computers – A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent.

Posted on November 5, 2020 by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 92 Comments

A bit later

Moody midday.

So we now are in lockdown officially. I should dig out my tinned foil hat. Must admit I’ve not noticed any real difference so far. The dustbin wagon turned up on time. Next doors gardener has been busy. Not much four wheeled traffic on the roads but plenty of cyclists. The mole and badger have continued to dig up the lawn. Hawklad is doing his school at home work. I’m wandering around being a muppet. So same old same old.

Well when I say nothing has changed well that’s not quite true. Shopping wise it’s a different matter. Many of the nonessential shops have closed. And food shopping has returned to being a pain in the buttocks again. As soon as lockdown is mentioned the availability of gluten free foods and Hawklad’s favourite sausages takes a nose dive. I blame it on Boris.

I also blame it on Boris that I’m clearly an old fart…..

“Dad what on earth is that?”

It’s vinyl Son. A record. It’s the first Pink Floyd album…

This produced a bemused look on number one son. A bit later….

“Say that again. You didn’t have computers when you started school.”

No. Home computing was not yet a thing. In fact calculators had just come out but my school didn’t believe in them. We were expected to do stuff in our heads or use the dreaded slide rulers.

“What on earth is a slide ruler?”

Basically an analog mechanical calculation device that looks like a big ruler. It has scales on and you have to slide the middle bit of the ruler out to read the results off the scale.

Another bemused look. A bit later….

“Can I put the hot water bottle in the microwave to warm it a bit Dad.”

Don’t need to ask. In my day I would have had to fill it with boiling hot water from the kettle.

Another one of those looks. And finally this morning….

“Dad it’s a shame that you haven’t got some videos or DVDs which you taped of some TV shows you watched as a kid. I bet there is a load that you can’t buy now on Amazon. That would be fun to watch. ”

Hawklad when I was a kid even video had not been invented. We didn’t get them until the 80s.

“So how did you record stuff?”

We couldn’t. If you missed the show on the TV that was it. You had to just hope that it was repeated in a few months time.

And a really really really big one of those looks. Definitely feeling like an old fart…

Posted on August 6, 2020August 6, 2020 by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 73 Comments

Nonstop

It’s a hard life on the pet sofa. Nonstop action.

So while the pets were unusually becalmed and Hawklad was watching a Sherlock Holmes movie, I could focus on a pressing matter. Seeing what bargains I could find on the internet. Replacements for items which are starting to fall to bits. Actually that could include me.

As usual the items on my list where either unavailable or at full price (or beyond). But I did come across a range on interesting bargains.

A rather battered old pink Campervan. The description referred to well looked after, well loved, filled with character. I didn’t references to words like knackered, dented, rusted or broken. Clearly if it was true that the badly battered vehicle had in fact had only one careful owner well that owner must have been NASA.
A collection of novelty LPs which included masterpieces from the likes of The Crankies, Baron Knights, Showaddywaddy, Mud and Vanilla Ice. Shame I don’t have a record player……
A chessboard with some of the pieces missing. Suppose that contributes to quicker games.
The entire James Bond DVD collection. One dvd is missing and several are scratched. They also won’t work in the UK and Europe. But apart from that….
A Bullworker. Remember those. Those exercise devices which apparently if you used it for 10 minutes a day for a month you would end up looking like Thor or The Terminator. I might need to use that for several years……
A Batman lego set which would cost more than my car….
A Genuine Boomerang. Wow you must be able to get fake ones.
A box of VHS tapes. Maybe I can sell the bag loads of those cassettes we have filling up the garage.
A set of glowing hula hoops. Surely that would represent an essential purchase.
A Boris Johnson punch bag. So so tempted.
A giant bag of jigsaw pieces, several sets mixed together – no guarantee that all sets are complete. Trying to get my head round that one.
A pantomime horse costume for two adults. Apparently with some wear and tear. The mind boggles.
A set of 30 Xbox games. Ranging from motor racing to Star Wars.

Most admit the Xbox games pack was tempting. One problem. We would never use them. Son is a creature of habit. On his Xbox 360 he only ever played two games FIFA (football) and WWE (wrestling). When I saved up to upgrade it to an Xbox One, guess what. He’s only ever played two games on it. FIFA and WWE. Maybe Microsoft can next time just do us a special cutdown version of the Xbox Two. We only need it to play two games. Surely they can do us a cheap version rare edition. That might be worth something on eBay.

Posted on September 27, 2019 by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 57 Comments

Is Phonics the wrong path

Our much beloved School Minister (and first holder of our Boris Numpty Award), Nick Gibb declared “the debate is over”. He was referring to his decision which meant the all kids in English schools would have to learn reading by phonics. Kids are taught to break words up into parts and then learn individual sound parts. Previously kids were taught with a mix of phonics and the old approach of memorising the whole world.

Interestingly our School Minister who is an expert in all things education has no practical experience of teaching. He is an accountant. Which makes me equally qualified to set school policy….

Yes phonics does work for some kids but not for others. For example many kids with dyslexia or kids on the spectrum struggle to decode words and then struggle to produce the right sounds for each individual part. I’ve tried phonics and I struggle with it. It’s a disaster with son. We could be trying to use phonics for the next 100 years and it will still not help our son to read.

We all must have done this. Set out for a nice walk. In the case of the photos across the stunning North Yorkshire Moors. Then you come to a crossroads. Paths going in all directions. You look vaguely at the map. Try to look like a professional. Fold up the map carefully. Then go Eeny, meeny, miny, moe and randomly guess the right path. In my case it is usually unerringly wrong. After several miles you get that sinking feeling – wrong path.

Actually wrong path is not the best description. It will be the right path for many. It will take them to their desired location. But for some (like me) we could go down this path for years and it will never ever get us to our desired location. So what I need to do is get off this path and find a path which works for me. That is the sensible thing to do. As a I am not that sensible I won’t retrace my steps back to the crossroads. I will try to break trail in a different direction in the hope that I will find the path for me.

Now according to our Schools Minister all kids should go down the same reading path. Unfortunately doing that will guarantee that some kids never do arrive at their destination. Endlessly walking down this path, getting lost, getting disillusioned. That’s what happened to us. We blindly went down the phonics path and basically got no where.

But then we stopped and said stuff you Nick Gibb. And we broke a new trail.

We started learning some of the most common words the traditional way. Son would memorise the whole word.
We started playing around with various learning to read games on the internet.
Using trial and error son would try to use app’s like YouTube, Google Search or games like FIFA by himself.
Son would watch TV shows with the subtitles on. Movies like the Avengers were perfect. He knew them virtually off by heart. So he could focus on the subtitles and start to make links.
He would relentlessly work on his coordination. He would read a grid of letters while clapping his hands. He would bounce a ball while trying to learn and read words.
We would jointly read books. Normally Mr Men books. They were just the right length and fun. He would join in when he wanted to. I would never correct a mistake. He would process that himself.

The new trail has started to work. We haven’t reached our son’s destination but it feels like we are heading in the right direction at last. Enough for son to call himself now – a reader.

So I hope our Schools Minister finds his own path. Preferably takes him a million miles away from this countries classrooms. Then we can get back to trusting parents, teachers and kids to pick the education path which best suits them.

Posted on March 31, 2019 by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 63 Comments

Spelling….

Some roads are straight and easy to navigate. Other roads are not….

A few years ago the U.K. Government changed the way children were taught and tested. To ensure that ‘children are better equipped for jobs a greater emphasis should be placed on spelling, grammar and punctuation’. As a result marks are now specifically set aside for these factor in exams. Labelled SPaG marking. It was argued that the previous inclusive educational approach was wrong.

The Government approach is to focus on a limited number of correctly spelt words. Let’s produce kids who can spell one word perfectly rather than have kids who can use an extended comprehension.

Where does this leave kids with dyslexia.?

Teaching Groups, Charities, Dyslexia Associations, Parenting Associations and Health Bodies objected. But what do they know….

Dyslexic Kids can apply for extra time in exams. They can apply for a scribe. They can apply to use a reading pen. They can apply to use a keyboard rather than pen. BUT.

They have to demonstrate a level of independence to gain access to the spelling, the grammar or the punctuation marks. If they can’t then the marks are not available to them.

Looking at our son’s case it probably means that when he takes his final exams if he opts for reasonable levels of assistance (as required under Equality Legislation) he will at best be able to access only 33% of the total SPaG marks available.

In my eyes this is wrong. But this is modern U.K. education policy.

Sadly it doesn’t stop there.

The Government decided to change the course content for Computing. Computing underpins everything now. The range of potential computing skills are endless. So many of our kids have passions and untapped skills here. The opportunities are boundless. Let kids tap into this. NO. The Government decided that the course should now focus on coding and structured programming.

Not often can I talk about a subject with anything other than guesswork, but computing I can get to amateur level. This is way beyond the dogmatic ideological buffoonery that underpins Government thinking. Why in God’s name have they picked the most uninspiring and regimented area to focus on. The approach seems to be let’s push out kids who can code rather than develop kids who can utilise the potential computers offer. Yes let kids have a basic grasp of coding then allow those who want to take it further the option to do so. I remember training in 3 programming languages – all becoming obsolete within 5 years.

AND yet again the Government – The Government which is on our side – have penalised kids with dyslexia. Coding and programming is built around specific commands and symbol patterns. Dyslexics struggle with this. So our son is stuck in a weekly computing lesson which focuses on programming. He flounders as he can’t spell the commands. His confidence gets battered. His struggles with spelling are cruelly exposed. His love for computing is fading. The school knows this but cannot change because it’s the set teaching method. Madness.

Sadly I could go on about other subjects and more Government interference. But the point has been made.

Education is so vital that it should not be left in the hands of our self absorbed and incompetent politicians. How about the politicians just focusing on screwing up Brexit and leaving education to the teachers, the parents, the area experts, the kids. In today’s language that probably gets me labelled as a dangerous socialist. A Traitor. Frankly I don’t care. What I care about is the kids going through our educational system. Clearly that’s something our leaders clearly can’t comprehend.

Posted on January 9, 2019 by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 105 Comments

Dad sit down

Today was supposed to be a full on work day. But again the Laptop had other ideas. Clearly it was an update day. Luckily my old tablet came to the rescue. A slow rescue but it was a rescue. I did find a use for my laptop. As it updated it got warm and a nice warm thing is too much for a dog to resist. So my laptop is now an expensive comfort blanket to sleep on.

When our son arrived back from school he was smiling. One of those smiles.

“Dad sit down”

No it’s ok

“Dad no I think you should sit down”

Ok I’m sat down, go on hit me with it.

“Well I tried doing the work with my left hand. It was bad. Anyway for the Games Lesson I was sent to a teachers room. I was told that I could do my homework. I told the teacher that I had no homework which needed doing. So she said I should just get a book from the shelf or do something educational on the iPad. I just sat and tried to play Crossy Roads for an hour. I beat your record.”

Well that wasn’t too bad, maybe next time find something rather than a game to do. Certainly don’t beat your dads best score…

“That’s not all. During one of the lessons I banged my right hand on the desk. It really hurt. But the teacher just told me to carry on working”

That’s not good. I’m going to speak to the Head about that.

“Not finished yet Dad. They have decided which options all the kids are doing for the next term. I was told that I couldn’t do the option I selected because of my hand so they told me that I have to do another one. They have given me the Book Reading class. Do you think they have forgotten I’m dyslexic.”

The Book Reading Class for a dyslexic. You couldn’t make it up.

Posted on December 18, 2018December 18, 2018 by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 43 Comments

Christmas comes early

Another trip to the fracture clinic and our son is super happy. Yes he’s still in pain, yes he can’t use his right hand but the Doctor has said the magic words

“I’m afraid you need a few more rest days so it’s another week off school”.

So it’s no more school until 2019.

To someone who goes through so much anxiety because of school it’s an early festive gift for our son. Does cause problems for me but seeing our son more relaxed – it is a price worth paying. More work can be done at home (updates permitting). The car will have to survive a few more weeks without some much needed and overdue garage TLC. Tonight I will desperately check out which food stores can home deliver this week. Like many kids with Aspergers a visit to a busy supermarket is hell on Earth.

So I sit down with a cup of tea and the laptop. One eye keeps checking out the Harry Potter movie on the TV. The pets come to join me on the sofa. Then it’s return of Windows update madness again. Surely we can find a more convenient way of maintaining our Computers. One which doesn’t stop the world turning. So so thankful my ancient tablet is not Windows based.

I am reminded of a recent conversation with our son. He was convinced that computers should be completely redesigned and remodelled taking lessons from nature. Namely the shark. Some sharks that live at the depths of oceans and seas, for example the Nurse shark, can drop to the ocean floor and enter into something equivalent to our deep sleep. But other sharks like the Great White can’t do this – they need to keep swimming. Our Son reliably informed me that much evidence suggests that they effectively reduce brain activity down to a minimum in one part of the brain while the other part of the brain continues normally. It could be that the spine which is responsible for swimming may have some operational independence. In effect part of the brain shuts down to sleep and the shark continues to swim. So we should redesign the computer processor so that part of it can be updated while the other half continues to work. Dual processors should easily facilitate this. Sounds good to me sat here with laptop displaying an “out to lunch” message on the screen. But it does raise the question how much of our lives would be transformed if we let kids with a different take on life start designing our world.

Anyway let’s watch Harry find the Chamber of Secrets. Maybe at the end of the movie my laptop will grant me a couple of hours operating time.

Posted on December 15, 2018 by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 46 Comments

Early morning

I decided to get up really early this morning to try and do a bit of work catch up. But the work gods are still against me. In my half asleep state I somehow found a way of opening up the laptop and switching it on.