Monday, September 27, 2021

  Monday, September 27, 2021

 

            I slept well last night. I managed to calm my mind, but I still have been racked with grief. Of course, there is Mike's death, but there have also been other incidents that have thrown me off my pins. 

           I got up at 5:30, strapped on the reflective bracelets, and headed out. The climb up Kukuna was easy. I saw a figure coming down the hill at a distance. I couldn't make out who it was until we got closer. I recognized Tammy's gait before I saw her face. Tammy makes it to the top of Kukuna. I haven't walked up there in a few years. My leg wasn't in good enough shape. 

     Tammy complained about the dogs that came out to bark at her when she passed their house. She usually walked on the other side of the street. Today, she walked on their side and let them bark. I was surprised. Carol, another walker with two dogs, told me those dogs barked when other dogs were around. The owner would come out a yell at her, claiming that her dogs were making his bark, waking his wife. Now, I found out those dogs bark at people walking by without dogs. Tammy got good pissed at the thought of those owners yelling at passersby, telling them not to walk near his house.  

     At 11 am, I had my reading office hours. Again, someone who hadn't met with her student yet. She didn't even know the sex or grade level and wanted pointers on where to start. I told her, as I had a previous tutor with the same question, I couldn't give a two-semester course in teaching reading in an hour. However, this time I was in a more generous mood. 

     Start with introducing yourself. Ask the student if they know why their parent signed them up for tutoring. The answer may be, "I don't know," but always start asking the student. Then ask what they would like help with. They may know. It may be reading, or it may be math. If reading, ask the student if they need help with word recognition or comprehension. I told her the emphasis was on word recognition up through grade three. After that, it is on comprehension and building a solid knowledge base. I told her to get back to me once she had some information on her student.

       I had a dental appointment set up for 12:30. I messed up my teeth by eating chocolate and then lying down for a nap, marinating my teeth in a chocolate slurry. I went to the dentist because I lost a filling. He was shocked at all the new cavities I had. I had an appointment to get a mold for my teeth. I am getting a mold I can fit over my bottom teeth, which are a mess. Not much of a problem in person. There's so much else to look at. But on Zoom, teeth are a big deal. Then I realized the configuration of my teeth would be different once I had the filling replaced. I'd better wait. I went in to speak to the dentist. He agreed. He had the time to fill the teeth. I was in the chair for an hour with my jaw wide open.  

     I pulled out my aluminum' wallet' when I went to pay. I found an old credit card of Mike's in there. Yes, I have Mike's old, canceled credit cards. He had a ton; I found something like thirty cards. However, I never opened my wallet in the house anywhere near where the cards were. This was Mike, aware I was having a tough time and reaching out to me.

    Shortly after he died, he did something like this. I woke up one morning after having a nightmare that he had left me for another woman. Mike would never have left me for another woman. It's not that he wouldn't have left me. That was possible. But he would never have gotten involved with another woman before he left me. Impossible. The man was incapable of that. When I got up that morning, the heavy, metal standing towel rack in my bathroom had been moved. Not just moved but put on top of a box. I didn't do it; Elsa, my 12-pound dog, was incapable of it. He was upset that I would think he left me because he rejected me. Boy, I loved that man and his role in my life.

     As usual, Adolescent D. didn't sign in on time. I called him, as usual.   He needed a few minutes because he was making his younger sister lunch. When he did come on, I first checked how his auditory center was doing. Sound penetrated the force field and entered his auditory working memory space. I asked if he understood what people said better. Yes. I asked how he felt about the audio file. He said it was boring and never wanted to listen to it again. I find that when people hate it, they have an auditory processing problem. I know the cure. I break down the words into their phonemes, but I hold the sound of each one for as long as I can. He finally said he was kidding me. Okay. I missed that joke. 

  When I spoke to his mom, she told me he listened to it over and over. This may make a huge difference. I asked her if she saw changes in him. She was quizzical. Did she hear that his voice sounded stronger? He wasn't saying "I don't know" every other moment; he asked questions and stated what he thought. Oh, yes. It's incredible how good changes can slip by us. Not so for changes for the worse. Oh, no, we catch those right away. There's nothing wrong with mom. We're designed to pay more attention to the negative than the positive. If everything is going well, nothing requires attention. If something goes wrong, our lives may be at stake. We damn well better pay attention.

  In the last several sessions, I have focused on the BrainManagementSkills and given just a few minutes to the PDS Phase I work. Today, after I learned that he had made progress independently, I switched to reading immediately. We went to work on the 8th-grade reading selection, applying Phase I, working from sound. He had trouble discerning where he broke words into syllables from the sound of his speech. The exploration paid off. Today, he recognized the -en pattern. Usually, each sound is an individual experience for him.

   After my session with adolescent D, I met with Isaac on Zoom. He is a young man I met while walking in the neighborhood. He is on the island volunteering in a Christian school teaching children k-8th. He was struggling with how to teach the alphabet to the kindergarten group. I wrote up several suggestions he could use to teach alphabet recognition and letter formation without using a pencil and paper. We discussed the philosophy of learning and teaching as we went along. He was delighted we met. We are on the same page; teach, don't test. Emphasize what is right, not what is wrong. Create a social context for the learning. Give the student agency.