I didn’t write anything about this day until long after it was over. I know I slept a lot and got a fair amount of work done on the article. That’s probably why I slept a lot. I talked to Dorothy today while I was doing my morning walk.
I realized that one reason the article seems so hard is that I am trying to answer objections to the ideas as well as explain the basic process. I think as I write the book, I should address all those possible objections, but I’m trying to write the article in a straightforward ‘this is what you do’ manner. I’m thinking of one of my parents, an intelligent woman with no more than a high school degree. She has some knowledge of the traditional methods for teaching reading because she went to school, but she’s not as locked in as teachers trained in these methods.
I feel for teachers. In case you don’t know it, teaching is a scary profession. Like medicine, you can’t control outcomes. You apply what you know, but not everyone responds the same. If you are teaching in a school where there is poverty, immigrant, families with low educational backgrounds, or trauma, the chances of making a huge difference go down, down, down. However, the school expects you to be successful with everyone. It’s not just the school system that applies that pressure; teachers apply it to themselves. They are under constant stress, like doctors. They hang on to what some expert think works, whether it does or does not. It’s gut-wrenching.
As I wrote, I noticed my hands were feeling somewhat numb. I used the infrared light on them. I focused it not just on my hands but up my arms. The muscles which cause the problems in my hands run all the way up, at least to the elbow. While I shone the light, I used it to massage those muscles. Everything felt much better immediately. I don’t know how much was caused by the light and how much was the massage.
Right before I went to bed, I used the Bissell to wash the Persian carpet. I dispensed the water and cleaning solution from the bottle on the machine instead of just pouring water on it as I do with the tile floor. Not as much water got sucked into the vacuum as I put down. That’s not good. Things can get moldy here pretty easily. I put the fans on in that room to help to encourage the carpet to dry. I think I need to get my Rainbow fixed for carpet cleaning purposes, particularly after Elsa has had her way with them. I won’t need the Rainbow to wash the tile floors anymore or for a light vacuuming of the carpeting, but I sure do if I want to suck the water out of carpeting. We’ll see how much it costs.
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