes on to say, “The history is somewhat unusual in that his parents report that from a very young age (around the age of 3) he appeared to not like walking and therefore took to putting him in a buggy out of doors.” Nope. We didn't even own a buggy! Living in the countryside with no pavements there wasn't much use for one. Once Ram grew out of the backpack he had no choice but to walk everywhere. We didn't start using a buggy until he was 8, and even then Ram was very active swimming, climbing, trampolining and tricycling after that. It was only when he hit puberty that the fatigue set in and he slowly lost all his fitness.
But secondly, and perhaps more bizarrely, he said, “He is currently understood by his parents to be on the autistic spectrum disorder. In clinic today I found him to be articulate and did not obviously fall on the autistic spectrum disorder although I will admit that I am not expert in such matters.”
Hmmmm...we were not seeking an opinion on whether or not our son is on the Autistic Spectrum and if we were, we wouldn't have gone to an orthopaedic surgeon! By his own admission he is not an expert, so why even mention it when it wasn't on the agenda.
Oh. Agenda? But there wasn't one! At least not a written one. I suspect there is possibly a hidden one, perhaps our GP made some comment in his referral letter that lead the consultant to think that the parents have made up all this stuff about their son. Or maybe the GP just mentioned it as a way of warning the consultant that this young man will show up wearing a strange hat and have a stim that involves spinning the cord of his hoodie.
And the report? Serious inaccuracies which have already be distributed to the GP and physiotherapist. How does this leave us as parents feeling? We feel that we have not been listened to, that the judgements were made before we even got to the appointment or at the very least within the first few minutes, and that we are not partners in our son's health matters.
So how can this be avoided? I got to thinking about various business meetings that I have been involved with. There seems to be two types, those that have someone taking the minutes; they are typed up, distributed for comment, then officially agreed at or before the next meeting. The other type is where the minutes are prepared as the meeting happens, being agreed on the spot.
If I had produced minutes that were that wrong, or if I was charing a meeting that strayed from the agenda, I wouldn't last as a chair for very long. So why should consultants get away with it?
Maybe it is time for appointments with consultants to become more like business meetings where there is an agenda, where people's contributions are valued, where minutes are agreed before they are distributed, and where people feel listened to.
As for our situation just now, our consultant will have a two page letter hitting his desk next week copied in to our GP and physio, telling him just what he got wrong in his letter, explaining a little more about ASD, and containing some of the history that he didn't bother to take in the appointment. Maybe next time he will be more careful and treat the parents of his patients more like business partners and less like bystanders.
Tuesday 18 December 2012
Io Saturnalia!
This is an article I originally wrote for Education Otherwise but I decided it should get a wider audience here.
Back in December 2003 we were reading Caroline Lawrence's The Twelve Tasks of Flavia, on of the books in her Roman Mysteries series. In it the Roman festival of Saturnalia is described.
So we decided that we would have a Saturnalia day on December 21st that year. Io Saturnalia!
We researched into it by checking out various websites as well as reading the book. Then we invited another home educating family for a Sunday lunch with a difference. In Roman times the festival would run for several days but we decided that one day would suffice, especially as we still had Christmas to come and so many of the Christmas traditions were originally based on Saturnalia. In fact it is said that the Christians stole Saturnalia from the Pagans, then commercialism stole it from the Christians, and now the Pagans are trying to take it back again!
We dispensed with the usual sacrifice at the temple, but we did choose a Lord of Misrule for the day. Actually, we chose a Lord and a Lady, the two seven year olds! The idea of this is that the servants and children become the rulers for the day. In Roman times it was all part of the fun, so they weren't really rulers for the day, but the citizens of Rome played the part of the servants and the servants and children were waited on for the day. So for that day we let the children play at being in charge. Unfortunately I am also the regular servant in the house so I was still in charge of serving the food!
We decorated the house with greenery from the garden, just as the Romans would have. Although the Christmas tree didn't come into play until much later, the Romans would have had garlands similar to the ivy ones we put up that day.
Dolls and hats featured in Roman Saturnalia. Dolls were traditionally given to the children, and dolls featured in the plot of Caroline Lawrence's book so we sat down to make some clothes-peg dolls to give to each other. We also had a bag of scraps with which we made silly hats for each other. This tradition lives on today in the form of the paper hats that come out of the Christmas crackers.
No festival is complete without a feast, so we had a Roman feast while reclining on cushions on the floor. Unfortunately we couldn't come up with authentic couches! We used earthenware to serve the food on, ate off of platters, and used our fingers. We stuck to food available in Roman times: olives; roast chicken with a modern version of garam; green beans, olives and salad; home made bread made with grape juice; and for dessert dates and almonds roasted with honey and black pepper. The children even bravely tried the warm drink that Flavia has for breakfast: half milk, half spiced wine with a little grated cheese over the top.
The two families had a wonderful day that day, but unfortunately we have never again been in the same place at the same time to recreate Saturnalia. But we still decorate the house for Christmas on the Solstice with greenery, and say 'Io Saturnalia' to each other.
Back in December 2003 we were reading Caroline Lawrence's The Twelve Tasks of Flavia, on of the books in her Roman Mysteries series. In it the Roman festival of Saturnalia is described.
So we decided that we would have a Saturnalia day on December 21st that year. Io Saturnalia!
We researched into it by checking out various websites as well as reading the book. Then we invited another home educating family for a Sunday lunch with a difference. In Roman times the festival would run for several days but we decided that one day would suffice, especially as we still had Christmas to come and so many of the Christmas traditions were originally based on Saturnalia. In fact it is said that the Christians stole Saturnalia from the Pagans, then commercialism stole it from the Christians, and now the Pagans are trying to take it back again!
We dispensed with the usual sacrifice at the temple, but we did choose a Lord of Misrule for the day. Actually, we chose a Lord and a Lady, the two seven year olds! The idea of this is that the servants and children become the rulers for the day. In Roman times it was all part of the fun, so they weren't really rulers for the day, but the citizens of Rome played the part of the servants and the servants and children were waited on for the day. So for that day we let the children play at being in charge. Unfortunately I am also the regular servant in the house so I was still in charge of serving the food!
We decorated the house with greenery from the garden, just as the Romans would have. Although the Christmas tree didn't come into play until much later, the Romans would have had garlands similar to the ivy ones we put up that day.
Dolls and hats featured in Roman Saturnalia. Dolls were traditionally given to the children, and dolls featured in the plot of Caroline Lawrence's book so we sat down to make some clothes-peg dolls to give to each other. We also had a bag of scraps with which we made silly hats for each other. This tradition lives on today in the form of the paper hats that come out of the Christmas crackers.
No festival is complete without a feast, so we had a Roman feast while reclining on cushions on the floor. Unfortunately we couldn't come up with authentic couches! We used earthenware to serve the food on, ate off of platters, and used our fingers. We stuck to food available in Roman times: olives; roast chicken with a modern version of garam; green beans, olives and salad; home made bread made with grape juice; and for dessert dates and almonds roasted with honey and black pepper. The children even bravely tried the warm drink that Flavia has for breakfast: half milk, half spiced wine with a little grated cheese over the top.
The two families had a wonderful day that day, but unfortunately we have never again been in the same place at the same time to recreate Saturnalia. But we still decorate the house for Christmas on the Solstice with greenery, and say 'Io Saturnalia' to each other.
Saturday 23 June 2012
The Optimism Bias
Our second talk was The Optimism Bias given by Tali Sharot, a neuroscientist from UCL.
The basis of the optimism bias is that people overestimate the positive and underestimate the negative. We think that we will win the lottery, and not not get cancer, that our children will be especially talented, but we won't be in a car accident. The bias is the difference between what we expect and what actually happens. It was coined by Weinstein in 1980.
Tali gave some good examples such as marriage and divorce. When we get married we think that we will definitely not get divorced, and yet the statistics show that almost half of all couples getting married today will not have lasting marriages. Even with experience, people will think it will get better next week and some just keep getting married time after time.
We are more optimistic about ourselves, but less optimistic about others and our country. We also think that we are better than we really are, for example more than 50% of people think they are better than average drivers.
Although most people (80%) have some degree of optimism bias, some people don't, and they tend to be depressed. Those that are more realistic have less of an optimisim bias and are mildly depressed, those that have no optimism bias are very depressed think that all things will turn out bad.
But it isn't only humans that show this bias. They found that some animals such as mice and birds have it, and if they are kept in a cage with no comfort or toys, they get depressed like humans do and stop showing optimistic behaviours.
Interestingly, it is an illusion, because normally when things go wrong we would evaluate and make adjustments with the new information, but somehow we seem to be able to see things as being better than they really were. We pay more attention to the good stuff, and less to the negative.
Tali being a neuroscientist, has used fMRI to find some of the areas of the brain involved. The left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) responds to good news, and the right IFG to negative things, but the right side shows a weaker response than the left, so people will pay more attention to the positive than the negative.
One of the applications for this is warning signs. People don't take notice of them, they think that it doesn't apply to them. Hence the warning on cigarette packages that “Smoking Kills” probably doesn't work, and would be better if it said something like “80% of people can stopped smoking”
Expectations and anticipation also plays a part. People with high expectations tend to assume that if things go well it was because of something they did, so they will continue to work hard to make things turn out positively. People with low expectations tend to blame themselves and feel worse. This will colour how they see things panning out in the future. We tent to dwell on what is happening now, rather than the future, and the anticipation of something good in the future, like a holiday or a dinner out, might actually be better than the event itself, making us feel happier and more optimistic now.
Optimism can also change both subjective and objective reality. If we expect something to be positive, we will interrupt negative results more positively. But also, if we are expecting something to be positive we may put more effort into making it work out.
Having the optimism bias can be good for our health; optimists think that they have less chance of dying, and are more likely to recover quickly from an illness. They think this is because anxiety and stress are reduced so they can put more effort into recovering.
It can be helpful knowing about the optimism bias, so that we can take precautionary action. It would be wrong to get rid of the bias, it makes more sense to work with it. We can be optimistic that our houses will never burn down, but still take out insurance. We can assume that we will never get divorced, but still sign a pre-nup.
There are wider implications as well, for instance in finance. The reason why the Olympics is not grossly over budget this time is because the Green Book took into account the optimism bias and adjusted the figures accordingly. There is also a believe that the crash of 2008 was caused by the optimism bias.
We all have our own optimism biases. For us I think it was the number of lectures a day that Ram could comfortably handle. He struggled last year, but we still went ahead and booked the same number for this year.
For me, it is this blog. Last year I wanted to blog the festival, and never got as far as writing anything. This year I thought I had learned from that and decided to be strict with myself and write them and blog each day. I still haven't managed it, although I have done better. Will our optimism prevail and result in us booking the same number of talks next year, and will my optimism make me put more effort into keeping this blog up to date? Only time will tell!
For a more detailed look at Tali's work check out this article written by her.
The basis of the optimism bias is that people overestimate the positive and underestimate the negative. We think that we will win the lottery, and not not get cancer, that our children will be especially talented, but we won't be in a car accident. The bias is the difference between what we expect and what actually happens. It was coined by Weinstein in 1980.
Tali gave some good examples such as marriage and divorce. When we get married we think that we will definitely not get divorced, and yet the statistics show that almost half of all couples getting married today will not have lasting marriages. Even with experience, people will think it will get better next week and some just keep getting married time after time.
We are more optimistic about ourselves, but less optimistic about others and our country. We also think that we are better than we really are, for example more than 50% of people think they are better than average drivers.
Although most people (80%) have some degree of optimism bias, some people don't, and they tend to be depressed. Those that are more realistic have less of an optimisim bias and are mildly depressed, those that have no optimism bias are very depressed think that all things will turn out bad.
But it isn't only humans that show this bias. They found that some animals such as mice and birds have it, and if they are kept in a cage with no comfort or toys, they get depressed like humans do and stop showing optimistic behaviours.
Interestingly, it is an illusion, because normally when things go wrong we would evaluate and make adjustments with the new information, but somehow we seem to be able to see things as being better than they really were. We pay more attention to the good stuff, and less to the negative.
Tali being a neuroscientist, has used fMRI to find some of the areas of the brain involved. The left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) responds to good news, and the right IFG to negative things, but the right side shows a weaker response than the left, so people will pay more attention to the positive than the negative.
One of the applications for this is warning signs. People don't take notice of them, they think that it doesn't apply to them. Hence the warning on cigarette packages that “Smoking Kills” probably doesn't work, and would be better if it said something like “80% of people can stopped smoking”
Expectations and anticipation also plays a part. People with high expectations tend to assume that if things go well it was because of something they did, so they will continue to work hard to make things turn out positively. People with low expectations tend to blame themselves and feel worse. This will colour how they see things panning out in the future. We tent to dwell on what is happening now, rather than the future, and the anticipation of something good in the future, like a holiday or a dinner out, might actually be better than the event itself, making us feel happier and more optimistic now.
Optimism can also change both subjective and objective reality. If we expect something to be positive, we will interrupt negative results more positively. But also, if we are expecting something to be positive we may put more effort into making it work out.
Having the optimism bias can be good for our health; optimists think that they have less chance of dying, and are more likely to recover quickly from an illness. They think this is because anxiety and stress are reduced so they can put more effort into recovering.
It can be helpful knowing about the optimism bias, so that we can take precautionary action. It would be wrong to get rid of the bias, it makes more sense to work with it. We can be optimistic that our houses will never burn down, but still take out insurance. We can assume that we will never get divorced, but still sign a pre-nup.
There are wider implications as well, for instance in finance. The reason why the Olympics is not grossly over budget this time is because the Green Book took into account the optimism bias and adjusted the figures accordingly. There is also a believe that the crash of 2008 was caused by the optimism bias.
We all have our own optimism biases. For us I think it was the number of lectures a day that Ram could comfortably handle. He struggled last year, but we still went ahead and booked the same number for this year.
For me, it is this blog. Last year I wanted to blog the festival, and never got as far as writing anything. This year I thought I had learned from that and decided to be strict with myself and write them and blog each day. I still haven't managed it, although I have done better. Will our optimism prevail and result in us booking the same number of talks next year, and will my optimism make me put more effort into keeping this blog up to date? Only time will tell!
For a more detailed look at Tali's work check out this article written by her.
Friday 15 June 2012
The Re:Generative Power of Sleep
The second talk at the Cheltenham science Festival was on the optimism bias, which I will blog about later. First of all I would like to share with you our third talk called the Regenerative Power of Sleep given by Russell Foster and Till Roenneberg.
As this talk was later in the evening we were a bit worried that we might actually fall asleep but we didn't need to be as it was very exciting. Russell spoke first, initially outlining the different areas of the brain involved in sleep. One of them, suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN),Is what gives rise to a 24-hour cycle. All the different areas and their neurotransmitters feed forward into the cortex to keep us awake. The ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO) is the sleep switch, which when activated starts the sleep cycle by inhibiting the waking systems.
Because so many brain areas involved, it means that it is highly vulnerable to disruption which can lead to health problems. This is not just mental health problems but sleep deprived people are more likely to put on weight as well. Sleep affects different systems in the body in different ways.
When sleep is disrupted we are more likely to need caffeine (and cigarettes) to wake up in the morning, but coffee interferes with the receptors for the VLPO which helps keep us awake, but then we need to get to sleep so turn to alcohol and sedatives which leads to the wrong kind of sleep which leads to more sleep deprivation which leads to more coffee so we get into a downward spiral.
Russell presented a long list of problems caused by sleep deprivation and they are the same ones as in mental health disorders. This has been known about since the 1880s, but has been ignored. In the 1970s it was thought that sleep deprivation was the by product of antipsychotic drugs so people assumed it was 'normal' and didn't bother with it.
Research has shown that mental illness and sleep deprivation are very commonly found together and lead to poor health, and that sleep deprivation precedes the illness and appears to be a feature of risk for the development of mental illness. With schizophrenia it appears that they have no clock or melatonin routines. Research from Dan Freeman has shown that intervention to improve sleep patterns leads to reduced symptoms or can delay the onset of illness
Russell then handed over to Till to speak about social jet lag. Sleep to disruption has become normal in the modern world during workdays as sleep is defined by our bosses. They have done a huge survey to find out people's chronotype, that is whether they are larks or owls, but mostly people are in the middle.
Our body clocks are not set by social circumstances, it is set by the brain and depends on the age and genes. At puberty young people go to sleep later and later and then they suddenly go onto an adult clock at age 19 ½ for females and 21 in males. The chronotype doesn't dictate how many hours someone sleeps so duration is independent of chronotype, and duration is challenged by social pressures during workdays.
So owls who would normally sleep later have to sleep more on the weekends to catch up which results in a type of jet lag. As they are later to sleep at night but later to wake in the morning for just 2 days, their body clock never gets a chance to adjust to it. Teens suffer the most is their sleep cycle is later than adults but they still have to get up for school. This sleep discrepancy results in the strongest social jet lag. T his could account for the increase in drinking and smoking and young people. There is also relationship between social jet lag and weight gain. Oh, and larks have a similar problem only involving the other end of the day.
Till then went on to discuss the difference between Germans and the British. They did some large-scale studies controlling for age and sex with 75,000 Germans and so far 5,000 British. You can take the survey here. They found that we have an identical distribution of chronotypes, spent the same amount of time outside, have similar sleep duration, with the UK sleeping 8.5 more minutes a day which results in 40 extra minutes a week.
But the UK has less social jet lag because Germans go into work early! This could be because there are more factory jobs in Germany.
At the end several members of the audience had questions. One ask Till to define senile bed flight. It does sound rather worrying but he made it sound quite fun. Older people need less sleep and can get by with a little nap in the day when needed. Evolutionarily this was well suited to grandparents matching the sleep patterns of the babies so that they could take care of the babies at night and early morning while the teen parents got some sleep. So it is a very positive thing to have when looking after grandchildren!
There was a question about the effects of continuous daylight. Constant light means that there is no local body clock. The body clock drifts later and later which results in an internal body systems becoming unsynchronised with brain, gut and muscles all adrift.
I felt that this could have an implication for those with SEN and disabled children who have sleep disturbances. Sleep affects all systems. Some people believe the digestive problems on what causes autism in some children. But perhaps it is disruptive sleep and sleep deprivation which is causing both cognitive and the digestive problems. More research needed no doubt!
Russell explained that alcohol and sedatives don't work, you need to make sure that you are exposed to light, especially in the morning, and you need to listen to your body. If you need an alarm clock you are not getting enough sleep. So with teens, let them sleep in the mornings so that they don't get sleep deprived, but make sure that the curtains are opened so that they will get light through their eyelids and their brains will know it is daytime.
They found that in schools, starting classes later resulted in an increase in exam results, a decrease in truancy, depression and self harm, and an increase in sleep and better eating habits.
So, far from falling asleep, we were wide awake for the entirety of the talk, and even afterwards when Till and Russell kindly signed their books for us and gave Ram a little pep talk about not being on the computer too late into the evening! For his part, Ram suggested that maybe Russell shouldn't be drinking that glass of wine either!
As this talk was later in the evening we were a bit worried that we might actually fall asleep but we didn't need to be as it was very exciting. Russell spoke first, initially outlining the different areas of the brain involved in sleep. One of them, suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN),Is what gives rise to a 24-hour cycle. All the different areas and their neurotransmitters feed forward into the cortex to keep us awake. The ventrolateral preoptic nucleus (VLPO) is the sleep switch, which when activated starts the sleep cycle by inhibiting the waking systems.
Because so many brain areas involved, it means that it is highly vulnerable to disruption which can lead to health problems. This is not just mental health problems but sleep deprived people are more likely to put on weight as well. Sleep affects different systems in the body in different ways.
When sleep is disrupted we are more likely to need caffeine (and cigarettes) to wake up in the morning, but coffee interferes with the receptors for the VLPO which helps keep us awake, but then we need to get to sleep so turn to alcohol and sedatives which leads to the wrong kind of sleep which leads to more sleep deprivation which leads to more coffee so we get into a downward spiral.
Russell presented a long list of problems caused by sleep deprivation and they are the same ones as in mental health disorders. This has been known about since the 1880s, but has been ignored. In the 1970s it was thought that sleep deprivation was the by product of antipsychotic drugs so people assumed it was 'normal' and didn't bother with it.
Research has shown that mental illness and sleep deprivation are very commonly found together and lead to poor health, and that sleep deprivation precedes the illness and appears to be a feature of risk for the development of mental illness. With schizophrenia it appears that they have no clock or melatonin routines. Research from Dan Freeman has shown that intervention to improve sleep patterns leads to reduced symptoms or can delay the onset of illness
Russell then handed over to Till to speak about social jet lag. Sleep to disruption has become normal in the modern world during workdays as sleep is defined by our bosses. They have done a huge survey to find out people's chronotype, that is whether they are larks or owls, but mostly people are in the middle.
Our body clocks are not set by social circumstances, it is set by the brain and depends on the age and genes. At puberty young people go to sleep later and later and then they suddenly go onto an adult clock at age 19 ½ for females and 21 in males. The chronotype doesn't dictate how many hours someone sleeps so duration is independent of chronotype, and duration is challenged by social pressures during workdays.
So owls who would normally sleep later have to sleep more on the weekends to catch up which results in a type of jet lag. As they are later to sleep at night but later to wake in the morning for just 2 days, their body clock never gets a chance to adjust to it. Teens suffer the most is their sleep cycle is later than adults but they still have to get up for school. This sleep discrepancy results in the strongest social jet lag. T his could account for the increase in drinking and smoking and young people. There is also relationship between social jet lag and weight gain. Oh, and larks have a similar problem only involving the other end of the day.
Till then went on to discuss the difference between Germans and the British. They did some large-scale studies controlling for age and sex with 75,000 Germans and so far 5,000 British. You can take the survey here. They found that we have an identical distribution of chronotypes, spent the same amount of time outside, have similar sleep duration, with the UK sleeping 8.5 more minutes a day which results in 40 extra minutes a week.
But the UK has less social jet lag because Germans go into work early! This could be because there are more factory jobs in Germany.
At the end several members of the audience had questions. One ask Till to define senile bed flight. It does sound rather worrying but he made it sound quite fun. Older people need less sleep and can get by with a little nap in the day when needed. Evolutionarily this was well suited to grandparents matching the sleep patterns of the babies so that they could take care of the babies at night and early morning while the teen parents got some sleep. So it is a very positive thing to have when looking after grandchildren!
There was a question about the effects of continuous daylight. Constant light means that there is no local body clock. The body clock drifts later and later which results in an internal body systems becoming unsynchronised with brain, gut and muscles all adrift.
I felt that this could have an implication for those with SEN and disabled children who have sleep disturbances. Sleep affects all systems. Some people believe the digestive problems on what causes autism in some children. But perhaps it is disruptive sleep and sleep deprivation which is causing both cognitive and the digestive problems. More research needed no doubt!
Russell explained that alcohol and sedatives don't work, you need to make sure that you are exposed to light, especially in the morning, and you need to listen to your body. If you need an alarm clock you are not getting enough sleep. So with teens, let them sleep in the mornings so that they don't get sleep deprived, but make sure that the curtains are opened so that they will get light through their eyelids and their brains will know it is daytime.
They found that in schools, starting classes later resulted in an increase in exam results, a decrease in truancy, depression and self harm, and an increase in sleep and better eating habits.
So, far from falling asleep, we were wide awake for the entirety of the talk, and even afterwards when Till and Russell kindly signed their books for us and gave Ram a little pep talk about not being on the computer too late into the evening! For his part, Ram suggested that maybe Russell shouldn't be drinking that glass of wine either!
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