Saturday, February 13, 2021
When I lay on my back during the day to nap, my shoulder and side didn't hurt. However, when I curled up on my side at night, it returned. Also, I couldn't sleep. I was in a wakeful state. I hadn't been able to sleep when I tried to nap during the day. I considered that I had undergone some chemical change, and I would be suffering from sleeplessness as so many people in my age group do. Instead of fighting it, I accepted it. I resigned myself to long nights of meditation, which may be just as good as sleep as long as you're also giving your body a rest. Shortly after I switched my mental state, I must have fallen asleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I felt the bed move. It was just Elsa shifting around; my mind knew that, but my heart thought, "Mike!" He was in bed with me, and all was right with the world.
I had a brief conversation with a friend. She told me that one of the border gates in Arizona is completely unpatrolled. I have no idea what is going on. She thinks it is part of Biden's new policy. That doesn't make sense to me. All border crossings should be manned. Biden has said nothing about an unlimited entrance. I believe there is an unpatrolled border crossing; I don't know why this has happened. It doesn't sound good. People are stacked up there. If there is an unpatrolled crossing, they could flood through there. I'm all for more generous attitudes toward immigrants, being first-generation myself. (I found NO supporting evidence for an unpatrolled border gate on the Internet. I will check further.)
My friend spoke about all the people in the USA who are hurting financially. "Why don't we take care of them first?" Here's my problem: I don't see the people who are hard on immigrants generous toward the poor in this country. It doesn't seem to be an either-or choice. My friend got angry at me, commenting about not being as educated. Ow! Those are fighting words today. Let's be clear, I know plenty of highly educated people who hate my open-mindedness just as much as my less educated friend. The difference isn't education; the difference is being willing to consider a point of view that doesn't immediately fit in with existing prejudices. Mike loved the trait in me. I also have people in my life who hate it in me. A highly educated relative actually said to me, "I hate that you always see the other one's point of view." It has nothing to do with the degree of education. Even before I was 'highly' educated, I have always been that way.
I'm not up to talking much right now. Why? Not quite sure. Some of it has to do with my grief about Mike. The period from January 24 to March 3 represents his time in the hospital. But I suspect there is something else going on too. I'm just about ready to present my PowerPoint on my reading method to a group. I have a little concern about their immediate reaction, but that's not the scary part. The frightening part is that this may be the beginning of people expressing interest in my approach to teaching. Since I'm the only one doing what I do- that I know of, it would make a difference in my life. This is scary. The truth is I am closer to the possibility that some people will be interested and try what I teach. Because the Step Up Tutoring audience is made up of volunteers who are untrained teachers, they won't even have a context for understanding what they see. For them, it will just be a way to help their students – or not. Just another piece of information. I know it is a radically different approach to teaching reading. From the math workshop, I see that it is already being used. The zeitgeist is right for introducing this method.
Over the years, I have made two other presentations, one to a small group of teachers in a private school program and one to a small room audience at a local New Jersey Reading Conference. I was asked to speak at the statewide or national convention. I said no. I wasn't ready. I may still not be ready. Too bad. My approach can help many people who can't be helped by the currently available methods. This does not mean substituting my method will be better, and the other should be dropped. I hate the radical swings the educational establishment makes, grabbing the brass ring of the next best system for teaching something.
I had S at 10:30. Her mother had forgotten. She's working through reading a story a day in a graded reading level program her mother bought. She has to complete every story on a level before proceeding to the next level. She is currently reading on Levell H, which is a little ahead of her first grade. I think she can read better. I don't know how much of this improvement is because she is more comfortable with me or actually improved. Her mother finally told me that the teacher says her problem is she doesn't 'scoop' the words together. I think this refers to reading' fluency,' which is defined as reading the words the way we say them instead of choppily, one word at a time. As I worked on that, she started clicking on distracting items. That is a signal she's scared. I talked to her mother about her fears. She was defensive, arguing given S's medical condition, she has reason to be scared, or she is considered a happy, outgoing child. True, I talked to mom about her being scared because she barked at her, which she did not do today. I finally had to say she can be great in many contexts; none of that means she isn't scared when faced with being corrected, regardless of cause. Does she want that condition improved? Yes. I will work on that.
Then the decision had to be made if we would meet tomorrow too. Mom asked S. She said only one day a week. Mom asked if she should force her. I said no. She was reading on grade level already; she didn't have to be pushed. Then it came out that she was also going to Kumon for tutoring. Really??! Mom showed me a sheathe of sheets of homework she had from them. I thought, Wow! No. We don't want to load this poor child up with more work. I'm surprised the girl didn't say she wanted to stop all the sessions.
I took a nap after that session. Scott came by to install my solar attic fan. Elsa didn't budge from me. When a stranger goes stomping about my attic, she is in non-stop bark mode. I was ready to get up but didn't want to disturb her. She has been lying on me and next to me more. At night, she has started curling up next to me. It has taken her two years to relate to me as she did to Mike. We both miss him terribly.
I had a session with A at 2:30 pm. His mother didn't respond; I called her. "Oh, is it 2:30?" She set him up, and we connected. She had things to do today and couldn't sit in on the session. I did have time to ask her if she was doing any work with him. She said yes, but only on his assigned schoolwork. I asked her if she could apply my approaches as she worked with him. I told her it was the approach, not the materials, that counted.
A and I worked alone together. He is decoding more rapidly with every session. However, his memory. Oy vey! I taught him to 'press the save button' (his nose) and send the information down to long-term memory. He was able to recall one word he hadn't before. I have to stop him from decoding a word. If he doesn't allow his nervous system to use automatic recall pathways, they will never develop.
He mispronounced the word 'liked' in a sentence today. I used his pronunciation in several sentences; he could not infer the meaning. Not quite sure what the problem was.
In repeating a sentence, it became clear that he couldn't retain sentences in his mind verbatim. We need to work on that. Is it necessary to do this? You better believe it! If you can't retain a sentence verbatim, there are any number of things you can't do. You can't understand what someone is really saying as you change their words to something you're familiar with. You can't write down your own thoughts. To write, you have to compose a sentence, hold that sentence in your mind, drop it for a moment as you spell a word, and then recall that SAME sentence again as you figure out the next word, etc.
I started BrainManagementSkills with him. I drew the spin patterns for him. He recognized the one that went from the outer edge, following the right-hand rule at the top of his head on the left side. After carefully explaining that doing the release should feel safe, comfortable, easy, and fun, I directed him to allow the spin to progress down through his body and out through his feet. First, I asked him if the spin slowed down or sped up as he watched it. He said it slowed down. So far, that has been the pattern whenever the spin goes from the outside in. When the spin is from the inside out, it always speeds up. Then I asked him what color was on the inside of his head. He said red. I associate red with anger but never assume what it means for the person. I asked him if it was an ugly or petty red. He said pretty. I asked him if the red could help him remember. He said yes.
All right, let's go for it. As we progressed, A repeated more short sentences from the text we worked on more quickly. In the end, he could repeat two sentences from memory. I had shown him the beat of the sentences. I heard someone accurately beating out the rhythm of the sentence. I didn't have him on video at the time. When his mother had come into the room, I asked her who was beating it out. It was him. He has a very good sense of rhythm. That makes sense. I think he is overly right brain dependent. I told him his ability to accurately beat the rhythm of a spoken sentence was excellent, and he should use it to help him understand what people said to him.
Sandor called to update me on his mother-in-law, who is in Queen's hospital in Honolulu because of a heart problem. The doctors there were ready to discharge her. Her daughter, Meali'inani, a Doctor of Optometry, said," Absolutely not!" You don't mess with Meali'inani. Both Sandor and Meali'inani believe she should have a significant procedure to help her heart. One possibility was a stint. That was passed up. Open heart surgery is too invasive for her. There is a new procedure, the DaVinci. There is one machine here for doing it and one trained doctor. He refused to take on Meali'inani's mother because she wasn't bad enough. He prioritized people who were closer to death first.
Sandor contacted friends in Miami who were heart surgeons. They consulted with the doctors at Queens. Apparently, the DaVinci procedure is pretty commonplace there. They would be happy to treat her. Off to Miami. Never a dull moment.
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