Beautiful Beliefs (3)

I believe that...

beauty magazines promote low self esteem.

OK, those are not really my words; I've borrowed them from Savage Garden's song, 'Affirmation', but that doesn't meant I don't believe them to be true. 

This morning, on the radio, I heard the news that a committee of MPs has proposed compulsory body image and self-esteem lessons in schools, in order to combat the poor self esteem and body image of youngsters. I find this proposal completely bizarre, for two reasons:

1. It does not really address the reasons why young people have poor self-esteem.

2. Encouraging self-esteem and a positive body image should not be confined to one lesson a week in school. It should be something that is integrated into their everyday life, naturally.

I am very lucky. I have a pretty balanced view of my body (could tone up a bit, perhaps cut down a little on the cakes... but otherwise, pretty good). Sometimes I look in the mirror and think 'Not as slim as you used to be...', but then, does that really matter? All is in proportion, and I am far from overweight, health-wise. 

Some of this balance, I am sure, is down to a loving and supportive family throughout my childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and to a boyfriend who freely offers compliments on my shape - and on days when I've noted to myself that my bum is bigger than it used to be, this is a good boost. 

But I believe some of this balance is due to the fact that I do not aspire to be celebrity- / model-thin, but then I don't think I've ever really aspired to be a celebrity or a model.*   For me, success is not purely related to what I look like (and I'm grateful to my family and to my school for fostering this belief). Raising the aspirations of girls and young women beyond 'being like Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole' is a connected, but different, problem that also needs to be addressed in our celebrity-obsessed culture.  Celebrity women are often held to be the perfect shape. Most of them, to me, are alarmingly and unhealthily thin. 

When gossip magazines catch celebrities looking human - sweating, without make-up, with zits, or otherwise not camera-ready, they draw attention to such 'flaws' and, rather than saying 'Hurrah! These women are really like us', they say something that amounts to, 'Look at Celebrity X - she needs to work harder at her appearance'. This does not promote a healthy relationship with real bodies. It's a form of bullying at a distance.

More than this, though, as adults we know that celebrity, girlie and fashion magazines have images that are heavily doctored / airbrushed. Not even the models and celebrities can live up to the unrealistic expectations that such images raise, and it is this that we really need to explain to children and adolescents (and to some adults!). 

(* I think I once wanted a very slim waist because Victorian ladies used to have them, but then I realised they were artificially created through corsets too...)

We also, I think, need to be much more careful about the way in which the media presents the 'obesity crisis' in the country. Curvy does not have to mean fat. Healthy eating and exercise - yes; diet until you are unnaturally skinny - no. 

I remember seeing an episode of Supernanny that dealt with a pre-teen who thought she had to match up to magazine images to be pretty. Not true.  But this must be a belief that so many young people have because of celebrity culture - and I don't think this is only a problem for girls. Boys are increasingly under a similar sort of pressure.

The report from MPs notes the media's unrealistic body images as a cause of the problem, but does not seem to suggest a way to tackle it beyond 'get schools to do something'. That isn't enough.

Of course, building confidence through encouraging children to like who they are and what they look like is important, but this could - and should - be done consistently at home and at school through praise, encouragement and an absolute crack-down on bullying of any kind.  Encouragement towards, and praise for, academic, sporting or other achievements, along with education on eating healthily and taking balanced exercise, could go a long way towards combating poor body image and self-esteem problems in children / adolescents. But, tackling poor body image in young people cannot be done without addressing the causes of it, and the magazine industry and celebrity culture are some of these causes. 

A legally enforceble ban on airbrushing could, I think, be more effective than compulsory school lessons in self-esteem.



This post is connected to Amy Palko's Beautiful Beliefs writing circle.

Beautiful Beliefs (2)

I believe that...

We can be our own worst enemies.

Some time ago I wrote this post in relation to a student I was teaching in his first year. His enthusiasm and interest remained throughout his time at university, but he suffered from crippling anxiety when it came to assessments. He was given extensions to different deadlines because his anxiety about it not being good enough was so bad that it prevented him from finishing and submitting his work. He got through to the final year, and could not sit his exams or submit his dissertation. I was not supervising him, but have absolutely no doubt that it would have been an excellent piece of work. He was given the opportunity to defer these assessments. He contacted me after I’d left the University in the City where the Castle is also a Prison to ask if he could come to talk to me about one of the units as the exam came around again. I had to reply to tell him I was no longer in the city, but was sure one of the other early modernists would help him. I heard no more from him.

I have been away from this blog for a long time – half-scribbling posts that never got written – so when I came back I read over some of my older posts to remind me what I used to do, and came across that post about him. I emailed my friend, Very Efficient Undergrad Secretary, to ask how he was doing and if he had managed to submit his dissertation this year. She told me that he had decided to withdraw from university at Easter, before any of the assessments took place.

I was genuinely saddened by this news. He had so much potential as a Lit student, and I know he could have finished with a good 2.1 degree, if not a first class one. He was certainly intellectually capable of it. But his lack of self-belief meant that he left the university with no degree at all.

This sort of anxiety – that we are not good enough – is something that most of us suffer from at some point. I have talked about it before in relation to my teaching and marking and in relation to judging ourselves by others’ progress. I think the reason my PhD thesis was submitted at the last minute (literally – a friend had her car engine running to get me to student registry on time from across campus) was because I was reluctant to let it go, to send it out for examination and judgement because it might not be good enough. I am now struggling to turn that thesis into a monograph, not because it was found wanting at my VIVA (it was not), or just because I struggle to find the time (though I do) but because I am, underneath, anxious that it will not be good enough. A journal rejected a chapter of it as an article; will the peer reviewers of my book reject the whole thing?

I have a book contract with a reputable publisher, so the idea has already been deemed publishable, but I procrastinate and delay and try to hunt out any other text I could possibly look at to make sure there is nothing obviously missing from my work.

I will just have to get it done and send it off to them very soon, or I will miss the REF deadline and my new employer, who took a chance on my potential to publish and gave me a job, will not be pleased. But this anxiety I feel at letting them down, although I feel it, is not as strong as the anxiety I feel about sending my work out into the realms of academic criticism. So I delay, and the deadline gets closer and I know I will have to send off work I am not entirely happy with when I run out of time. I tell myself I work better under pressure, but really this is because I can no longer put it off.

I thought that if he had had the right kind of support and encouragement, that anxious student might have got all of his work submitted. I don’t know what sort of support he received beyond the deferral, but I am starting to think that whatever it was it wouldn’t have been enough. I think he’d rather withdraw than risk not meeting expectations (though whose expectations, I am not sure).

It’s tempting, isn’t it, to avoid putting our work ‘out there’. I could do that with this book, but it would be such a waste of my time, effort and energy to prevent myself from going forward because of this anxiety.

There can be many obstacles to overcome in the ‘world outside’. Let’s try hard not to be our own worst enemies.



This is post is connected to Amy Palko's Beautiful Beliefs writing circle.

Musings on marking

'It's strange,' said the Physio, 'because the rest of the time you are such a nice, kind person. But when you are marking, you just won't give your students the benefit of the doubt'.


I suppose this is true. Although if I'm inclined towards a mark of 59% and there’s half a possibility it could become a 60%, then I’ll give 60%. (This would move the students up from 2.2 into the 2.1 bracket). I did this with a dissertation last week. In fact, I had to argue the second marker up to 60%. But with my current first year students, who are struggling to get out of the 40s, no, I'm not inclined to magic them up to 50%. For some of them, I struggle to give a passing mark of 40%. And, unlike some other institutions, there is no pressure at Naval City University to pass a failing student. If they fail, then it's unfortunate, but they do fail.

I want them to do well. And I am fully prepared to go out of my way to help them, if they seek help. I have written in to the unit I am co-ordinating this semester three seminars on approaching different parts of the exam so that when they are finally assessed, they have already had some formative feedback (the unit mark is based wholly on one examination – this would not have been my choice of assessment, but I inherited the unit). So, offer help, I will. But I don’t think that giving students good marks for poor work will help them. I actually think that picking them up on poor spelling, grammar, punctuation and paragraphing, and on woolly thinking and sloppy argument, whilst they are in the first year and their marks don't count, is the kindest thing I can do. They might then learn from their mistakes in time to put them right before the marks really do start to count. I think they have been allowed to 'get away with' such errors for too long at school, and in allowing this, their schools (and the exam boards at GCSE and A level) have let them down very badly. I don't intend to let them down in this way, if I can help it.

Naval City University gives students a compulsory unit in Study Skills for University in which we teach them how to approach writing essays, but it is a unit some students do not take seriously. They think they already know how to do it because they got a B for A level (in some cases an A!). Many of those students didn't pass the unit.

I don't expect students to be thinking and writing at first class university level when they first arrive – those are skills they develop throughout their three years at university – but they should be able to write coherent sentences. The students whose essays I fail can't do this. They really struggle to express themselves. And now they are being marked on the 'whole piece of work' – what and how they write – rather than what I think they ought to be trying to say, their marks have fallen substantially, and many of them really struggle to understand why.

On one level, it might be considered kind of me to massage their marks so they don’t fail. But I think this sort of 'kindness' is why so many of them are genuinely surprised – and distressed – by their low marks. If they get good marks for poor work, they won't try to improve it. I'm sure that they are bright young people, but they need to learn how to express their ideas coherently, not just in order to get a 2.1 degree, but so that after university they can make themselves clearly understood, present a coherent argument at business meetings, or – if they go into teaching – teach children how to write well to avoid perpetuating this cycle.

Giving a fair, but sometimes low, mark for their work and giving feedback explaining how to do it better is the only way to encourage improvement. University is about more than just producing the 'right answer' to get the top marks, and I think I would be failing in my job if I don't at least try to help them to think, and express themselves, more clearly.

Beautiful Beliefs (1)

Amy Palko has started a group writing project called Beautiful Beliefs, in which she offers a post every Wednesday that begins with ‘I believe that...’ and invites others to write posts about their beliefs and share through her site.


So, here goes:

I believe that....

Sharing what we believe can be difficult. I am, now, tentative about writing this post and offering it to the web for others to see, read and comment on. This is not because I don’t have firmly held beliefs, or that I feel that my beliefs are objectionable or offensive, but because I don’t expect other people to share them. I am vegetarian because I believe that cows and pigs are no different from dogs, cats, rabbits, and since we don’t have to eat meat to survive, killing animals for food (or to breed them in poor conditions in order to keep stocks high) is unnecessary. But, I don’t think that everyone else should have to be vegetarian if they do not share my belief. I don’t like getting into debates over vegetarianism, not because I believe I am wrong, but because I don’t believe that I can or should tell my omnivore friends what they ought to have in their diet. I don’t feel a need to convert them to my point of view.

This is why I find sharing these sorts of beliefs difficult. My beliefs are not theirs, and theirs are not mine.

I believe in God, but I am not out to convert atheists, agnostics, or convince those of other religions that my God is the one and only. Maybe He isn’t. Maybe in other religions He is called something else, or has many faces / incarnations. I do not mean here to exclude those with spirituality outside of religion, either. I believe that belief - faith - like this is personal, not corporate or competitive, and that we should allow each other to go on in own our faith/beliefs, as long as these do not hurt other people.

I wish people would not challenge me on my beliefs, not because they are shaky, but because it requires me to respond in kind – to challenge theirs in an attempt to persuade them to my way of thinking.

There are, of course, exceptions to this sort of relativism (practices which cause any sort of pain to other people, for example) but for the most part, I believe that openness and acceptance of difference would make the world a happier place.

Amy’s writing circle invites us to share our beliefs and to connect, leave comments, and lend support to each other in what makes us ourselves. I think this is a wonderful idea. A place to share beliefs without pressing them or overtly challenging others - to discuss without judgment. I love and respect Amy’s warmth and openness and will try, every week, to share a bit of what I believe.

Recurring Dreams

I have a recurring dream. It is not always exactly the same setting, or exactly the same ending to the narrative, but there have now been 3 variations on the theme: I'm pregnant, but I don't have the baby. (Family and friends, this is not a disguised announcement; those who don't know me, I don't have any children.)

In the first one, I was very heavily pregnant and there were lots of people - friends, family, people I don't know - gathered in a room. I don't remember why. They were all talking to me and very excited about the imminent arrival of the baby, though. I walked into a different room (it became a chapel) and went into labour. I went to the hospital, but there was no baby. Apparently, there had never been one. I just sort of physically 'deflated'. I was very confused; I was absolutely sure there had been. I had felt its weight. I went back to the gathering. Everyone was very disappointed, and many of them thought I'd lied to them - made it up - and now they didn't want anything to do with me.

The second one I don't remember quite so clearly. I remember that I was pregnant and went into labour and then everything just stopped. It didn't disappear, like the first one, but I didn't get any further in having it. I just went home, still pregnant.

In the third one - last night's dream - again, I was heavily pregnant. I thought I had gone into labour. I went to a hospital, got to a nurses' station and then it stopped. A false alarm. 'These things happen', said the nurse, and away we went. Then we (a group of friends, though not all people I know in my waking life) seemed to be on holiday, and we went to eat in the breakfast room of the Bed and Breakfast. It was upstairs on a sort of mezzane level, but the decoration was like a country cottage kitchen. There were only chairs around one (longer) side of a fairly large oval table. There was one empty seat and too many of us, so I said someone else could have the seat instead of me. I said I wasn't very comfortable sitting anyway, and I wandered around a for a while, snacking. I set off down the stairs again and went into labour - not a false alarm this time. No attempt to get to a hospital, and there was no doubt that there actually was a baby, but despite my best efforts and the support of a friend, I couldn't push it out. I kept trying and trying, and the effort was exhausting and painful (I was watching myself shaking with the effort, and could see my face reddening) but it wasn't going to leave my body.

I think I must have left the dream then, because I can't remember any more beyond that, but I'm not surprised I was extremely tired when the Physio brought me a cup of tea to wake me up this morning.

Whilst there is the possibility that these dreams might in some way be related to a desire to have children at some point, I doubt that the surface story is the real meaning of what my subconscious is trying to sort out. Possibly something to do with delivering on a project or fulfilling potential, but my subconscious is worried that I can't do it. Maybe I am too. I wish I knew exactly what it is, though...