Newly-fledged long-tailed tits in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery
Dear Readers, I have the final exam for my Open University course on Thursday 6th June, so I will be making some very short posts between then and now. I did think about having a break, but actually it does me good to have something to think about that isn’t negative externalities or the intrinsic value of nature. The course this year has been a bit less science-y and a bit more about economics/politics/sociology etc etc, so it’s been stimulating and so far I’ve done pretty well with my assignments. However, I must admit that I’m itching to get back to some complicated microbiology and possibly some more multicoloured dough balls to see which colour my magpie friends prefer.
Come October, I’ll be two-thirds of the way through the course. I started it in the middle of the pandemic, as something to distract me from being locked-down and grieving for Dad, but I have loved it. Aged 18 I decided to pursue the arts rather than the sciences, because the school timetable couldn’t cope with someone who would like to study both. Aged 60, I decided that if I ever wanted to be a ‘mad scientist’, I needed to get stuck in. It’s never too late to challenge the brain, even if it might be a bit late to actually make science my career seeings as I’ve retired. But there is such an elegance and precision to science, in marked contrast to the delightful messiness of the creative arts. I find it helps to balance my life in a most unexpected way.
And here is a poem! This is by a poet that I’d never read before, Albert Goldbarth. I rather love this. See what you think.
The Sciences Sing a Lullabye
Albert Goldbarth
1948 –
Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.
Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.
Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.
I doff my hat for your educational endeavours – and LOVE this poem!
Good luck with that exam. I love the OU.
I so empathise with the damage of that old school arts/science divide. At my school, if you wanted to take science in the sixth form you DIDN’T do Biology at O level, but Physics and Chemistry and something called “Keep Up Biology” where our really weird (subsequently sacked) headmistress wittered on about stuff. If you didn’t want to do science at A level you did another language plus Biology O level. The Physics and Chemistry teachers were both exceedingly boring and uninspiring, and my English teacher told my parents that “gals are either artists or scientists, and Julia is an artist”! Since they had left school at 13 and 15 they thought she probably knew best. So I did English, French and History at A Level, which I really enjoyed, but meant I knew NO biology, and not having the crowd control skills needed for teaching (I tried) I flitted from one thing to another my whole working life! If only there had been someone around to give me an educational/vocational steer. I am so glad that you have taken matters into your own hands before it is too late.
I nearly corrected the situation with the OU when I was 55. I signed up to start a general science degree (having done 3 Psychology modules with them) and loved the access course (which looked at water from a biological, physical, chemical, mathematical and environmental science point of view) and was already to begin when I was made redundant. Then the fees went up (this was 15 years ago), so it didn’t happen. But attempting to identify wildflowers with our Nature Recovery Network I remember why I am still cross with my school! Hopefully children nowadays are not made to make such ridiculous choices.
Hi Julia! I hope so too, and I believe that the new Natural History GCSE starts next year, which may hopefully interest lots of young people in the ecology of their local environment. And it’s never too late to rejoin the OU 🙂 – they have a lot of one-off free courses that look really good, though you’re right they are a lot more expensive than they used to be.
What a wonderful poem! And I congratulate you on pursuing your interests even if it won’t be a career. We’re raised to so firmly equate education with increasing our earning potential that the idea of learning as an end in itself gets lost. Although, I also believe that we are learning things every day, whether we are in formal study or not!
Glad you liked the poem! And yes, there’s lots of learning to be done every day, for sure.