It was reported this week that the size of the Arctic ice cap has increased this year to levels not recorded since 2001. The freezing winds blowing across the Bering Sea over the past few months resulted in thousands of square miles of ocean to freeze.
These winds are the tangible consequence of something called an Arctic Oscillation. The artic oscillation is an example of what has been called a climate oscillation. These are different to a climate change. Unlike climate oscillations, climate changes do not automatically correct themselves. Oscillations are variations that happen regularly, but are not permanent. It was this Artic Oscillation that was also partly responsible for the cold winter experienced in northern Europe and eastern America, and last week at the University of Lancaster campus, where I was attending the first Mental Health in Higher Education Conference. We had freezing winds, driving rain, and overnight, sufficient snow to lie on the ground.
Unfortunately for some reason not told, the temperature inside the buildings was as low as they were outside.
The conference was the first and possibly might be the last facilitated by the Mental Health in Higher Education project. This was originally a one year project which aimed to enhance learning and teaching about mental health across the disciplines in UK higher education. The projects objectives included:
• supporting the development and dissemination of good practices in learning and teaching about mental wellbeing and ill-health; providing a testing ground for new ideas and promoting pedagogic research.
• embedding service user and carer involvement within mental health teaching programmes and facilitating the exchange of good practice in this area.
• providing support, stimulating enthusiasm and facilitating the mutual exchange of resources and ideas.
These aims and objectives, whilst articulated within a mental health context, are equally applicable to our more general ambitions as a School of Nursing and Midwifery. So I was pleased to be able to participate in this conference and share with others many ideas, problems, concerns and importantly, some very creative possible futures for educationalists, practitioners and service users. Over the two days the buzz from what was the most eclectic group of individuals to attend a conference of this nature was fantastic. There were academics, educationists, practitioners from many different professional groups, service users and carer’s. The participants represented all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience.
The conference theme was living and learning. The theme was enacted throughout every aspect of the conference. Feed back on sessions, workshops and presentations was ongoing and continuous. Audience participation was encouraged and it was easy to join in. There was much discussion and debate around accommodation difference. Some of this was very challenging, but all of the conversations were simulating and in the main, individuals respected the rights of others to hold very different views over what might have been the same issue or concern. This debate was most often the consequence of how individuals had experienced their own mental health and well being (concepts which in themselves promoted much debate).
From an educational perspective, the debates were centred on harnessing the notions of threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge, both of which are concepts that resonate with the work Sue McAndrew and I continue to develop in this area. Our interest and work has been in exploring how students, practitioners and educationalists might be better prepared to think, work and respond in that place at the edges of knowledge and knowing, (not knowing).
Understanding and applying these concepts can, at times, be difficult. The thinking involved mirrors that in trying to make the connections between the sometimes complicated and complex factors involved in what we describe as climate change and the impact our behaviour as individuals or as communities might have on these futures.
As I write this blog it is 3C here in Bolton, whereas in Sydney it is 24C and a number of my colleagues have started to make their way to Australia for the 3rd NET/NEP conference. I wish them all a safe journey and I hope they have as productive and experience there as I did in Lancaster – although of course, my carbon foot print in so doing, was much smaller!
I loved the first picture on the blog, it reminded me of Freud’s Topographical Model, the iceberg analogy of the conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious, the latter being the mass accrued deep within. It was the reflection or mirroring of the icebergs that attracted my attention, how that which is exposed above the surface has a mirror image in the depths of the ocean. But is what surfaces simply [sic] a mirror image of what lies beneath? Perhaps in keeping with your notion of climate oscillation, as human beings we also oscillate between those intra-psychic places that are familiar, safe and reassuring, regardless of them being good or bad, and those inter and extra-personal spaces that can be both exhilarating and frightening. In relation to our work around knowledge and knowing, it is in the inter and extra-personal space where the not knowing is likely to occur causing us to retreat into the intra-psychic place of safety. In terms of the conference you describe, being in the exposed space of the inter and extra-personal is akin to being on the threshold of new discovery which can be troublesome and may challenge the underlying ‘mass’ of our humanness.
ReplyDeleteListening to the radio and enjoying some peace before embarking on a family get together to celebrate Easter the above made me go onto think about those who have recently experienced such troublesome knowledge. For those, who over the years have found reassurance and safety in their faith in Catholicism, may now be troubled by the revelations regarding child sexual abuse within the church. Whilst Pope Benedict made no direct reference to the abuse in his Easter address, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, today apologised for his comment that the ‘church had lost credibility’, the effects of exposing the abuse may have left many floundering in what was their sea of familiarity. Whilst they thrash around looking for a place to anchor themselves we need to be mindful that children were abused and in being so were denied their place of safety. As a mental health nurse who has worked with people who had experienced the devastating effects of childhood sexual abuse this is one threshold, as a moral society we need to cross regardless of how troublesome this knowledge might be.
On a lighter note, whilst I’m sure Bolton has many attractions there is something very attractive about sitting on the harbour front, glass of Shiraz in hand watching people go by in 24C!
I have just stumbled upon your blog, and I like what I read so far. I wanted to ask you a question if you don’t mind, as a future nursing student and wondered, if you could advise how you feel about students blogging themselves, totally unrelated to nursing i.e. obviously not writing about anything such as clinical placements etc.. but just in general about their everyday life. It may sound like a strange question but as someone who has kept a blog online for many years and in particular the last year has had an increased amount of followers because of good changes in there life, I have recently been led to believe that blogging may not be welcomed by the university and have written a last post which I am really rather flustered about since blogging has played such an important part in my life for so long. I guess you could say I feel like I’ve been a little misled especially when I see yourself writing a blog online which is very good by the way. Blogging is a very good way to express yourself, but in this day and age it’s also a great way to communicate with so many different people. My own blog has reached out to quite people over the years and I’ve recently picked up an award for it this year. I really would value your opinion.
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