I went to bed late last night because I watched the end of the movie Manchester by the Sea. I didn't call Dorothy immediately. I enjoyed walking in silence for a while.
When we did speak, I told her I had watched the movie. She said she heard it was good but very depressing. Yes and no. It has nothing to do with politics or violence. It has to do with several tragedies and how people cope and don't cope with them. The main character, played by Casey Affleck, doesn't find a way to make peace with his demons. He used avoidance before the tragedies to deal with life, and it was his only strategy afterward.
I think there is a role for denial. I had to learn how to use it. Too much awareness, being so flooded that you can't focus on much else, isn't a good system either. A balance, yay! For balance.
I found the zoom video I recorded yesterday with one of my students was still downloading. While I'm sure it's safe somewhere on the computer, I have no idea how to access it. I was in tears.
The video had some interesting twists. I let the girl pick the first word, and I chose the second. In both cases, the method was demonstrated. I'm sure some will be critical. It demonstrates how you can wind up with a pronunciation that is not 'correct' even though it was correctly decoded. That happened with one of the words. The student chose to divide the syllables for the word democracy in the following manner: dem/o/crac/y. That is a perfectly acceptable way to divide that word: there is a vowel in each syllable, and each syllable looks like it could be an English word. For those who are curious, here's a syllable division that wouldn't work: dem/ocr/ ac/y. While every syllable has a vowel sound, no English word ends with a cr; therefore, that division can't be correct.
Dorothy made some modifications to the PowerPoint I created to introduce my system for teaching reading. I included my personal email address in the PowerPoint so people who were interested could request a copy of the transcription of the audio file or ask me for clarification of the technique. I think that's not the best idea. I wanted to set a contact through a blog. I looked up my daughter-in-law's blog; she's an author with her own wiki entry. I couldn't find her blog. How do you find blog topics you might be interested in? I asked Cylin how I could find her blog
She said she hadn't used one for ten years. She uses Instagram. People have told me that Instagram is only suitable for still pictures. That's all I see on it. Cylin says I can post videos, articles, dialogue with visitors, and post material to be downloaded. Okay. Maybe that's the way for me to go.
I did some more work trying to retrieve that video I made on Zoom. I knew I had retrieved two before; they were on my desktop. I couldn't figure it out for love nor money.
I texted August, telling him I was on the verge of tears. Three problems: 1) I couldn't get jam board on Google Meet; 2) I couldn't download the aforementioned video, 3) I was told that blogs, which I was planning to use to post information on the reading method, were out.
Dorothy came through, and she dealt with my near hysteria. Yay, Dorothy! She got on Zoom with me, displayed her computer screen, and showed me how to get jam board on Google Meet. No sooner had I accomplished than I discovered a problem with this site. When Dorothy hosted the Meeting, she could write on the jam board, but I couldn't. I need something where my students can write on it as well as me.
I search the Google Meet page for the record icon. I couldn't find it. I finally asked a direct question. It doesn't provide this service. I bet this is one of the reasons the public schools block Zoom from their computers. They don't want to have to worry about teachers recording and posting sessions with their kids. I can't say I blame them.
I started watching a Welsh mystery series Mike and I watched together Hinterland. It was satisfying, even though I remembered the episode, well, I partially remembered it. There were details I had forgotten. I certainly couldn't anticipate every line.
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Musings:
The President of the USA didn't criticize 'fans' of his who planned to kidnap, try and kill an elected official. Instead, he publicly criticized the official. Then at a rally had his followers chant, "Lock her up."
Let me see, I think it is illegal to advocate the overthrow of our constitutional government. Oh, right. Trump was just having fun.
When kids do things like that, we remind them that while something might be fun for them, it can be hurtful for others. We can expect eight and nine-year-olds do not understand this concept, but not the president of the USA, really?
One year two third-grade girls hung together who were bullies. They would say things just to upset people, including teachers. One day I asked one of them, 'Why are you so mean?" She protested, "I'm not mean." I said, "You enjoy upsetting people and frightening them." "Yeah" "That's the definition of mean."
The following year I heard that she had become a nice person. The next year, one of her cousins was in the 3rdgrade. She asked me if I remembered her cousin. She told me that it was my words that had caused the change. Wow! I can't begin to tell you how that makes me feel, then and now.
Sadly, the other girl, who had been her bullying buddy, didn't change. She shunned me. Her power was in hurting others. How sad.
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