I skipped Bikram today too. Why? I'm not sure. Is it some form of laziness, or is it some form of wisdom? Does my body just need a rest? I did sleep until 9 am. I didn't even walk Elsa; I fed the poor dog right away and got to work with my washing and ironing.
I heard my phone ring, announcing a text message. It was Sandor telling me that Cynthia had died at 7 am this morning. I was planning to visit her after school today. Guess not. I'm worried about her husband. I think men are so much more vulnerable than women when their partner dies.
I start with the hidden parts of the house in my usual approach to order, taking everything out and laying it around the house, creating a mess until I have it back in order. There would always be a few things I wouldn't know where to put. That's where Mike came in; he would just put them anywhere, just as long as they were out of view. That often meant that we couldn't find things again until I did another major, major house cleaning, taking things back out to be cleaned and sorted, leaving a few things out, which Mike then tucked away somewhere for us to find again when I did the next major, major cleaning.
When I dropped off donations at Memory Lane yesterday, I picked up a dress. I loved the pattern and colors. However, when I tried it on, I had some serious questions about the design. There is a big orb that starts under the breasts and dips down to the groin and across the width of the body. Really? It's seemed suitable for a pregnant woman who was saying, "Look at my belly!!!" On me, it means, "Look at my big belly with nothing in it except fat." I changed out of that dress before I left for school.
I started with Mrs. D.'s class. B. didn't want to work with me. I took a look at the spelling words for this week and felt this is something he had a good chance of doing on his own. If he gets 70% on these words, I would consider it good for him. I'm not expecting him to get 100% yet. Maybe next year.
I took K. to continue working on the math. I asked her if she could count to 1,000. I had already asked her if she could count. She had said yes, but I didn't confirm it. Oops! Or it wasn't the right time to do it anyway. I asked her what came after 7. It took her too much time. I asked her if she counted up. She said yes. I told her she has to have that come to mind without counting. I showed her how to use her automatic recall, which I describe below with my work with M. in reading. She got it quickly. Then she did a few problems for me of her creation. She did 5+8= and 6+8=. I thought she is always going to work with the same two digits. I feel if that's what she feels she has to do, that's the right thing for her to do. She surprised me with the next problem, writing 7+6=. She got that correct too. I told her to go home, continue working on those addition problems, and have her mother ask her what comes after 3, what comes after 2, and finally what comes before 3, what comes before 2. Later Mrs. D. told me she moved K. up a level in math. While I'm working on the same thing over and over and over, I find that approaching the work this way usually has a surprising lateral effect.
K. had told me that she was moved up in math. She was doing division. Division is pretty advanced. I wondered. When I spoke to Mrs. D. about it, she said she moved her up to the first-grade level. She was being asked to divide groups of objects into two or three groups. That is division, but only on the first-grade level.
Then I worked with M. I've only worked with him a few times. He said he is better, but I still see him struggling on the most basic level. I asked him what he thought was his biggest problem. He said, remembering the words. I took him through the protocol for automatic recall. He pointed to the top of his head for visual working memory. I told him I thought it would be better if he envisioned a TV screen in front of his forehead. Then I showed him how to encoded the visual and auditory input into long-term memory. Then I showed him how to retrieve the words. I told him he had to wait until he could hear the word in his head. He got it right away.
We went through several words with him, waiting until "his mind told him the word." Here's another student who might have been classified as LD because of these memory problems when the issue was only bad cognitive habits. He told the teacher it felt as if someone was telling him the word. Yep, that's the magic of reading or just the way the mind works.
N. was working on a writing assignment. He had wanted to come out with me earlier. When I finally called him, he was in one of his sulky moods; I asked him if he wanted me to help him get out of it. I told him, however annoying it was for everyone else, it was worse for him. Then I asked him if there was anything good about getting in that bad mood. He said, yes, he got to play baseball.
I got it. His mother knew he could be snapped out of the mood if he played and sent him out. I went through a series of questions asking him if his mother only let him play baseball when he was in a bad mood. No. Did his mother tell him he couldn't play baseball when he was in a good mood? No. So there was no value to being in a bad mood since he could play baseball anyway.
I suggested he picture himself playing baseball. He did, and his face changed from sullen to peaceful immediately. I told him he could use this process anytime he wants. Then I worked on the release. I told him to use that image of himself sitting in his head, speaking to the brain at the back of his head, and say, "I let go of anything bad about my hatred for my bad moods and keep anything good or anything I still need." He was fully cooperative and told me when the release was over. Then I told him to do the opposite and let go of anything bad about his love of his bad moods and keep anything good about it or anything he still needs. I never, and I do mean never, make this judgment for the student. Nor do I ask the student to tell me what was bad, good or what he still needed. It doesn't have to be put into words. I don't have to know what it is about. I just have to see if it produces results.
N. and I then wrote an essay on why having garbage all over school is a bad idea. He was not generous with his thoughts or his words—two steps forward, one step back.
R. came out next. She had been asking to work with me, but when she came out, she started saying, "Do I have to?" After she read the first of the transcribed Carpenter story, she balked. I pushed her through the second and then the third. This is further than she usually goes. Her biggest problem is sequencing, and she refuses to use the procedures I've taught her. They may not work, but they are worth a try. I think I'm going to have to force her to do cross-body blending with all the words in the stories.
Mrs. B.'s class left with their backpacks, so I knew they wouldn't be available for the rest of the afternoon. I went over to Mrs. J.'s room to get D. The whole class was sitting on the floor with their backpacks on listening to a story. D. indicated that he didn't want to come.
After school, I sat down with Mrs. D.'s computer and tried to download the phonemic awareness audiotape from bandcamp.com. No one has been able to download it, so all the tracks play in sequence. August said the problem was with the computer, not Bandcamp. But I haven't so far been able to download it on anyone's computer, so it plays through all the tracks automatically.
As I was leaving school, I ran into D. from Mrs. B's room. I told him what I learned from I. about using only the left side of the visual working memory screen. He checked it out as he sat there on a rock wall. He said it worked. We'll see. It would be good news.
I went to JAWS next. I had ripped off the duct tape on the trunk catch on the Prius. It was on the catch because there is some substance that melts in the tropical heat. I applied the duct tape so I wouldn't get my hands dirty. The gadget that allowed me to open the trunk manually came when I pulled it off. There is no other way to open that trunk in this car. I hoped Edwin at JAWS would be able to fix it. It was closed. They say they're open till five pm. Guess not.
I went to Target to pick up some Oxiclean pre-spray and apples. Of course, I had to pick up some Hersey Milk Chocolate bars with whole almonds.
I was planning to stop at Judy's to pay her the $28 she put out for me for the shrimp I brought to the potluck and see if she wanted the slightly damaged star from a high-end store from Princeton, which Memory Lane had rejected before I threw it away. I pulled into our street right behind her. When she stopped at her mailbox, I pulled up behind her, and we all talked there.
When I got home, it was back to ironing. I texted Yvette to help me unload the car. She texted me back, saying she and Josh were just on their way to the vet to have Izzy checked. Izzy already had one eye removed because of glaucoma. The second will come out tomorrow. It's not as bad as it sounds. She's been blind for a while. All the operation will do is relieve her pain – if she survives the procedure. She is very old already.
When Yvette came home, she unloaded my trunk. She got it open without any difficulty. I don't know what she did. She will have to show me. The supplies she unloaded are canned goods in preparation for our isolation should the coronavirus hit here. I mentioned the shopping I had done to Judy. She's like Mike; she assured me it would never hit here. Right. Mike assured me we would die together in our 90s. I don't think he nailed that one. Judy also assured me that she was well stocked with canned goods and had two freezers full of food.
I wrote more on the blog. I still haven't started working on the book. I need to get it copyrighted and posted. Today after school, Mrs. D. commented that I was a miracle worker. What I do is as about as miraculous as opening a can of peas. Cans and openers may have seen as miraculous in their day, but they're mundane experiences now. I hope the work I do will be considered ordinary one day. I also hope it will be done with respect for the students I feel is absolutely necessary.
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