Recovering from PTSD

A few posts back I mentioned Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Iraq and US citizenry. Seems other minds are thinking the same way. I subscribe to OpEd News, and Rob Kall has an interesting take on what he calls PPPTSD, or political, partisan post traumatic stress and "learned helplessness" in the aftermath of the last eight years.

I've also written about PTSD as an all-too-frequent outcome for significant others in an alcoholic relationship. It's tough to live in balance when your president is behaving like an alcoholic bully. Unfortunately, this kind of scenario turns violent quickly, and can put a lot of people in harm's way for what is essentially an adolescent hissy-fit. Best get a lot of distance.

There are new estimates that 300,000 of our military suffer from PTSD, and 320,000 have traumatic brain injuries. We should be helping those men and women out. It's real, and it's the right thing to do. We're going to need lots 'o nurses, doctors, medical facilities, counselors, mental health professionals as well as physical. There's a good place to put money for education. Taking care of our wounded. What a concept.

There's a lot of work to be done. This time I think we have a chance to get some things right. Truth, justice, and the American Way, in the broadest sense. Traveling and living abroad gives one an entirely different perspective of home. We're all on this planet together, and we'd be vastly enriched if we joined the global community. Trade, yes, but broadening minds as well. We all have a lot to learn, and a huge stake in working together to fix this joint up right.

Does anybody know if Mitchell's Herb Acre still exists? I think they were in Oregon. Carried lots of unique things, like saffron bulbs, and quite reasonable. That's my dream. To grow and sell herbs for women. Black and blue cohosh, valerian, angelica root, all those earthy, Capricorn herbs. Good for every stage of life, menarche, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause and beyond--saved my life. Get an Australian Shepherd again. And a decent computer system that will accomodate all my RPGs. I've already run out of room on my current rig. Dontcha hate that?

Our mom lived in Chicago for nearly 35 years. When she died, we had a little ceremony at the end of a pier in the lake and scattered her ashes. It was stunning to watch them descend, the sunlight filtering through revealing curious fish attracted by the sparkles. To think that the cycle of life was complete.

And then on election night, watching the ocean of people in Grant Park, where I have been, with my mother, and know that she would have been on the Obama team from before his senate run. She would have been there to hear his first, historically and intellectually memorable speech that was the turning point in getting us up out of this muck.

A very long way to go, but I sure feel great about finding ways to help us all get back together again. Even to the point of considering...just maybe, you understand...actually attending my 50th h.s. reunion. Who knows?

The scary dude above is my character in Two Worlds. Insanely buffed in weaponry, armor, magic, and that certain savoir faire.

Education is in worse shape than I thought

We're working in an architecture that uses Industrial Revolution systems on an Agrarian Revolution calendar to teach 21st century learners. So says Mark Milliton, and unfortunately, he's too right. The academy is archaic. There is no reason why IT can't work for education just as well, if not better, than the old model. Sometimes I feel Sisyphusian. Another madeup word. I have to be sad about this for a while. I don't want to wait until the kiddos who are in college and learning IT now take public office, or go into ed administration before we change the face of teaching and learning in the US. We are critically behind. According to this panel's statistics, colleges in China graduate @600,000 engineers a year, India @300,000, and the US 65,000. Even allowing for population differences, we are way behind. Every Child Left Behind is a failure. Anything after K-5 is a failure. The publish or perish tenure attitudes, especially at Tier 1 research universities does precious little to reward good teaching.

We are out of touch with our students, for the most part. We aren't really helping them learn the skills that they WILL be using when they graduate. Education is on the same priority level as something like taking out the trash, or maybe cleaning the toilet, if the amount of money and balance is any indication.

Not to say nobody is doing anything. I'm lucky to work at a Tier 1 university that does reward good teaching, even if it is only 10% of the awards given here. And many professors are on fire with improving education through IT, and proving it in the projects they support. That's pretty much what this article I'm writing is all about. The instructors who took the extra time to learn (or find a student or a colleague that could help them learn) how to appropriately apply technology to further learning.

Headline on the Daily Texan: President Powers to petition the State Legislature to allot more funds for education. Go for it, Bill! It would be the best thing you could do as a university president. This is giving me the incentive to post more about instructional technology. Note to self: link to IT sites in my Bookmarks.