Evaluation of curriculum online: Report of the third survey of schools

This report, based on interviews with a range of teachers and pupils in a sample of primary and secondary schools in England, examined, in depth, how schools responded to the third year of the curriculum online programme. Report on the industry impact of curriculum onlin

Informed Consent: The Right of Psychiatric Patients to Refuse Treatment

The right to refuse treatment, whether in physical or mental illness, is clearly established in common law and protected under s. 7 of the Charter. Some provincial statutes, such as the Nova Scotia Hospitals Act, expressly or implicitly violate this right of psychiatric patients. In most cases, legislation does not provide sufficient guidance to the medical profession to protect these rights in practice. It is recommended that reform is needed in mental health law, particularly with respect to informed consent, the meaning and limit of emergency treatment, therapeutic privilege, and the process of determining substitute consent-givers. Legislatures and courts must strike a balance between the relief from suffering and the right to liberty and self-determination when dealing with the medical treatment of psychiatric patients. *** Le droit de refuser un traitement, que ce soit pour un problème physique ou mental, est clairement établi par le droit commun et protégé par l\u27article 7 de la Charte. Certaines lois provinciales telles que la Loi sur les Hôpitaux en Nouvelle-Ecosse, explicitement ou implicitement transgressent ce droit qu\u27ont les patients psychiatriques. En pratique, dans la plupart des cas, la législation ne fournit pas suffisamment de direction à la profession médicale pour protéger ces droits. Des réformes sont recommandées dans le domaine du droit de la santé mentale, particulièrement en ce qui concerne l\u27obtention du consentement du patient en connaissance de cause, la définition et les limites du traitement d\u27urgence, le privilège thérapeutique, et les personnes aptes à donner le consentement requis si le patient, lui-même, ne peut pas. Les législatures et les cours doivent trouver une balance entre le soulagement de la souffrance et le droit à la liberté et l\u27auto-détermination lorsqu\u27il s\u27agit du traitement médical des patients psychiatriques

Book Note: Literature & The Law Of Nations 1580-1680, by Christopher N. Warren

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE TERMS international and globalization? How have they evolved, and what is their relevance? These are the questions Christopher N. Warren attempts to answer in Literature & the Law of Nations. Warren explores how the modern concept of law of nations has evolved and developed, tracing how it has passed from one age, culture, or language to the next. Warren argues the law of nations has evolved through literature, and that the recurrence of key words can be used to explore its roots. By examining literary works through the ages, the historical meaning of “nation” can be assessed and explained. Using works by Milton, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Grotius, and others, Warren demonstrates how genres (epic, tragicomedy, history, biblical tragedy) organized persons, actions, events, and evidence into recognizable, modern legal categories. Over seven chapters, Warren analyzes the relationship between literature produced in the 16th and 17th centuries and the development of national and international concepts in law. The first chapter establishes a broad rationale for a literary history of international law. Warren dissects the meaning of international, acknowledging the historic importance of the plurality of nations to explore its challenges and possibilities, so that readers can better understand the “early modern nexus of law and literature.”

Book Note: Literature & The Law Of Nations 1580-1680, by Christopher N. Warren

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE TERMS international and globalization? How have they evolved, and what is their relevance? These are the questions Christopher N. Warren attempts to answer in Literature & the Law of Nations. Warren explores how the modern concept of law of nations has evolved and developed, tracing how it has passed from one age, culture, or language to the next. Warren argues the law of nations has evolved through literature, and that the recurrence of key words can be used to explore its roots. By examining literary works through the ages, the historical meaning of “nation” can be assessed and explained. Using works by Milton, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Grotius, and others, Warren demonstrates how genres (epic, tragicomedy, history, biblical tragedy) organized persons, actions, events, and evidence into recognizable, modern legal categories. Over seven chapters, Warren analyzes the relationship between literature produced in the 16th and 17th centuries and the development of national and international concepts in law. The first chapter establishes a broad rationale for a literary history of international law. Warren dissects the meaning of international, acknowledging the historic importance of the plurality of nations to explore its challenges and possibilities, so that readers can better understand the “early modern nexus of law and literature.”

Disciplined (un)Knowing: The Pedagogical Possibilities of Yogic Research as Praxis

Within this paper, I seek to engage with the possibilities that may exist when, through a yogic lens, we disrupt those unspoken, but accepted boundaries with/in research and pedagogy that separate art and science, reader and author, student and teacher, knowing and not knowing. Using multiple genres, I explore the practice of researching and the limitations of Truth seeking to create space for dialogue across the text, as reader and writer consider the pedagogical possibilities of letting go within research. In a culture that places a premium on knowing, this work can be uncomfortable, but in the discomfort one may discover new ways of knowing and seeing that invite praxis within pedagogy

(Re)Acquaintance with Praxis: A poetic inquiry into shame, sobriety and the case for a curriculum of authenticity

Through the use of poetic inquiry, this article explores the possibilities that exist within education when we acknowledge ourselves as imperfect. Drawing upon personal experience, the author seeks to create a dialogic space for reconsidering oneself and one’s ways of being within practice. Engaging poetically with theory and experience, the author uses the method of currere to explore her journey through alcoholism and sobriety, as well as experiences in the classroom, as a means of attending to the loss of connection that often occurs when educators perform according to external definitions. Through her experience, the author discovered that it is authenticity that creates the opportunity for dialogue and connection, allowing us to move beyond definition toward a curricular landscape that embraces our humanity

Extending dental nurses' duties: a national survey investigating skill-mix in Scotland's child oral health improvement programme (Childsmile)

Background: Childsmile is Scotland’s national child oral health improvement programme. To support the delivery of prevention in general dental practice in keeping with clinical guidelines, Childsmile sought accreditation for extended duty training for dental nurses to deliver clinical preventive care. This approach has allowed extended duty dental nurses (EDDNs) to take on roles traditionally undertaken by general dental practitioners (GDPs). While skill-mix approaches have been found to work well in general medicine, they have not been formally evaluated in dentistry. Understanding the factors which influence nurses’ ability to fully deliver their extended roles is necessary to ensure nurses’ potential is reached and that children receive preventive care in line with clinical guidance in a cost-effective way. This paper investigates the supplementation of GDPs’ roles by EDDNs, in general dental practice across Scotland. Methods: A cross-sectional postal survey aiming to reach all EDDNs practising in general dental practice in Scotland was undertaken. The survey measured nurses’: role satisfaction, perceived utility of training, frequency, and potential behavioural mediators of, preventive delivery. Frequencies, correlations and multi-variable linear regression were used to analyse the data. Results: Seventy-three percent of practices responded with 174 eligible nurses returning questionnaires. Respondents reported a very high level of role satisfaction and the majority found their training helpful in preparing them for their extended role. While a high level of preventive delivery was reported, fluoride vanish (FV) was delivered less frequently than dietary advice (DA), or oral hygiene advice (OHA). Delivering FV more frequently was associated with higher role satisfaction (p < 0.001). Those nurses who had been practising longer reported delivering FV less frequently than those more recently qualified (p < 0.001). Perceived difficulty of delivering preventive care (skills) and motivation to do so were most strongly associated with frequency of delivery (p < 0.001 for delivery of FV, DA and OHA). Conclusions: This study has provided insight into EDDNs’ experiences and demonstrates that with appropriate training and support, EDDNs can supplement GDPs’ roles in general dental practice in Scotland. However, some barriers to delivery were identified with delivery of FV showing scope for improvement

Intimate Uncertainties: A Mother Returns to Poetic Inquiry

Poetic inquiry offers the opportunity to become intimate with those multiple facets of self that shape our understanding. However, as scholars, even when we engage in creative forms of inquiry, we often find ourselves driven to ignore certain aspects of our identities. To acknowledge the personal within our research is uncomfortable and some have even argued, irrelevant. I believe our stories of the personal are extremely relevant, reflecting a landscape of multiple, fluid, intersecting and often contradictory subjectivities. As scholars, each of us has or will struggle at some point along our journey in relationship to our place within our work of doing research. The struggles may be different, but the discomfort is shared. Across the space of this article I use poetic inquiry to enter into discomfort and uncertainly as I try to make sense of what it means to engage in scholarship as a new mother. Through poetic inquiry my story does not exist in isolation, but instead becomes one of many in the larger dialogue of discomfort, uncertainty, self and possibility across the landscape of doing research and being human.Poetic Inquiry erlaubt eine Annäherung an die zahlreichen Facetten des Selbst, aus deren Zusammenspiel Verstehen möglich wird. Dennoch sehen wir uns als Forschende, auch wenn wir kreative Untersuchungsmethoden nutzen, immer wieder veranlasst, spezifische Anteile unserer Identität zu ignorieren. Persönliches in unserer Forschung anzuerkennen ist unbequem, einige würden auch sagen: irrelevant. Ich hingegen erachte es als außerordentlich bedeutsam, da es zugleich das Multiple, Fluide, sich Überschneidende und oft auch Widersprüchliche von Subjektivität fassbar macht. Als Wissenschaftler/innen haben die meisten von uns bereits irgendwann um die je eigene Situierung im Forschungsprozess gerungen, anderen steht es noch bevor. Auch wenn die Kämpfe, die wir dann mit uns führen, unterschiedlich sein mögen, ist ihnen ein gewisses Unbehagen gemeinsam. In diesem Beitrag greife ich auf Poetic Inquiry zurück, um das Unbehagen und die Verunsicherung verstehen zu können, die ich erlebte, als ich mich - gerade Mutter geworden - wieder meiner Forschungsarbeit zuwendete. Auf diese Weise bleibt meine eigene Geschichte nicht isoliert, sondern wird Teil eines breiteren Dialogs über Unbehagen, Unsicherheit und die Möglichkeit, sich sowohl als Forscher/in als auch als Person im Forschungsprozess zu situieren

Cognitive deficits associated with long-term, low-level exposure to organophosphate pesticides: a small group study

Organophosphate (OPs) pesticides were derived from World War II nerve gas agents and are being increasingly used around the world for a variety of agricultural, industrial and domestic purposes. Concerns have been expressed about the effects of these chemicals on human health. Chronic ill health may follow recovery from acute organophosphate poisoning, but the possibility that repeated low level exposure may cause ill health is controversial as previous research has yielded inconsistent results. As an occupational group, farmers are considered to be at risk of low level exposure only.METHOD: The present study compared neuropsychological performance of 25 agricultural workers, exposed to organophosphate pesticides in the course of their work with 22 nonexposed healthy volunteers (controls) who were matched to the exposed group for age, gender, years spent in education and level of intelligence. All ofthe agricultural workers were involved in litigation.OBJECTIVE: To establish whether agricultural workers with a history of prolonged exposure to OPs show evidence of cognitive impairment and to determine whether the pattern of cognitive deficit relates to exposure history.FINDINGS: A range of cognitive and emotional problems were identified in agricultural workers. Although general intellectual ability was relatively well preserved in the exposed cohort, they obtained lower scores on tests of auditory verbal memory span, verbal learning, verbal fluency, mental flexibility, reading, visuo-spatial skill and information processing speed, than non-exposed controls. In addition, over 70% of the exposed cohort complained of clinically significant levels of anxiety and depression. They also reported a range of physical symptoms, the most prominent being fatigue, aching muscles and joints, headaches, sleep disturbance and irritability. Exposure history varied enormously amongst individuals who seemed to have similar jobs and many appeared to have a history of undiagnosed acute poisoning. This highlights the importance of taking an adequate exposure history.CONCLUSIONS: The question of whether low level exposure to OPs causes ill health will never be resolved without agreed definitions of acute versus low level exposure, adequate assessment of exposure history and consideration of individual vulnerability factors or synergistic effects of chemical combinations that may mediate the dose-response relationship