Monday, March 24, 2025
I expected to have five online students this afternoon but had three cancelations. My messages to Mama K were undeliverable. She may be behind on her bill, and her service was temporarily shut off. Hopefully, she'll be available tomorrow. I see the girls continuing to improve at an increasing rate. The rich get richer.
I got a text from someone interested in my Fiskers Push Mower. I bought it several years ago, preferring something that wasn't power-driven. Forget that. It was impossible to push. It was nothing like the ones I used as a teenager with that free-wheeling blade. This one had more resistance. In addition, the Fiskers didn't effectively cut our grass, which has more seed stalks. Seed stalks stand above the grass. I saw seed stalks in New Jersey and Ohio, but not like these. In NJ and OH, the grass grows high, and the seed stalks poke their heads slightly higher. When you mow the lawn there, you can see the cut clearly in the grass. Here, the grass grows low; the seed stalks stand six to 12 inches above it. You can't see the cut in the grass. The mower barely grazes it. You have to look for the seed stalks, which are hard to see. I bought an electric mower. Love it! There's no smell, and it's easy to start.
I posted the ad for the mower. I offered it for free, letting everyone know it needed repair and didn't work on seed stalks. I figured no one would answer. I had over half a dozen answers. I responded to the first one. He was very interested but had problems picking it up. He asked a friend to do it for him. I called her this morning. She said she would be here before 2:30, when I expected to work with the twins. She never showed; she never called. I can be flexible about pick-up, but they had better keep me informed about their plans.
People's unwillingness to communicate drives me nuts. Just answer my bloody texts. I can be flexible, but I want to know what I'm flexible about.
I did some work on the plumbagos. I have about a 100-foot stretch of this shrub that grows like a weed, a particularly healthy one. As Darby says, we don't worry about planting things here; we worry about containing the plants so they don't run amok—by our human standards.
Dean is a passionate follower of someone who advocates leaving nature alone. He considers everything we've done with vegetation evil since the dawn of agriculture. He may be right. With each new human development, we've dug deeper and moved closer to our demise. We're the dodo bird. No, the dodo bird was minding its own business. It was like the turkey flight was not its first choice of locomotion. They walked except for the occasional flight. They were easy to pick off.
I had a session with fourth-grade MH. I chose to work on comprehension using an IXL passage on identifying the narrator's point of view. The program sticks to three choices: first person, second person, or third person—nothing more complex right through twelfth grade. MH didn't have a clue, and I was confused.
I almost completed a master's in English literature. In literature, you don't often encounter a second-person narrative. I wasn't sure what that was. I looked it up during the session.
Okay! I thought the narrator's perspective referred to the narrator's vantage point. That is an aspect of the author's point of view: is it omniscient, limited, or objective? I learned today that the three persons refer to who and what the author is talking about. Are they talking about themselves? In this case, they are using a first-person narrative. They use the pronouns I, me, my, and mine or we, us, and ours. If they use the second-person voice, they will address someone directly. Self-help books are prominent users of the second-person voice. You, yours in both the singular and plural form. If they use the third-person voice, they will speak about someone else, use pronouns such as it, its they, and theirs, and nouns common and proper. Is this the be-all and end-all of the narrator's perspective taught today? Ow!
MH had a devil of a time understanding this principle. She, like the twins, has made considerable progress. She gets As and Bs in school but struggles to learn everything new. I don't think she sees patterns. I think the twins have problems like that, too. MH pleaded to work on something else. I aimed to guide her to listen calmly without expecting complete understanding. I had her dictate the IXL passage so I could copy it and have three. I rewrote two of them so I had all three voices in the same passage.
The air in the room suddenly thickens. You feel closed in even though you're off to the side. Your throat's dry, and youtell yourself it's because you're thirsty. Once you drink something, you'll feel better.
The air in the room suddenly thickens. I feel closed in even though I'm off to the side. My throat's dry, and I tell myself it's because I'm thirsty. Once I drink something, I'll feel better.
The air in the room suddenly thickens. They feel closed in even though they're off to the side. Their throats are dry, and they tell themselves it's because they're thirsty. Once they drink something, they'll feel better.
She got to the point where she could see the differences. They could even change all the words once I had given her the first one. However, I couldn't get her to understand why they were considered first, second, and third narrators. Ah. The problem may be with abstract thinking. I modeled that we are the first person in our lives when we speak about ourselves. We are the most critical person to ourselves. Wherever we are, there we are, and no one else needs to be there. If someone else enters the picture, they are the second person. Then, the two of us talk about someone else. They are the third person.
I tried the same exercise with GV when I later worked with him. He had never heard of the narrator's perspective, no less the first, second, or third-person perspective. He followed my line of reasoning with considerably greater ease. He is more comfortable with abstract thinking. Okay, back to the drawing board.
I ran into GV's teacher the other day as she ran through our neighborhood. I've known her for several years. She's one of the people I've run into for years. She learned that I tutored one of her students. I think Steve Lush must have told her. Today, she told GV she had run into me. The boy sitting next to GV asked who I was. GV told him I was his tutor, and he had made great progress working with me. The boy said he needed a tutor; he was reading on a second-grade level. The teacher commented that I was nice. Given GV's progress since I started, I would have been happier declaring I'm a good tutor.
GV's teacher told me the school discourages students from using any method other than the Success for All method they use. This is infuriating! All methods can add something, and no method always works with all children.
There was a recently reading success story in the news. It was in the poorest parish in Louisiana. The trick was small groups where the teacher could adjust to the children's individual needs. The schools should be hauling in as many volunteers as they can. Whatever they have to contribute will be better than nothing.
I habitually put off every task that doesn't require me to do it for someone else. I love writing. I love finding the words to express an idea. It's the most rewarding alone activity. Yet, I put it off, afraid I won't do a good job. While I'm doing it, I don't worry about that. I'm completely engaged.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
As I awoke, I dreamt about a friend I hadn't been in contact with for years. She was someone who seemed like a good match for me. Friends who observed us together couldn't figure it out. Several people wondered why we were friends when I was a free spirit, and she was so uptight. I never saw that side of her until she exploded. She had befriended me so her husband could be friends with Mike. He had no other friends. He had to manifest one before she agreed to marry him. Oh, well. I enjoyed the friendship while it lasted. She had many fine qualities. She doesn't want anything to do with me now because she has dementia.
I had a session with Rob. So far, most of our sessions involve exposition. I tell him about whatever comes into my mind. Unlike a Freudian psychologist, he responds. So far, his responses have been comfortable for me. He shows interest or makes an observation. Today, he observed how my energy changed when I spoke of my parents. My parents did plenty of harm, but they were amazing people. I loved them both, and they loved me. My mother's love for me was obscured by her damaged psyche and perverse ideas on child-rearing. It made a perfect storm. My childhood and those aspects of me that are still heavily impacted by childhood traumas were dominated by fear. I managed to wriggle out from under the worst of her impact on me to have an adult relationship with her, which was dominated by love and joy. Was it perfect? Why ask. Absolutely not. There were serious snags, but we managed to navigate around them to sustain a loving and joyful relationship. I consider it one of the great successes of my life.
I once told my mother how I felt about our relationship. She said something amazing. Sadly, I don't remember the exact words. It was something to the effect of, "Did I think I did it all alone?" What made it amazing was that it was a real question. It wasn't a rhetorical barb. It meant she thought about our relationship and made an effort. Wow!
In the session with Rob, I described my protocol for helping students overcome their fears because they can't function appropriately for their age group: they can't read or do math. I've described this several times in the updates, but it's a good one and deserves repeated mention.
I tell the student I'm going to ask a silly question. (Most of my students are in elementary school). I ask them if they think anyone is going to kill them if they never learn to read. I point to the forehead and tell them they should ask that question of that part of the brain, not the brain at the back of the head. Hopefully, they look at me as if I've lost at least one marble. I will also ask if they think their parents will stop loving them if they never learn to read well. Again, I'm looking for a secure no. (Sadly, some parents do not do that. Just ask Henry Winkler.) Suppose both those answers are a secure "no". In that case, I can proceed (If a student is hesitant, I do not override their perception. That's something to discuss on another day. I do not proceed.) If I get the all-clear, I tell the student to see a little 'them' under the fontanel, the soft spot at the top of the head. They have the little 'them' turn around and address all the cells in the back of the head and announce repeatedly, that they will not be killed and nor will their parents stop loving them if they never learn to read. Without fail, students report they feel more relaxed.
The fear they feel is an ancient one built into our brains. We are designed to be as much like the people around us in our age group as possible. When our brains were under construction 2 million years ago, our lives depended on this ability. If not, we were considered a burden by our group, and we were left behind. The survival of everyone else depended on it.
After describing this protocol, I told Rob it didn't work with me. I had sugar plum Nazis dancing in my head. I knew at a deep level what people are capable of if they don't like what you are. I know if that aspect of our psyches is unleashed and someone's discomfort with diversity rules, I will be in danger. We will all be in danger.
Rob commented about dropping this tidbit of information just before the session ended. I didn't mean to open a can of worms at that moment. It was just something to consider for our next session.
After the session, I went out and did more work on the plumbagos, weeding the pathway between the fence and the shrub so I could get in there to trim it. If I don't, it will grow ten feet high or higher, taking over my neighbor's rock wall and compromising it in the process. It is a monster plant.
I thought I had an appointment with Tomi, the woman I started doing cranial sacral work with. She is really excellent. After each session, I experience changes in my body, if not also in my psyche. It's all good.
I started late because I had ignored my alarm clock. I had fifteen minutes to get there. I managed to drive calmly I was very proud of myself. When I arrived, there were no shoes sitting on the shoe stand outside the door. I knocked and tried the door. It was locked. I checked my email announcement. Ah, the appointment was for next week. I had skimmed the email, saw 25, and assumed it was March 25, when it was for April 1, 2025. I headed back home. I would have time to eat my lunch before going to Ulu Wini.
Only two students wanted to work with me today at Ulu Wini. The last time I worked with first-grade AM, she wanted to write. I had printed three copies of her story. She gave one to Shauntel and took the other two home. She asked if she could stop. I hadn't brought the slime with me today. I had left it in the car. Okay, I've learned my lesson. A bit of bribery goes a long way.
Second-grade SL was the only other student who wanted to work with me. She wanted to write a story. She didn't know about what but decided to learn math at school. In the process, I asked her to give me details about what she learned. That was like pulling nails. I suspect the teacher was introducing double-digit addition. However, ST was still having problems adding two single-digit numbers together. She had a system for doing it. She made marks and counted them. If she added 11 + 6=, she would make ten lines for the one in the tens place and circles to represent the one's place. She knew to count the lines and circles separately. She had no idea how to add without using these marks or how to count-on. I introduced her to the number line and counting-on. It took repetition, but she got it. In the end, she had fun with it.
I had a thought. As Mike would say, "Oh, oh. She's had a thought." At the end of his life, this was said with humor, warmth, and even interest. A pet peeve of mine is the comment, "It's not personal." God, do I hate that comment. It suggests you shouldn't respond negatively to something someone did to you because it arose from their problem, not something about you. Certainly, that happens. But why am I not supposed to take it personally?
Here's my analogy: If a pyromaniac burns down a house three miles away from me, I don't take it personally. I assume he didn't select the house because of some personal feelings against the homeowner. It was a randomly convenient house. However, if the same pyromaniac, with the same indifference to me, burns down my house, I take it very personally. Likewise, if someone's behavior triggers me, the impact is personal. They hit my trigger. Just as I'm devasted if someone burns down my house, I'm devastated when someone triggers me.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
As I awoke, I dreamt about a friend I hadn't been in contact with for years. She was someone who seemed like a good match for me. Friends who observed us together couldn't figure it out. Several people wondered why we were friends when I was a free spirit, and she was so uptight. I never saw that side of her until she exploded. She had befriended me so her husband could be friends with Mike. He had no other friends. He had to manifest one before she agreed to marry him. Oh, well. I enjoyed the friendship while it lasted. She had many fine qualities. She doesn't want anything to do with me now because she has dementia.
I had a session with Rob. So far, most of our sessions involve exposition. I tell him about whatever comes into my mind. Unlike a Freudian psychologist, he responds. So far, his responses have been comfortable for me. He shows interest or makes an observation. Today, he observed how my energy changed when I spoke of my parents. My parents did plenty of harm, but they were amazing people. I loved them both, and they loved me. My mother's love for me was obscured by her damaged psyche and perverse ideas on child-rearing. It made a perfect storm. My childhood and those aspects of me that are still heavily impacted by childhood traumas were dominated by fear. I managed to wriggle out from under the worst of her impact on me to have an adult relationship with her, which was dominated by love and joy. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. There were serious snags, but we managed to navigate around them to sustain a loving and joyful relationship. I consider it one of the great successes of my life.
I once told my mother how I felt about our relationship. She said something amazing. Sadly, I don't remember the exact words. It was like, "Did I think I did it all alone?" What made it remarkable was that it was an honest question. It wasn't a rhetorical barb. It meant she thought about our relationship and made an effort. Wow!
In the session with Rob, I described my protocol for helping students overcome their fears because they can't function appropriately for their age group: they can't read or do math. I've described this several times in the updates, but it's a good one and deserves repeated mention.
I tell the student I'm going to ask a silly question. (Most of my students are in elementary school). I ask them if they think anyone is going to kill them if they never learn to read. I point to the forehead and tell them they should ask that question of that part of the brain, not the brain at the back of the head. Hopefully, they look at me as if I've lost at least one marble. I will also ask if their parents will stop loving them if they never learn to read well. Again, I'm looking for a secure no. (Sadly, some parents do not do that. Just ask Henry Winkler.)
Suppose both those answers are a secure "no." In that case, I can go ahead and proceed (If a student is hesitant, I don't override their perception. That's something to discuss on another day. I don't proceed.) If I get the all-clear, I tell the student to see a little 'them' under the fontanel, the soft spot at the top of the head. They have the little 'them' turn around and address all the cells in the back of the head and repeatedly announce that they will not be killed, and nor will their parents stop loving them if they never learn to read. Without fail, students report they feel more relaxed.
The fear they feel is an ancient one built into our brains. We are designed to be as much like the people in our age group as possible. When our brains were under construction 2 million years ago, our lives depended on this ability. If not, we were considered a burden by our group, and we were left behind. The survival of everyone else depended on it.
After describing this protocol, I told Rob it didn't work with me. I had sugar plum Nazis dancing in my head. I knew at a deep level what people are capable of if they don't like what you are. I know if that aspect of our psyches is unleashed and someone's discomfort with diversity rules, I will be in danger. We will all be in danger.
Rob commented about dropping this tidbit of information just before the session ended. I didn't mean to open a can of worms at that moment. It was just something to consider for our next session.
After the session, I went out and did more work on the plumbagos, weeding the pathway between the fence and the shrub so I could get in there to trim it. If I don't, it will grow ten feet high or higher, taking over my neighbor's rock wall and compromising it. It is a monster plant.
I thought I had an appointment with Tomi, the woman I started doing cranial sacral work with. She does excellent work. After each session, I experience changes in my body, if not my psyche. It's all good.
I started late because I had ignored my alarm clock. I had fifteen minutes to get there. I managed to drive calmly I was very proud of myself. When I arrived, no shoes were on the shoe stand outside the door. I knocked and tried the door. It was locked. I checked my email announcement. Ah, the appointment was for next week. I had skimmed the email, saw 25, and assumed it was March 25 when it was for April 1, 2025. I headed back home. I would have time to eat my lunch before going to Ulu Wini.
Only two students wanted to work with me today at Ulu Wini. The last time I worked with first-grade AM, she wanted to write. I had printed three copies of her story. She gave one to Shauntel and took the other two home. She asked if she could stop. I hadn't brought the slime with me today. I had left it in the car. Okay, I've learned my lesson. A bit of bribery goes a long way.
Second-grade SL was the only other student who wanted to work with me. She wanted to write a story. She didn't know about what but decided to learn math at school. In the process, I asked her to give me details about what she learned. That was like pulling nails. I suspect the teacher was introducing double-digit addition. However, ST was still having problems adding two single-digit numbers together. She had a system for doing it. She made marks and counted them. If she added 11 + 6=, she would make ten lines for the one in the tens place and circles to represent the one's place. She knew to count the lines and circles separately. She had no idea how to add without using these marks or how to count-on. I introduced her to the number line and counting-on. It took repetition, but she got it. In the end, she had fun with it.
I had a thought. As Mike would say, "Oh, oh. She's had a thought." At the end of his life, this was said with humor, warmth, and even interest. A pet peeve of mine is the comment, "It's not personal." God, do I hate that comment. It suggests you shouldn't respond negatively to something someone did to you because it arose from their problem, not something about you. Indeed, that happens. But why am I not supposed to take it personally?
Here's my analogy: If a pyromaniac burns down a house three miles away from me, I don't take it personally. I assume he didn't select the house because of some personal feelings against the homeowner. It was a randomly convenient house. However, if the same pyromaniac, with the same indifference to me, burns down my house, I take it very personally. Likewise, if someone's behavior triggers me, the impact is personal. They hit my trigger. Just as I'm devasted if someone burns down my house, I'm devastated when someone triggers me.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Today was the 69th anniversary of my father's death. Holy cow! Time flies.
I often experienced a surge of feeling in my solar plexus in the morning as I lay in bed about to get up. I associated it with unpleasant thoughts- stinking thinking. My solar plexus was quiet today, but I felt something around my heart. I quelled the sensation and got up.
Every day, I get to see the horizon over the Pacific Ocean from my lanai. A college roommate and her husband visited me. She asked, "What's the difference between a porch and a lanai?" Her husband answered, "A view of the Pacific." That's not the case, but it was funny. Many houses have lanais without a view.
The wonder of my view becomes greater with time, not less. You start noticing the differences in light and shade, the shapes and colors of clouds, and how the sun breaks through between the clouds to shine on the water. It took me years before I started noticing how the light and the clouds impacted the view of the mountain. All I saw in the beginning was a dull 8,271-foot lump. I preferred the gagged peaks of the mountains on Oahu, millions of years older and worn down by time. Mike and I noticed that Hawaii was more beautiful the longer we lived here. Darby has been living here for 40 years. She says her appreciation continues to grow.
I had the Twins at 8 this morning. They were off from school today for a Hawaiian holiday, Prince Kuhio Day. We had trouble connecting because Mama K couldn't access her Gmail account, which was blocked because her storage was full. She had pictures from when her now twenty-year-old son was a baby. She knew she had bunches of shots, all with the same view. Pruning them from her account would take time. She paid the storage fee. We connected twenty minutes later.
I had Twin A first. I needed a title for the story she wrote about the camping trip, which wasn't my idea of a camping trip. They stayed in a house. She didn't know what to call it. I said, "What did you do? We went on a camping trip." I told her to call it that.
Then, we worked on reading comprehension using IXL 5th-grade reading exercises. She had to compare two girls. They both found a math problem really hard. One declared it impossible and fell asleep on the sofa. The other looked up how to do it on the Internet. A understood they both found it difficult. But her comparison stopped there. She didn't acknowledge the difference in the girls' responses to the challenge. She admitted she would be the one asleep on the sofa. She wasn't interested in figuring it out. She just wanted someone to tell her the answer. I'm seeing this in her more. Has her problem been mental laziness all along? A will not try to figure out a word if it doesn't come to her immediately, without effort. She has the skills she needs to do it. She just can't be bothered.
I had nothing else planned till the end of the day. I listened to the rest of Picoult's Picture Perfect. It wore me down. I would have flipped to the end if I had a print copy. The end wasn't particularly satisfying. Yes, the main character leaves her physically abusive husband, but she goes off with someone who also has ragged edges to his psyche. The therapist she and her husband went to warned them if they didn't do the work and split, they would wind up with someone else with the same problem. She hadn't done enough work.
I mowed the lawn. As I've said, the grass never grows very high here. The growth is 24 "seed stalks, making the lawn look like a scruffy beard. Besides mowing it, I trimmed the stalks around the edges with the grass blade on the hedge trimmer. The last time I tried that, my back gave out quickly. Today, I got the area cleared without a problem. I'm getting stronger every day. I worked on various spots in the yard during the day. It's an acre lot. There's always tons to do.
I had fifth-grade GV at 3:30. He chose to work on reading comprehension. I went to the fifth-grade section on IXL. After doing three exercises, it was clear that I needed to bump him up. I brought up a sixth-grade selection. Wow! That's some difference between fifth and sixth-grade reading. Everything is harder: word length, vocabulary, and sentence length. He did a great job reading it. He had to stop several times to decode a longer word. There were only a few incidents where I had to stop him and remind him of the procedure when encountering a word he couldn't readily decode or recognize. His comprehension was also good.
At 4:15, I had a brief appointment with the woman who called me to tutor her son. He was the one who asked her to hire me. He was in GV's class. When he heard GV say how much I helped him, he said he wanted to work with me. While his mom already had my number from GV's mom, she hadn't called. When her son asked her to, she did it.
Fifth-grade ZN is way behind. Not only does he have problems decoding, but he can't remember words. He will hold them in short-term memory but not recall them over time. He can't remember the word "the. " I've seen that before.
ZN had medical problems that impacted his hearing. His mom said he mumbled before he the proper treatment at age four. She could understand him, but no one else could. At two, he started having ear infections. At four, he had his tonsils removed and tubes put in his ears. His tonsils were abnormally large, the size of an adult's. His mom said the difference in his speech and his response when she spoke to him was immediate. He had been suffering from hearing loss all that time. Levine sees a correlation between ear infections and dyslexia.
Besides his hearing problems, he missed school during Covid. He lived in an area with poor Internet service. He had no schooling from the middle of Kindergarten through the beginning of second grade. I am hopeful I can help him. I'll first address his auditory processing, then his memory.
