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Spiralling brain!

JoJo14

I am studying online for a psychology health and wellbeing masters and last night it sent me spiralling because there was a lecture on "atypical behaviours" 

It focused on autism but then had a whole slide about aspergers and I was pretty shocked that 13 years after this stopped being used as an official diagnosis I was being taught about it as a medical condition at postgrad level.

I emailed the psych online team and the disability team and said how appalled and behind the times they were and inluded links to the autistic society page explaining why Asperger isnt used anymore as he was a Nazi who literally murdered autistic children with higher support needs. 

But then also to fully put the icing on my sadness cake, to quote the lecturer she then said "empathy appears to have gone awry in people with autism" I dont know about any of you but im pretty sure every autistic person is very individual and to be put in a box that we are all the same. I felt sick! That people supposed to be eductaing at such a high level have got is so unbelievably wrong! Me personally, I feel things so deeply and soak up everyone else's emotions and am one of the most empathetic people and use this daily working in a 90 bed care home. 

Mainly just needed to get my sadness down on paper and maybe I might receive a reply quicker than I so far have from my university! 

Parents

  • Unfortunately, many teachers don't keep up their research in every aspect of a course they teach and it sounds like this course hasn't been rewritten for years. There are other problems as well - is your university a teaching uni only in this subject or does it engage in research? If it does, it depends what areas the lecturers research as it is likely that only those may be kept up to date. 

    A close friend of mine was an academic at senior grade but due to cuts, was doing unpaid principal (next grade up) work as well as academic admin for her sub-department, on top of her normal job. She was also pressured to continue with research - if only she was given the time! In the end, she was glad to retire early. Since she left, nine years ago, there have been deeper cuts. If the academics in the psych dept don;'t have time to kleep up with research, they can't update the course. It's shoddy and lets down the students, but such is the state of the academic sector.

    In addition to that (if it wasn't enough!) departments are merged to save costs, and lecturers can end up covering a subject for others due to vacancies. It's always worth checking out a lecturer's credentials in the subject they are teaching.

    Oh, and add into the mix - like other humans, academics can be lazy, narrow-minded and arrogant.

Reply

  • Unfortunately, many teachers don't keep up their research in every aspect of a course they teach and it sounds like this course hasn't been rewritten for years. There are other problems as well - is your university a teaching uni only in this subject or does it engage in research? If it does, it depends what areas the lecturers research as it is likely that only those may be kept up to date. 

    A close friend of mine was an academic at senior grade but due to cuts, was doing unpaid principal (next grade up) work as well as academic admin for her sub-department, on top of her normal job. She was also pressured to continue with research - if only she was given the time! In the end, she was glad to retire early. Since she left, nine years ago, there have been deeper cuts. If the academics in the psych dept don;'t have time to kleep up with research, they can't update the course. It's shoddy and lets down the students, but such is the state of the academic sector.

    In addition to that (if it wasn't enough!) departments are merged to save costs, and lecturers can end up covering a subject for others due to vacancies. It's always worth checking out a lecturer's credentials in the subject they are teaching.

    Oh, and add into the mix - like other humans, academics can be lazy, narrow-minded and arrogant.

Children
  • in reply to Alexa

    This is extremely saddening! I just didnt expect to have to be educating people who are preofessors and have phd's when I thought I had paid to educate myself further after being out of formal education for 20 years.

    I dont know rhe answer to your question im afraid as didmt properly understand (sorry)  but they teach many different subjects and I am doing one of the few online courses the uni offered.