Socialising

Didn't blog anything yesterday, Friday, as I was out last night. The day itself was excellent. Friday's always are. Got my modular class in the afternoon. Am I impressed with them or whit! This wee group of stars are in our core programme, and have stuck with their introductory psychology for a year. They are so enthusiastic. A good mix of young and old thay have helped each other along all the way. In their last module Cogniitive Psychology they have to observe an experiment and write a report on it. This is something that psychology students at higher levels freak about! Not this mob.

For a start they want ro run the experiment themselves, and do it in public. This will be a great experience. I've taken them through the bones of it, highlighted and translated all the difficult research language, and now they are away planning its implemtation like Eisenhower planned D-Day! Some are getting the materials together, some are drafting up the raw data sheets, some are working on covering the ethical issues etc. etc. It isn't needed, but at their insistence they are even doing a inferential statistic to discover if they get a scientific result.

They will conduct their experiment during our College Open Day on the 16th June. Brilliant stuff. Emulating a very famous Canadian psychologist called Alfred Bandura they also want to video it, to be later analysed on a minute-by-minute, frame-by-frame basis. This would be seen as immense stuff if they were undergraduates in a Uni. They are not. Just working class boys and girls who were all scared stiff when they came to College a year ago. When I said 'Only if the participant doesn't object' they all nodded sagely having immediately grasped the ethical dimension to psychological research. Mostly all came to Kilmarnock college last August with no qualifications. That won't be the case for them come this August when their results come out. I am so proud of them, I really am. Can't wait to report how it goes.

Last night I went out to The Treehouse in Kilmarnock to join some of the staff who were celebrating our colleague Grace Sheed's escape from Kilmarnock College to the Facuklty of Education at Stirling University. Grace and me were at Uni together, and she was on the staff of the college when I joined up nearly 25 years ago now. We've known each other our whole adult lifetime. A good comrade-in-arms, and an occasion I couldn't let pass. Good luck to you Grace.

Today we went up to see my mum in Glasgow, and went to Mitchells in Carmunock for lunch. A lovely place, and a lovely meal. They have a brilliant fish tank table in their lounge, which probably cost about the same as our car! Mum was in great form. Starts off by telling us who has just died of course. She is of that age I'm afraid. Her generation are dropping off fast. This time it was Dermot, my cousin Patricia's husband's dad. Taken into hospital for somethi9ng else and caught an infection. As did my mum's sister Helen and an uncle of the family all in the last 12 months.

This is just too high a coincidence. It must be very worrying for an older person to be told they are going into hospital nowadays. Too many are not coming home as a consequence of contracting something deadly while there.

My sympathy to Kathleen, Nick, Patricia and Leo.