Saturday, November 6, 2021

 Saturday, November 6, 2021

 

   As I returned from my early morning walk, I saw something bright blue moving on the street before me.  It looked like the poop bag I used this morning. Why was it moving?  There was a breeze, but that didn't account for the range of movement. A bird had it in its beak and was trying to do something with it. I can't imagine what a bird could do with a blue plastic bag with poop in it at this time of year. It November. Nest building is out.

   I found myself tired without explanation. Was it because I dropped a set of supplements from 

DoTerra or was this emotional?  I felt much better after my session with the W &M sisters that was later than usual to work around the family's various sport team events.  I guess that answers the question.

    The work energized me; it was stimulating.  With first grade W, I started with Phase I on the words in a story she had written. While it felt fun yesterday, it felt a little grueling today.   When we first started working together, I used an approach involving a lot of repetition. I had her read the graded Carpenter stories based on word families.  She had trouble recalling words. Then I added on Story #2 and then #3.  Each session, I had her start with Story #1 and read all three.  The first story took half an hour in our first session. She eventually was able to read the first three stories in fifteen minutes. When she was ready for story #4, I dropped story #1.  When I added on story # 5, I dropped story #2.

    I always started with the stories she was familiar with to build confidence. Today, I decided to start with story #5, which she was still struggling with.  She did very well.  I went to Story #6, which she hadn't read before. She marched through that. While she was doing that work, I frantically tried to find Stories #7 and #8 to use with her.  It was time to have her work with unfamiliar material regularly.  Fortunately, she took a long time working on the story because I couldn't find the higher-level ones.  I did have her read Story #4 mostly to cover my ass. 

    With 5th grade W, I worked on story writing. This is a bright, imaginative child. So far, what she has produced is as dry as it comes. I told her to think of an object any object. She thought of a black cup. Ok, where is this cup? In a house, if so, which room? Where in the room?  Is there a person present?  If not, why not.  I kept telling her to just watch the movie in her head and describe it.  She finally started producing some details that were worthy of a story.  This was a prewriting activity; I just had her throw ideas against the wall to see what would stick.  We were going to have to create a structured story out of her notes.  Her mother told me she doesn't like to finish something. She just wants to do what impulse directs her to.  She needs both to succeed in life. 

   After she produced something that felt like the bones for a complete story, I switched to the reading activity. She had been reading Barnell Loft material at a fifth-grade level.  When I had the file open on the Zoom Screen Share, I pressed control F to search the document for her initials. That's how I mark where someone is in the file.  I was left with a blank screen. All my work on this document was gone. I tried hitting control Z. That did nothing.  I groaned. It took a lot of time to copy the whole book from the hard copy.  I needed it because it was the only way to see the same material, literally be on the same page.  I knew I had already prepared some of the next higher level, on sixth grade.  She did as well as at this level as she had done on the mid-fifth grade level. 

   Despite my promise to myself that I wouldn't continue watching Offspring because of its negative impact on my nervous system, I couldn't resist. I promised myself that I would fast-forward through scenes where the two sisters acted out their massive insecurities.  This must have been the season finally: there was a death of a beloved life partner and the birth of a child. Everyone responded appropriately. I wasn't triggered by their inadequacies.  I was, however, triggered by the death. I sat there and sobbed.

_____-_____-_____

Musings:

 

People deny that black people are treated differently by the police than white people. Where are all the similar stories of police treatment of whites? Where is the video of a white person being treated like George Floyd? However, there are examples of white people being treated differently.  Dylan Roof wasn't beaten for what he did when he sat in a group of black people in a church and massacred as many as he could in the hope of starting a race war. He was put into protective custody, and someone went out to buy him a hamburger. How would a black man have been treated if he had done something comparable in a white church?   I hear you saying Dylan Roof was obviously a disturbed young man in need of help. True. He was- is. Question: would a black man, obviously disturbed, be treated the same way. The record speaks for itself. Black people are shot for just being mentally ill.

   I'm writing this because I just heard two stories of men who had strokes and were arrested for the crime of sitting in the cars looking peculiar and left in jail cells for hours before someone called for medical aid.  They both had pulled over when they felt ill.  They weren't doing anything harmful to another person. The police assumed the worst and preceded accordingly. Anyone who wants to argue they weren't treated that way because they were black, find a similar story about this happening to a white person – even one. I'm at a complete loss to understand how people deny that black people are treated differently from white people. I'd like to see one example, no less an instance of an incident for a white person for every black. We need evidence of a one-to-one ratio to show the police are equal opportunity harassers.

  My guess is some people will argue that black people are inherently worse people than white people. That is prejudice; assuming that one person is worse than the other simply because they are not of your tribe is prejudice. When the police confront a black man, the assumption is he is guilty of something. When they confront a white man in a comparable situation, the assumption is that he must be innocent. This is a bias.