Truths About Education

Many people these days are learning that they need to retrain for a new career at a time when they either expected to be getting their pensions or they have become disabled, unable to continue in their career but changes to welfare force them to find another one, or they have lost their job and are forced by finances and the job centre to look for another job …any job.

Today's student is just as likely to be middle-aged (or older) as a teenager. Yet, one of the major reasons many adults hesitate before starting to study is the simple fear that they will not be able to keep up intellectually, a lack of confidence and a feeling that they are too old to learn new skills. However, many older students do better than younger ones.

Many older students are more motivated than younger ones, possibly because the need to get a qualification and a job to meet financial commitments makes the need greater. Many older students finance their own study so are especially keen to succeed. Also, older students can be less likely to take getting a degree for granted and as a matter of course, because they have not had the chance to do it earlier, quite possibly because they had to leave school and start work as soon as possible.

Older students are also often more used to good time management and have experience of juggling many demands on their time such as work and family as well as their studies, and they are good at prioritising.

If an older person has worked, raised a family, run a home and maybe too had experience in the community then also they will have wider knowledge about certain experiences than a teenager who has not done these things yet. A younger student may well have more recent experience of academic standards, processes, what is expected and how to study but older ones can have a wider experience of people and dynamics, how things and people tick plus knowing their own personal strengths and weaknesses and how these will affect their studies.

I am careful how I express this because it is not of course a universal truth. With so many young people experiencing family breakdown in often more than one generation of their family, there are younger students who are very mature and experienced in life skills and excellent managers of their time. Some older students have led very sheltered lives and do not have a lot of life experience at all considering their age.

However, all students can learn and develop the skills of motivation and time management, and nobody whatever their age need be held back from a course of study or training that will benefit their future.

Valerie Hedges

Be positive and enjoy life

Do you find it hard to be positive and always fear the worst? are you always anxious? People who are positive tend to enjoy life more and be happier than those who are negative.  Those who are positive are also usually more successful in business and life in general, things tend to work out better for them, indeed sometimes being positive even seems to have had a bearing on whether someone lives or dies and how well they recover from serious illness.

Many people these days are negative thinkers, though this is hardly surprising with the level of issues such as unemployment, financial problems, housing issues, family breakdown etc and the rate of those suffering anxiety and depression is on the rise with fewer and fewer health and social care resources and support available to help them due to funding cuts to health authorities and local council’s social services and mental health budgets.  

Let's look at some of the reasons why you should try to be as positive as you can ….

1. Positive thinkers aim high and are more likely to reach their goals.  Negative thinkers often don't believe they will reach them and because of this belief they often don't.  If you want to have high goals and succeed at reaching them then it certainly helps to be a positive thinker.

2. Positive thinkers can be better at handling failure and using it to their advantage, they are not so easily crushed and more likely to bounce back than some negative people, though I do not for a moment doubt the courage of those who tend to be more negative by nature and sometimes this negativity is born of realism and experience. Rather than being negative, they are being real and know that they cannot at least for now have or do what they want, to be real and be accepting and being content where you are and with what you have can give peace of mind at least. Many years back I had to accept that I could not and would not be leaving school to go to University, now at the age of 57 I am studying for a BA Social Sciences with The Open University.

3. Positive thinkers can have a happier outlook on life while negative thinkers often see the worst in a situation. Being positive attracts positive into your life. Also, positive thinkers spread their positivity to those they meet.

4. People who are positive attract other people to them.  People want to be around positive people; they don't want to be around negative people that have constant negative attitudes.  It tends to be the positive people that are popular and have lots of friends because people enjoy being with them. I have spotted that this can be especially true of Facebook, which is a very useful tool for job-hunters ...unless that is you flood it with tales of woe and despair about your job and financial situation and stories about your problems with getting welfare , Facebook IS a useful tool for job seekers and entrepreneurs but on the whole people like and use Facebook to be happy . It can be frowned on too, to pour out too much of your life story on Facebook. Also, if you are a job seeker, please do remember that increasingly in recent years’ employers on receiving a resume / CV are looking up the applicant on social media to check them out.

5. Positive thinkers believe in themselves, can have greater self-confidence and a belief that everything will be ok … Everything’s gonna be ok !! this too shall pass are favourite sayings of a positive person I know fighting serious life threatening illness.    Even when faced with difficult challenges positive thinkers remain positive that they will learn from those challenges and improve themselves and their lives from their experience.  They won't let a challenge bring them down, but they will push on through and know that they will come out a better person at the end.

6.) I am not saying at all that a faith in God or any other creed is essential, many people who do not have a belief of this kind are very positive people, but it can help because there is a sense of being able to trust in a higher power that whether the outcome be good or not so good, a higher power by whatever name you call it is there and in control ...that it is God’s will and God will provide and see you through ….

These are just some of the advantages to being a positive thinker, others include benefits to health such as lower blood pressure …. Everyone faces difficult moments in their life; it is how you deal with it that decides whether those moments ruin your life or whether they are an experience to learn from and turn into a positive.

Valerie Hedges

A history of distance education and online learning

I am currently studying at home with The Open University for a degree and this has led me to think about the history of distance and online learning.

Distance education and online learning have long played a big part in adult education. Years back many people went to the evening institutes to gain qualifications because they had to leave school and get what jobs they could at the earliest opportunity because their family needed the money, years back this mean leaving school at 14. When I left school in the 70’s many went in the evenings or indeed in the day, to adult education classes for academic classes and hobbies such as pottery and macramé, many of these adult education classes, often called adult institute were based in schools such as my primary school, on the top floor, though this did of course make access difficult for many. 

As the years went on, it was adult education that suffered some of the biggest cuts to their budget and many centres where there were classes no longer operate or have far fewer classes and charge fees when the courses used to be free.

The Open University used to offer free study to many, especially those in receipt of benefits but now unless a student was studying before this came into being and have transitional funding, students must along with all other students, apply for a student loan to fund their study, I opted to just pay for my course as I do not want to have to eventually pay back a loan and felt that I may as well pay for my module now.

However, adult education and distance and online learning have offered many a chance to pursue an education that they maybe had not been able to continue when they were younger, or to update skills. It has often meant being able to study while keeping up with responsibilities in the home and family and earning an income at work. The discipline involved does not suit everyone, but in various forms it has stood the test of time, here are some examples ~ 

•             1840 – Isaac Pitman begins teaching shorthand by correspondence in the UK.

•             1858 – The University of London creates its External Program.

•             1883 – New York State authorizes the Chautauqua Institute to award degrees earned via correspondence.

•             1891 – The Colliery Engineer School of Mines renames itself International Correspondence Schools.

•             1892 – The University of Chicago starts administering the first university courses by mail.

•             1906 – The Calvert School of Baltimore becomes the first primary school in the United States to offer correspondence courses.

•             1916 – The National University Continuing Education Association is created in the United States.

•             1921 – Pennsylvania State College begins broadcasting courses on the radio.

•             1933 – The University of Iowa begins broadcasting courses on television.

•             1950 – The Ford Foundation begins offering grants to create and develop educational programs for television broadcasting.

•             1967 – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is created.

•             1970 – Walden University is established.

•             1974 – California State University offers a Masters degree via correspondence.

•             1982 – The National University Teleconferencing Network is established.

•             1984 – The personal computer is named "man of the year" by Time Magazine.

With the increase in the use of home computers and the growth of the internet, distance education has become a very important part of and has a big role in the modern education system, indeed many children are now home schooled. There are countless courses available online, many are free and it is wonderful that unlike education in the classroom, online students, once online can all access the same opportunities often worldwide. Online and distance learning have improved and widened opportunities for so many.

Valerie Hedges