Monday, September 6, 2021

 Monday, September 6, 2021

 

     I was in a lot of pain last night. After trying to sleep through it, I tried the acupuncture pen, which had been a wonder. It did nothing for me. I tried my ole reliable tennis ball. I put it under my hip. The moment it was in place, the pain disappeared. I slept like a baby. 

    I had to limit my walk this morning to flat areas, no hills for me. The pain was in a new place, in the knee. Shifting pain can be a good sign, better than stagnant pain. If pain shifts around, it can be a sign that something is changing. Of course, it could be changing for the worse. We’ll see. I have till October 4 before I have my next appointment with my orthopedic surgeon. My guess is I’ll say no again. I wanted to pursue the option of THR because I pitched over. Now, I think I lost my balance because I didn’t consider changes in my body.

     Scott and Yvette were in the driveway as I went for one of my short walks. They were heading down to Volcano, where Yvette would be modeling yoga poses for a video a friend was making. I was so glad Scott went with her. It was a two-hour drive one way. After modeling poses over and over for the video, Yvette would be exhausted. The idea of her driving herself there and back was frightening.

     I had sixth grade D. We completed the prewriting activity for his boogie boarding story. Then we did 10 minutes of Phase I, analyzing words for the sounds and the letters that represent them, starting with the sound of the word. He reported improvement in his reading. I called his mom to check on what she was seeing.

  She seemed less than thrilled. She didn’t see improvement. I asked her to describe the problem she was seeing. She said D wasn’t reading as fluently as she had hoped, and he was having problems decoding longer words. I asked her if he recognized vowel digraphs better. Yes. Was his spelling better? Yes, he made sure there was a vowel letter in each syllable. Was he writing better? Not really. Did she see improvement from the time we started? Yes. This is all of 11 hours of work. It may seem longer because I only work with a student for half an hour at a time. Three half-hour sessions add up to an hour and a half a week. Seven weeks of work adds up to ten and a half hours. Most people do not appreciate the progress their child makes. They think I’m supposed to fix whatever problems a child has that have not been successfully addressed by any other teacher in an hour. Sounds reasonable. 

   I had my reading office hours for the Step Up Tutoring program. One person signed up. He was a 60ish man. He was a blast to work with; many of these tutors are. These are open-minded, adventurous people. Many have never tried to teach anyone anything except their children. Now, they were diving into low-functioning children from other cultures. Pretty brave. They are open to what I have to offer. What I have to offer is a method an untrained teacher can use. I think it’s better than most methods of teaching reading. The traditional way is to teach information. My methods focus on how the mind works and the process of learning how to read. I had a blast working with Howard.

   At 4:30, I had adolescent D. He couldn’t remember the sound of y in the suffix -ly or the pronunciation of -er in mer. I must cover one if not both of these rules in every lesson. I did some work on his memory. What came up was anger. Whatever it is blocking his memory, it’s like a mattress blocking retrieval from long-term memory. We did a draining of something. We’ve done the same drain before. It drains out from behind his left ear. Since this is a repeat pattern, it must mean something. D is angry about something or someone. It may be himself. He and A, my 3rd grader, allow their need to appear like everyone else dominates their psyche. They won’t do what I tell them to do and won’t admit to problems to protect themselves. It is very frustrating. They won’t do things they see can help them. Sometimes I don’t know if I can bear to deal with their persistence. I will have to work on this with Shelly. If I am going to help these kids, I will have to change myself first. 

   I have been watching documentaries on rock and roll singers. It started with a video on Bob Dylan. Then another one on him. He is somewhat of a strange, self-absorbed bird. He looks like he might be on the spectrum.