home learnings

we are now really immersed in the home learning and are trying a new routine where each day we do one hour of intense one to one work followed by one hour of self-directed learning. The rest of the time tends to be flexible and of course home learning happens all the time wherever we happen to be.

On this blog I hope to engage with some of the common questions that arise whenever we tell people that we do home learning. These will not be knew to anyone who does this. Every taxi driver in Glasgow has an opinion, as does every family member, shop assistant, and health care professional.

It's almost as if choosing to opt out is a slur on their choice not to. We got harangued by a taxi driver yesterday for being different and opting out - can't say I always deal well with this yet so we just adopted a perky 'we're happy with our decision' response. Was tempted to garotte him from behind as he spouted, ranted and shouted (which was really not OK for Laurie) but decided it was best to make sure we actually arrived at out destination...

what really annoys me though i that I'm so well conditioned that I still gave him a good tip - doh!!! get a grip girl - maybe next time.

One of the key questions that people ask is 'what do you do about socialisation'. Of course this question stems from the basic misconception that sitting in a classroom with 30 other people of the same age, surviving the chaos of the dining room, the harsh playground and the enforced collaborative learning activities all result in positive social experiences. Well I do admit it can teach you deal with negative social experiences and may sometimes be positive.

Laurie may have an ASD but like many kids with Aspergers he craves connection with other children. Our solution is to connect to other families that home educate. I am a member of several forums that share information
Schoolhouse
HE Special
Education Otherwise

The Scottish group - Schoolhouse has a very active mailing list and the level of sharing and information exchange and support is amazing (as is the HE special group - vital for anyone with a child with different wiring). From the Scottish those who live in Glasgow have started regular group meetings and activities. We have a two hour sport session at Kelvin Sports Hall on Mondays and a two hour activity session in Hyndland on Thursdays. We have also been on several museum visits and workhops and we're off to a castle next wednesday.

Laurie is loving it (although we often pay for it later as it does overtimulate him dramatically). Sometimes we have to cancel all activities the day after as he recovers, but the best thing is that he has a new best friend. They talk endlessly about star wars and play football together.

So there we are - question number one dealt with - are you happy now people? Or are you still really a bit bothered at our radical decision...

how dare we dare to be different...

revampings

have decided to change the apperance of the blog in light of my new approach to incoprporate all elements of life...

it has pink instead of dark black - maybe about to have a girly phase (slightly unlikely) but is lighter and brighter - hoping for a lighter and brighter new year too (well it may happen).

working my way up to doing a top ten tools and technology entry a la steve wheeler's blog covering a range of elearning top tens (so high fidelity). actually must say I wanted to hate the film cause the book was set in the UK and I have lived with that guy (or I may be that guy) however John Cusack did convert me somewhat; )

must warn you though i do not have an ipod (well of course I am still into vinyl) or an iphone and therefore do not understand half of the tweets I see. my list is likely to be a bit low tech and not very geeky.

I am resisting getting an ipod and an Asus eepc but have alot of photogtaphic technologies on my list of must have technologies. have just got a fabulous rollei 35 and an olympus pen camera. so old fashioned of me - but I do scan from film and store and share digitally.

Haven't got any prints from these yet but in the spirit of keeping the analogue alive here is a holga toy camera 120mm shot...

double exposure with doris day

reworkings

I was on the verge of starting a few new blogs - one for my photography, one for the home learning and one for my education consultancy work...

but wait a minute - that was the old lou (the librarian who wanted to classify and compartmentalise her life)...

so I've decided to stick with this one, tag like a demon and hope that the whole comes together...

I have spent the last few years banging on about an holistic approach to learning... so let's see if the pudding is good.

I mix all these aspects of my life together and each enriches the other - so this year I'm going to give it a try...

I'm not fully convinced yet (with serious control freakish tendancies) - a big part of me wants to add classification (of the faceted kind of course) and labels...

why am I taking this approach - well it's partly to do with the twitter discussions at james clay's blog

I'm of the lets mix it all up variety - yes I want to hear great brains thinking hard but I like to know that those great brains drink coffee, go shopping, and play bingo.

now I'd like to add a photo of me playing bingo but I haven't got one - yet... so I could show a photo of a coffee cup but I haven't got one - yet... so here is a fisheye lens lomo 35mm film shot of the window in my office...



and if you haven't got twitter yet - you are not alone but spend a day using twitterfox and you'll probably get it...

and if you do come along and follow me... but not in a stalking way of course...

revivings

here we are again. doing a mad catchup. so in short. finished job. didn't sell flat. still in glasgow. doing home learning. being an eLearning consultant and wedding photographer.

have been very busy. still not got back onto flickr. now have several websites for various compartments of my life. jump off point is www.loumcgill.co.uk

just published my first photography book (as opposed to wedding, party or Laurie book). it has a pic of my dad on the cover that I really like.

same horizon.d...

By Lou McGill

Book Preview

restartings

But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?
- the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in,
in to the central catacomb;
the self that took the veil and left the world - a coward perhaps,
yet somehow beautiful,
as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.
Virginia Woolf



well I thought the last few years had taught me patience and they have - but there is always room for more - yes great goddess I've got the message...

So we put an offer in on a lovely flat in Dunoon in February.... yes that does seem like such a long time ago.

Then I gave in my (3 months) notice (which is nearly at an end)...

Our flat goes up for sale and after endless cleaning and perfecting we get a reasonable offer (considering the current climate).

so we accept the offer and all seems to be proceeding.

Then the day after the bank holiday (memorial day to you US folks) we find out that our buyer has withdrawn her offer.

hey bloody ho..

actually Ifeel really sad for her cause it's not her fault at all ( and we would have waited) so sorry that she must be feeling so bad.


we're just moving on and waiting for the next offer. hoping that the dunoon people can be patient for a bit longer.

but in the end it's all so unimportant. They found a dead body in our park this morning- happens everywhere all the time and we moan on and on about meaningless stuff.

I'm thinking of taking the veil...

exhibitings

Over a year ago I made a series of images for a flickr group called das kabinet which was one of my favourite groups. Some of these images are now actually in an exhibition of contemporary landscape photography entitled Open Range. The exhibition is in Battle in East Sussex at the Independent Photographers Gallery. I couldn't get to the preview night due to difficulties getting there from Glasgow.


Shame to miss the preview night of your first ever exhibition so I haven't even seen what the photos look like on the walls. However I have sold two of them so I am very happy about that.

This is a great start to my new life which begins very soon! I can't wait to spend more time with my son and my photography. May even get back onto flickr to play a bit and blog alot more regularly.

The flat is sold and the Dunoon property still going ahead so by the end of July we should be moving 'doon the water'. Hallelujah for that!

perfectings

Well if I'm not an aspie then I guess I'm a fairly obsessive perfectionist. This seems to be affecting most parts of my life.

In my work I get quite stressed out if I can't do my job really well - which I often can't due to the sheer amount of what I need to get done. This does not make me happy. I see Laurie having the same reaction to his homework. If every letter of his sentence is not technically perfect then he has to rub it out and start again. requires the patience and understanding of a saint...

At home we've been preparing our flat to put up for sale (for six months!!!!!!!!)

so how come even with a for sale sign up outside the bloody bath surround was still not done...

so with the prospect of viewings tomorrow I had to find a fabulous hero to come and fix it at no notice and godammit I found one on the internet.

now I know why I got rid of the telephone directories.

I rang the number at about 11.00 and got a lovely woman who understood my plight, got her man on the case and by 4.30 today it was done. Here are the details for my hero joiner and handyman who did a fab job...

so now at 9.30pm I feel that I need to prime the wood, and give it two coats of eggshell... what part of 'you don't need to do this' can't you understand Lou?

I also made Tim spend the whole weekend painting, tidying and cleaning. I even re-stained all the floors in the flat (no mean feat at all).

But at last the flat is looking splendiferous and is up for sale. So if you know of anyone who really needs a fantastic 5 bedroom apartment in the upcoming, and very trendy, southside of Glasgow then please call in and have a look.

Just give me enough warning to

• clean the floors, cooker and mirrors
• put all the rugs down which have been taken up because tammy still hasn't sorted out her bladder
• put new cream duvets with no dog hairs or paw prints on the beds
• put the air freshners on and then turn them off in time not to be overpowering
• turn all the lights on
• carefully position all the shiny display type things to make it look as if we are actually really interesting

At least I didn't give in to Tim's idea of leaving posy design magazines on the coffee table - a step too far for me....

the picture of my fab kitchen (designed by me and supplied by ikea) links to the estate agent website - for those who'd like a nosey...

resignings

I resigned from my job yesterday... and I'm feeling very lighthearted. From June 2008 I'll be 40K a year worse off and 100% free to pursue a wide range of things I want to do...

very odd but on the same day I made my first sale to a publisher for one of my photos. A small step (and not a brilliant sale in terms of renumeration) but significant in many ways. I'm taking it as a sign of very good karma about this big decision....

even more interesting is that it is one of my photos that I really like and hadn't even thought about selling. it's from my trip to china a few years ago and is a wall painting in a daoist temple of the eight immortals - so also significant content in relation to losing some of the more material aspects of my existence... and it's for a book about world religions so I'll get a free copy to add to my collection on spirituality, religion and philosophy. Here is the photo and the quote that went with it on flickr...



If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
Lao Tze

Tim thinks I'm barmy of course seeing significance in the coincidences but I'm enjoying them alot...

so the first steps are taken - the fool on her new journey....

preparings

We're off 'doon the water' as they say in Glasgow.

We've had an offer accepted on a house in Dunoon, which is in Argyll and Bute on the West coast of Scotland.

We are all fairly excited but it isn't planned to happen until the end of May.

This allows enough time to sell our fab flat in Glasgow and for me to work out my notice.

So the home education plan moves on... I will contact the Argyll and Bute council to discuss the possibilities offered by the local grammar school but it does have over 1000 pupils and I personally cannot imagine that this would be OK for Laurie.

There is some debate about the optimum size for a school community to thrive and I'll try to find some and point to it later. However this is largely academic to us as most of that research would not take into account the need for schools to support children with autism by generally minimising the amount of sensory overload they might encounter. It seems logical that the more students there are the more noise, distractions, potential for hidden bullying and chaos there are.

Well we'll see when I talk to them. For now I need to concentrate on working my notice, selling the flat and organising the move.

Worst bit of course is all the damn cleaning in preparation for people to come and look around. That and pretending that we don't have two large smelly dogs...

new beginnings

frozen in time

It feels like we are coming out of hibernation...

So much has happened that I don't have time to do write it all down, but I think we're coming back to the blogging and soon to the home education...

laurie is due to start secondary school this year and it has focussed our thoughts for a long time. I have spent hours looking for a school small enough to replicate his current small primary school in Govan. Shame we can't replicate the head teacher and her staff because he is still doing fantastically well at that school.

We are just not prepared to set him up to fail in a large secondary school where people have no concept of him and his needs. The fact that he is so high functioning means that people just do not see how differently his brain does work. He has also got much better at masking things (like when he doesn't understand the instructions, etc.) He just works it out himself eventually and quietly and then completes the task. He is desperate to start learning 'real' things. He wants academic challenge.

So I am going to do this with him. We will be interpreting the term home education broadly to encompass a wide range of activities, both academic and practical. We will be doing solitary and social learning and sometimes it will be well structured (because he likes that) and other times we'll let our hair down a bit. Our home education won't just be happening in the home but it may include rearing chickens and growing some of our own food.

I can't wait....

We contemplated us both giving up our jobs and moving to Orkney (yes a bit drastic but very nearly happened last September but didn't work out). The plan is now for me to finish work in time to start the secondary education phase while Tim stays in his job. We'll sell the grand flat in Glasgow and downsize. We 're planning to move to the country (maybe in Argyll & Bute)...

I am going to try to make some money with a bit of elearning consultancy and my photography. I've been working on a new website and not had any time for flickr or the blogging. Maybe I can start to catch up again with my non work life!

the new photography website...

bullyings...

A year ago I was writing about my son being bullied. I remember all the things I said to try to help him deal with it. None of it worked, none of it was satisfactory and I knew it all the time...

Well I myself had been bullied before he was born - as an adult in the workplace... it had taken a few years for me to actually realise what was going on. By then my self esteem was so low that I had started to expect it, think I deserved it because I hadn't challenged it... In fact it wasn't until I finally left that I fully realised the serious impact it had on my life.

Now how dangerous is that?

I am actually a very strong person, capable and intelligent, funny and personable. I'm old enough to know that; ) What is so strange about the impact of bullying though is that by the time you've worked out what is actually going on - you are tied into behaviours that make it very difficult to challenge.

This is true in both work and social situations for adults, where etiquette, power relationships and such bollocks mean that initially you try to pass off/gloss over/forgive what may appear to be rudeness.

It doesn't help if you actually care about people and understand why they may be bullying you. If you constantly make allowances because they have had a hard time, have issues etc. you make small allowances. each small allowance seems to be a signal...

"yes next time be even ruder, disempower me totallly. i am not important enough to have an opinion of value."

Despite having been through this before myself. Despite trying to help my own son having to deal with it every day. I still allow people to do this to me.

I am so annoyed at myself today... and so upset that I can barely speak.

I am so NOT going to let this continue...
I have actually had enough....

this is the person you are hurting...


still at least I have great inspiration now for the utataspeaks project...

youtubings

yes another youtube photo montage...

it isn't going to change the world but hell - someone might see it and think just a little bit longer...

returnings

Well only 7 months since my last post...

I think the build up to the big Make School Make Sense Campaign by the NAS, and the commitment and energy it required, coupled with 8 months of exhausting emotional strain just took effect.

We needed a break... and we've had one

And we're back!

How easy it is to lose momentum - not that I haven't been busy.

The photography continues - and I've been really busy getting into film and continuing my toy camera addiction. I have just got a new/old hasselblad (she is gorgeous) and I'm about to really statr experimenting with that.

But what people really want to know about is how Laurie's doing...

Well all I can say is he is doing incredibly well. Still at the fantastic school in Govan. He still has some lovely pals and is enjoying school as a whole experience. I know - how amazing is that?

I'll update more on him later which will include new found passions for acting and horse riding, whilst continuing the writing, chess and obsessive yu-gi-oh and pokemon stuff.

I am working on a new website to show my photos and have just made my first Youtube video. Have one on autism planned but this one is just about people...
remember my name....

drama queenings

yaaay

it's make school make sense launch day in Scotland.

there has been loads of press interest and it tied in with an HMI report also launched today about the shoddy state of affairs in Scotland.

we arrived at school this morning - just in time cause I got lost trying to avoid the traffic (which really stressed laurie out) to have all his classmates run over and say they'd seen us on tv. we were surprised cause we don't watch breakfast tv.

they'd put a short version on (the one that is currently on the website). it didn't include Laurie speaking but the evening one was slightly extended to include a bit of his interview about them letting him have quiet space. he was pleased about this. the video link (to the top right of the page will be there for a day).

I just hope the previous headmistress was watching!!!! we were really well behaved and all the time never mentioned which school we had all the difficulty with. took a fairly positive approach. we were in the Glasgow herald education supplement today but no photo.

then tonight had a photographer around to take shots to accompany an article and interview in tomorrow's scotsman newspaper.

we had a quiet halloween and to avoid the trick or treaters we went to the cinema together.

tim has just walked in through the door, back from korea with presents - so have to stop blogging!

really wanted to include a smiley pic for today (and did post one on flickr) but just prefer this one...

performings

wow - what a day

in addition to normal work and the online tutoring course today was a mass of phone calls to sort out media stuff for the National Autistic Society 'Make Schools Make sense Campaign'

Tomorrow is the big launch in Scotland. I was supposed to go to Holyrood (Scottish Parliament) but can't cause Tim is still in Korea. The school press photos didn't materialise yet but the BBC came round to our flat tonight to record somthing for tomorrows regional news (BBC Scotland).

It was very rushed, highly nerveracking and I'm sure I looked like an idiot. Laurie was really nervous and, of course, the big bright light didn't help his autistic sensibilities. We had just got back from school pick-up so didn't even have time to brush hair, check wobbly bits, etc...

he did brilliantly though and got to have a feel for the fancy gear...



not only that he has got a part in the christmas pantomime as the king in a sleeping beauty performance. he is so chuffed (poncy british word meaning very very happy).

All this star stuff may go to his head.

The TV bit will be on BBC Scotland tomorrow night - 31st at 6.30. It will also be on the web site for about a day or so.

poor old tim missed it all so we'll have to tape it for him. he's back late tomorrow night... hector the wonderdog will be beside himself as he's been pining away...

ramblings

well they say you shouldn't tempt fate - the bloody magic stick (sorry staff) has broken in two. the amber eyes stayed stuck in but it happened on the morning he was going back to school after the holidays!!!!

5 minutes before leaving he was swishing it around (tchew tchew) when hector the wonderdog ran into it and broke it right in the middle.

talk about tears - we've promised to stick it back together and bind it with some string etc., etc.

anyway back at school and doing fine!!!! yaaaay - still amazed.

he cried all the way there on wednesday because tim has gone away to korea for a week for work. aw sweet...

I've been totally barmy and as well as doing all the school drop offs and pick ups and dog walking and housework and cooking and my normal job - I've also been an online tutor for Oxford Brookes University. It's a great course and I'm really enjoying it, but today I didn't get to sit down at the computer till late and I was just too tired. will make up tomorrow.

I am always over committing myself - one of those really annoying natural volunteers. At least my colleagues at work try to stop me doing it now.

Ohh and watch this space as the National Autistic Society are launching the 'Make school make sense' campaign in Scotland on 31st October. I've done my interview with the journalist and they may be taking photos of Laurie for the Glasgow Herald educational supplement next Tuesday and also for the Times Educatonal Supplement. Cool - we really get to support this really important campaign and Laurie says he'll be even more famous!

I think his flickr celebrity may have gone to his head; )

and I'm also supposed to be writing 5 things feminism has done for me cause I received a blog meme from Nicki. Haven't had time to think but did post this abstract photo which reminded me of a woman spinning and of stuff I used to read about women weaving communities and connecting things. Not in the sense of a spinning top which is often what I look like; )

imaginings

tim calls it "la la land" which does make me smile and laurie laughs at it too.

still it doesn't stop him spending all his time there. throughout the day he can be hard going "tcheeew tcheeew" and swinging his sword/light sabre/magic staff around and asking if I think his technique has improved.

of course with his technique he can slay a thousand orcs/dragons/enemy archers...

my favourite is the magic staff which we found on a forest walk and really does have a dragon head. we found some real amber (tree resin) on the same day and have made some jewel eyes.

the staff is truly magical - I need to try not to say "stop swinging that stick around" because it really annoys him

but he keeps dropping the bloody thing and apart from the noise I worry that the jewels will fall out and the resulting catastrophe will be too hard to bear...

here is one of this pics from the day he found the magic staff...

mummyings...

I took a photo today which captures the soul and the heart of my boy...

I cannnot stop looking at it...

I am in awe...

avengings

just because everything is going so well doesn't mean I have forgotten...

I will not stop fighting for the rights of people with autism to be understood

and I often feel like this...
nemesis

Nemesis, winged balancer of life,
dark-faced goddess, daughter of Justice
Mesomedes

smilings

it's been a while again due to work and stuff but the amazing news is - things are still going really well. the school is working out so well and we continue to have a happy boy...

I was away a bit this week and when I got back he was very giggly and talking about girlfriends!!! of course none of them will ever be good enough for my son; ) how great is that - he still talks about his friends and his writing and we have even sorted out some after school care which has made our lives easier.

we went for a meeting with the school and they said they couldn't imagine the class without him now and he won a citizenship award for helping others and encouraging them to read and write. some of the kids were not interested at all in writing before laurie turned up with his story blog and the dream of being a writer.

todays photo is all about blue skies and dreaming!