By eight a.m., I had walked 2.4 miles and taken over 6,000 steps, talked to Dorothy, done an hour of yoga, and spoken to Kia when they called to make arrangements to drop off my new car and pick up the loaner.
As I walked, I came up with an idea about what happened to the Prius' missing Title. Last Thursday, I found it exactly where I thought it would be. I set it aside for easier access, and that's the last time I saw it. I had been driving myself crazy looking for it. Yesterday, I found a copy of Mike's death certificate on the eating counter. As I walked, I remembered that and wondered what it was doing there. Oh, yeah. I remember looking for it to have it with the Title. I am hoping that the wind blew it somewhere. The day will be devoted to tracking that down.
Today, there were nine students in Yvette's driveway yoga class, plus four dogs. So far, that's the largest group. There were two new students today, and most old ones, too. Kia called me in the middle of the class, telling me they would drive my car up to the house to exchange it for the loaner. I said yes and then thought, I must tell them they can only get in once the yoga class ends. First, there are students all over the driveway, and second, there are four unrestrained dogs we don't want on the street. I ducked into the house so I didn't disturb my fellow yogis, and I tried to call them back to tell them not to come until after 8 am, but the switchboard was still closed.
Elsa had ducked in with me. I assumed she had had enough of the driveway and didn't think to let her out when I went back out. During the final poses, I heard this whining. At first, I assumed it was Liner, one of Yvette's dogs, but it sounded like it was coming from behind me. When I looked, Liner was by Yvette in the other direction. Then I assumed it was stomach sounds from one of the yogis. When the class ended, it became clear that Elsa was whining at the side door. I had never heard that sound from her before. When the door was opened, she ran out to join the crew as we cleaned up.
As we were lying there doing the savasana at the end of the class, I worried about the Kia serviceman arriving, opening the gate, and having the dogs run into the street. Scott was working near it, and I was prepared to yell for him to stop them. When the class was over, it came out that the Kia guy was right at the gate, and Scott knew about it. I have to find out how he managed to stop the guy from opening the gate and coming in, for that matter, how he even knew he was there. While people were clearing up, I went out to the street to give the driver the key to the loaner and a signed withdrawal slip for $3500 that I found in the car. I ripped it in half in front of him, figuring that the guy who wrote it initially could fill out another one.
After yoga, I meditated for half an hour. Then, I called Kia to make sure the withdrawal slip had been reunited with its owner. The person I spoke to in the service department had no idea what I was talking about. I'm glad I followed up. It's not that the slip can be used to withdraw money, but I imagine that the person who wrote it would like to know where it is. The guy I gave it to would have thought nothing of throwing it out because it was no longer usable. He was too young to have empathy for the owner of that slip. I hope it works out.
Last night, one of my teeth started hurting. Biting on it hurt, but I don't feel any swelling around the tooth. I am hoping it is a result of a sinus infection.
Around 11:30, I realized that I had an appointment at 9:30 to have my vital signs checked and get some blood work done. With encouragement from my family, I ordered a plus-ox meter. My readings were surprisingly low. I had a telephone consultation with my primary; she told me to come in. She told me to bring the meter with me because it may be wrong. I called to make another appointment.
I feel pretty lost today. When I brought up my daily log, I felt somewhat better. That was something that I do regularly and actually got done. House cleaning isn't doing it for me. I would like to get some more students to work with. Passing the word around doesn't seem to be helping. I will call the school tomorrow and let them know I'm available. I am reluctant to just post something on Craig's List because who knows what I'll be dealing with. When I had a private practice in Princeton, I placed ads in the paper and had some success. Now, I wouldn't have people coming to my house. I will only work remotely because I don't want to be exposed to the virus. Kids can be carriers even if they don't suffer from it.
I got around to vacuuming the trunk section of the Prius. Then I folded up a blanket I washed last week that I just threw onto a chair in the bedroom. Once it was folded, I put it away with all the other blankets I had in storage. I must have at least five blankets for the five guests I don't have. I also have six pillows stored under my bed and two more stored in the guest room closet that Damon bought. When he came last time, he ordered new pillows and a blanket for his bed. I don't think he would have done that if Mike were still alive. It's a compliment to me that he felt he could.
Thoughts on D. for the day: His inability to remember words he has seen several times and his multiplication facts showed me that he had problems using his left-brain skills. In our last two sessions, he demonstrated difficulty remembering details in the story we had covered twice before. I mean that we reread the same paragraph three times, with me giving corrections twice, and still, he needed help figuring out what the words meant or remembering what I told him. Hmm! He also needs help with all explicit learning. He does learn implicitly because he has made considerable progress.
You ask what the difference between implicit and explicit learning is. The best example I can think of is a case study of this poor guy, H.M., who suffered from anterograde amnesia. He had a conscious recollection of things that happened to him before he had surgery to relieve severe seizures but had no conscious recollection of anything that happened to him afterward. A doctor would walk into the room and talk with him. If the doctor left the room and returned in five minutes, HM would have no recollection of having ever met him. They did a little experiment. One doctor pricked HM with a pin when he shook his hand, causing discomfort. When that doctor walked into the room after an absence, HM responded defensively. That recall is implicit memory. HM had had his hippocampal formation removed. He could not get information from his working memory, which he used at the moment, into his long-term memory.
D. has undoubtedly made progress in his learning, but something is missing in his processing. I have dealt with students who are consciously unwilling to change. D. has elements like this. In his case, I don't suspect conscious resistance; he avoids using his brain in specific ways because he has learned to associate it with something unpleasant and possibly not good for him. I was able to figure out what his resistance was to using the left brain. This does not mean he automatically became skilled. He had avoided developing this side of his brain for nine years. He has some catching up to do. As I worked with him, I focused on creating the necessary pathways in his brain instead of memorizing several multiplication facts.
OMG! I found Mike's long-lost paternal family. When Mike's father died in 1962, his mother cut off all contact with that side of the family. Mike said they weren't crazy about her to start out with. I wouldn't want to hang with people who didn't like me either. However, Mike's father had a huge family. He was the youngest of 14 children from two mothers. Phil of the Somebody Feed Phil Show may well be a relative.
B. told me to watch the show, saying how much Phil reminded him of Mike. I checked out Phil on Wiki when he made some comments that revealed that he was Jewish. When I checked, I found that he had the same last name as Mike's father's family, Rosenthal. Mike's father changed his last name to Ross because an older brother had done so, and he thought that meant he had to, too, or at least that was the story I was told. Phil was raised in Queens. That ties in, too. I immediately wrote Damon and Shivani, who would be directly related to Phil, assuming he is what I think he is. This is very exciting.
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Musings: What does it mean to have a learning disability?
I think it means, "I don't know how to help this student, and I hope there is someone out there who does. But, even if they can't, I hope that the categorization will take pressure off the students as they go through school."
It is painful for a teacher to have students they can't help. I always assume it is because of a lack of skills on my part; I don't care what the problem is. This is not because I can fix everything. I can't.
The son of a good friend gave birth to a Fox1G child. He is missing most of the white matter in his brain due to some fluke genetic mutation. As a result, he will never be normal. Children born with this condition won't be normal until genetic engineering finds a way to fix the problem. Nonetheless, he continues to make small degrees of progress. Between the progress he made developmentally, the professionals who work with him, and the attention and devotion of his parents and grandparents, he now functions almost as well as a two-month-old child. Only he's nearly two years old.
Between medical and educational advances, it is possible to see some people currently classified as LD (learning disabled) as missing skills. However, once they have those skills, they usually function. So, does that mean they were LD just because they hadn't developed some mental skills?
There are two types of skills; compensatory and corrective. Compensatory skills are something like teaching the blind to use their sense of touch and hearing to compensate for their blindness. I am exploring corrective measures. In the case of blindness, it would involve making the person sighted.
. I'm proposing that some of what we see as a learning disability is only a misuse of the brain. I think of the brain as a tool. You have to learn to use it correctly. I watch the toddlers in my life pick up objects with no sense of which ends up. Their parents slowly show them the 'correct' way to hold and use the tool. I show people how to use the brain 'correctly' much in the same way. While I don't know anyone else out there who does what I do, I'm sure there is someone who does. It will also become a commonplace practice, although probably not in my lifetime.
I tell kids that if I can't help them solve their learning problem, someone will come along in their lifetime who will. The 'disability' is with the educational and medical system and the student. Classifying a student who cannot conform to expectations as disabled is an old pattern necessary when dumping those who couldn't cut it for the survival of everyone else in the group.
