Tuesday, December 28, 2021

 Tuesday, December 28, 2021

 

    A good night's sleep, no discomfort. Yay! Interesting. The problem with my ankle has shifted to my calf just above my ankle. The ankle itself feels fine. Last night before I went to sleep, I did more of the cramping cure. What is that? Instead of stretching tense muscles, I move the joint to induce a cramp. I know some cramps can be so bad that they can leave you screaming. This doesn't do that. It is easy to modulate the cramp. I can relieve the degree of discomfort if I need to. I maintain the cramp to the fullest extent I can tolerate it until it releases on its own. It works to heal the problem. 

   Driveway yoga today was just me and Yvette. (Yes, I know this in 'bad 'grammar, but I love the form; it's the alliteration. The m in me and the n in and are both nasals. And then, when you have me and my; three nasals in a row. Enough to bring joy to anyone's soul.)

  Yvette was out playing with our sliding gate before we started. It gets stuck. She carefully examined the gate's movement on the rail and noticed that it was rubbing against the trunk of a tree. A groove carved into its base where the gate rubbed against it. She pointed to a spot on the tree base that was already shaved out. We need someone to do the same thing on this spot of the tree.

   I had the M & W sisters for the last time this week. First grade M was very distracted today. She looked away from the screen frequently. Now, she had a few distractions. Her mother was on the phone nearby, speaking in a loud voice. M claimed the real distractor was her sister in the kitchen preparing breakfast. I asked her if she had problems paying attention in school. Yes. I turned my attention to her inattention problem. She is easily distracted by activities around her. 

   I developed a method for helping students with that variety of ADD over thirty years ago. The image of a bullseye came to mind. That was my vision of the attention mechanism in our minds. I saw it working much the way the eye does. We have objects in the center of our vision, the fovea. Those are the clearest. The rest are visible but not as sharp. I told the boy I was working with to put me in the center of the bullseye. There was some distracting noise. I asked him if it pushed its way right into the center of the bullseye. He said yes. I suggested he push it out to one of the peripheral rings. He tried. It felt as if he was trying to lift a car. It wouldn't budge. 

   The image of a pinball machine came to mind; specifically, the spring-loaded knob called a plunger. The player pulls the plunger and releases it, sending a small metal ball flying up the shooter's alley on its way to the amusement park of obstacles. I instructed the student to pull that knob and 'shoot' the intruding event to an outer ring. Then I told him to put the 'intruding 'event in the center and my voice on an outer ring. This exercise aims to give the student control of their attention mechanism, not to teach them what to pay attention to. 

    Unfortunately, first grade M had no idea what I was talking about. She didn't get the image of the bullseye representing her attention. When I told her to move her sister's distracting presence to an outer ring, she thought I meant to tell her to move to a different room. She also had never seen a pinball machine, so that image didn't work either. I think I was able to help her understand that the bullseye represented something going on in her head, not in the world outside of it. That image will do the trick with any luck, and she will develop a method for removing distractions from the center of her attention. 

    I did some work with Phase III with M,  just the reading phase. She had a lot of problems with just reading today. She couldn't follow anything I was saying.

    I worked exclusively on Phase III with fifth grade W.  She has an excellent memory for long, complicated sentences. Her spelling is generally good too. Today, her mother provided a keyboard so W could add on the physical aspect of writing. It didn't work. She was able to write it by hand on the screen. When she did, I typed in what she wrote. There were a few occasions for instruction. She wrote decided as decited. I was able to tell her why her choice was a good one, even if it wasn't correct. All medial t are pronounced as /d/ in American English. My name, Betty, rhymes with beddy. There is no way of knowing which letter is the correct one based on the sound in the word. However, spell check will give the writer the correct spelling if the writer's spelling is close enough.   She also started to write making as makeing. She caught herself. I asked her if she knew the rule. No. Her visual recall is good enough to have noticed the pattern without knowing the rule.

    After the session, I headed out for a short walk. I went left out of the driveway, passing Darby's house. I heard some noise that sounded like someone was trying to put up a ladder coming from her backyard. I called out her name. While she was working in the yard, she was not wrestling with a ladder. She told me to hang on; she would go get a mask and accompany me on my walk.   

    The other day, Darby told me that her husband Patrick commented that I hadn't had the genius that everyone is born with knocked out of me. I wondered what he was referring to. People have often commented on how smart I am, and I'm left wondering what I said or did create that impression. Darby asked Patrick directly. It was in response to my behavior when they came to my house to use the Internet to connect to their Kaiser doctor. There were problems making connections. He said I took charge; I was efficient and competent, and then I knew when to get out of the way and leave them to it. I think he confused genius with east coast style. 

   While I had been walking well when I started my walk. After a while, my ankle was bothering me. When Darby and I came to my driveway, I began to turn in. She called my name. She told me she almost bought me a Christmas card which said, "You are the perfect amount of inappropriate." I can't think of a greater compliment.

     I lay down for a nap. My ankle gave me serious problems even while I lay there with my leg elevated. This was scary. The ankle problem causes more serious limitations than my hip did/does. Now, the pain is in a different spot. I iced it and treated it with the acupuncture pen. It wasn't perfect, but it was better. 

     I had an appointment with adolescent D at 1 pm. He texted me if we could do 1:30pm. Then his mom texted, saying they were at the dentist. We started shortly after 1:30 and continued with Phase III. This winds up being an amazing process. It serves as a diagnostic tool as well as a teaching one. D spelled for as of. When I encouraged him to hear the first sound in the word, he couldn't identify the /f/. When he finally did, he spelled the word orf. I would never in a million years have guessed that this was going on in his head if I was using Phase III with him. A few minutes later, we came across the word could. He spelled it as cud. That was pretty good. He showed a good grasp of the possible sound/letter relationship. I showed him the correct spelling. I blocked his view of the written word and asked him to spell it. Silence. "Sorry, I wasn't listening." He does that when he's overwhelmed. Started again. He wrote culd. I had him write the word on his forehead. Culod. Oh, dear. Those letters must be moving around in his head.

   I asked him if they were moving. I have asked this question at least twice before. He always said no. Today, he admitted that the letters do move. I asked questions about how they moved. They moved from left to right in a zigzag pattern speeding up as it went. The up-down motion is limited, not huge. I established that he hates this in himself. It makes him angry at himself. Great! I told him if I thought self-hatred helped with the reading process, I would push for it. I believe that self-hatred is counterproductive.   (Not that all self-hatred and/or shame is all bad. Not at all. I believe they both serve a positive function. But my reasons for that are for another day.)

   My first question to m was; was he interested in getting rid of that self-hatred? Yes. That's a good start. I had in mind to start the release phrases: release anything negative about his hatred of his anger toward himself and keep anything positive or anything he still needs. And its opposite: release anything negative about his love for his anger and keep anything positive . .. . . etc. However, I didn't get a clear signal to move ahead with those protocols. I always wait until things feel right. When I'm in my professional role, I'm golden. When in personal contexts, not so much. In fact, I can spit out accusations like an AK47. It's not pretty when I get scared. For today, I got to do nothing with him. If things go well, he will solve the problem on his own. That's what happened with auditory processing. I never led him through the change process. All I got to do was introduce the concept that the brain activity could change and help him become aware of the pattern, particularly the negative aspect of his existing pattern.

   I did some work on my ankle. I used the acupuncture pen on as much of my calf as I could reach. I saw clearly this morning that my spine was out of whack in the region of my shoulder blades. My right shoulder was curved forward in a way that made my spine crooked. I applied the acupuncture pen to that area. Voila! My ankle felt better immediately. Go figure! You never know what is affecting what. 

   Later in the afternoon, I had third grade A. My first question was about his Christmas. What did he get? He mentioned large objects, like a bike. I asked how he got it to Hawaii. It took several questions to figure out that he was still in Florida. A looks neurodivergent.  His parents either don't knowledge it or just won't admit it to me. He often rolls his head around looking at the ceiling and giggles inappropriately. In our last session, I noticed a change. Some of that change held. However, he clenched his fists when he made a mistake while we worked. I asked if he was angry at himself for doing it wrong. He said yes. I told him if I thought for a minute anger at himself would help him become a better reader, I would encourage him. Not only don't I think self-directed anger or self-hatred helps, I think it is counterproductive. Was he interested in letting go of his anger? He was hesitant. I presented the release protocol:"  Let go of anything bad about my hatred for my anger toward myself, etc, and then let go of anything negative about my love of my anger toward myself. He reported degrees of relaxation. That's what we're looking for. That's what tells us the work is going in the right direction.  

     I found Lily in Paris for free on Netflix. Was I watching it on Netflix to start out with? I don't think so. I have no idea what happened.