Friday, February 24, 2023

 Friday, February 24, 2023

 I slept in till 8 am. I stood by the doggie door and called Elsa. She came and went out. This was a first. Before, I had to haul her to the door myself.

   I fed Elsa before we walked. It was too late to ask her to wait until we got back. I'd been challenging myself by walking faster up hills, not for long distances but on pretty steep hills. Some of the slopes here may be sharp at 40%. I have no way to measure them accurately. I walk as quickly as I can. I complete 130 steps at that pace. It isn't my breath that gives out; it's my calves.

    I had an appointment with my life coach at 10 am. I knew what I wanted to work on. I thought it was just my discomfort when people didn't get me and thought only the worst of me. Several people in my life choose to view me that way. No matter what I do, it's interpreted negatively. If I'm kind to someone, I'm being manipulative. They always see me as sinister. As I worked, my upset changed to terror.  

   We're all angry at differences. Some of us are better at not showing it. And some are genuinely better at not being angry. Some accomplish it by feeling sorry for others for not being on the right side of everything. That's denigrating the other person's point of view and elevating their own. That is just another way of being angry. Some turn away and repress the anger, thinking, "What can you expect." Some have come to peace with differences. I know I had moments like that with Mike. I hope he achieved that with me, for his sake as much as mine.  

    There were things he did that just tickled me. Maybe they were his foibles. Perhaps I'm fooling myself. I don't know how to categorize my response. They felt loving and delightful. He was my funny Valentine. That doesn't sound as good as I thought it did before. I know I didn't feel angry. I felt full of love. But of course, it was for something he did wrong, like not turning off the stove burners or closing the refrigerator door. There were also things he did wrong I didn't find funny, but I also wasn't mad at him, or not very mad. He committed social faux pas. I could see the reaction of others but felt neither anger nor fear. I was just prepared to leap at anyone's throat who might hurt him. How does one categorize all those emotions?

   My calendar said I had an appointment with my chiropractor at 12:15. I left in time. I called her cell phone and the office number to check because it was a weird time for us to have an appointment. She got back to me when I was halfway there. She didn't have me down for today. I turned around the first chance I got and headed back home.

   I got in some steps, some writing, and some sleep before my appointment with Adolescent D at two. When I asked him how he was doing, he said great. I had never heard him say that before. When I asked why, he downgraded it to good. When I pushed more, he downgraded to okay. He was in bed, sick as a dog with a respiratory infection as it wound up. I suggested we work in a way that puts less strain on him. I would do all the work, modeling it, and he would listen and observe.

   We started with the letter tracing exercise, which has enormously impacted his handwriting. I opened the digital version of the book we were reading on my Apple computer. It left me free to use the screen share mode on Zoom on the tablet without going back and forth.  

    I wrote a sentence from the book and then decoded the word, going through the process of identifying the vowel letters, identifying which vowel letters represented vowel sounds, and dividing words into syllables. I let D tell me where to divide them. Then I sounded them out, following the phonics rules for the type of syllables, and blended all the sounds and the syllables. I gave him the opportunity to figure out what the word really was if I didn't produce the 'correct' pronunciation right away. He said he found this process fun. Some of it was watching me struggle to figure things out. Why not? It's fun to watch people figure things out. That's what most storytelling is about, watching how the main character deals with a problem. That's what most cop shows are about. Does anyone like mystery stories? We like to watch people deal with challenges.  

    I also talked about my belief that having students watch me struggle with something is the best kind of teaching. I am modeling the learning process. I am modeling the fun of it. I don't feel humiliated when something unexpected comes up or I make a mistake. Why should I? What human being gets everything right?

   When I got my teacher training in the 1960s, we were taught, "Never let a student catch you not knowing an answer. They'll lose respect for you." Is it any wonder why people are so twisted out of shape now? Everyone has to have the 'right' answer or be a loser. How can we expect people to love learning if they aren't uncomfortable making errors?

   When I started using this modeling method to teach word recognition many years ago, I worked with three difficult girls in an inner-city church school. The only staff was me, another teacher, who was also the principal, and a school secretary. That's it. These three girls saw me because they all had trouble reading. I met with them three times a week for twenty minutes at a time. They didn't read for me the whole year. I would stand in front of the room and ask, "What is the first sound in the word THE?" They wouldn't answer. I gave the answer and then asked, "What letters make the /th/ sound?" Again, there was no answer. I wrote TH on the board. We went through whole sentences that way for every class that year.

  The other teacher told me she saw a difference. The child study team told me the girl, classified as special education, had made significant progress. But I never heard her read.

   All three left the school the following year. I ran into the mother of one of the girls. She told me that her daughter had been told by the public school she would never learn to read. She was now taking GED courses. Even I was impressed. This method works.

   I didn't use the modeling method with D before. His ego would have assumed I was doing it because he was stupid. Now, he doesn't feel that way anymore. He can handle the basics. Today, he was particularly open because he was sick. He could accept my modeling because he needed to rest. I suggested we alternate between Phase I and II of the reading process in future sessions. In Phase I, I say the word, and we figure out the sounds. In Phase II, we start with the written word and figure out what the word is. This is going to be interesting.

   The advantage of modeling is reduced stress for the student. The advantage of reduced stress is it makes the student more open to learning. Excessive stress reduces a student's ability to focus and learn. Fear puts the mind in an altered state, which interferes with learning to read. If the student is relaxed, they can invest more mental energy into the activity.

   Yvette came up. She had some news about someone I knew, our old mail carrier. Doug had been out for a year, using up his sick time. The working conditions in the post office are generally not good; at the post office where Doug worked, it was particularly bad. 

   Josh ran into Doug as he left the building. He said, "I just retired." It was also his fiftieth birthday. He went to Walmart and suffered a fatal heart attack. His wife was also a carrier. She was devastated. They had made plans for their lives. Fifty is very young to die. Worse yet, because he filed his retirement papers before he died, she would receive less widow's benefits than if he died before he filed his papers. The situation is painful.

   If that wasn't enough bad news, B called this evening. He had a long talk with his Hanai granddaughter. She told him she was being bullied at school. Groups of Micronesian students gang up on single kids. A cousin of hers was severely beaten. His face was swollen. When her father intervened, one of the kids hit him with a stick. The school knows what's going on. The police know what's going on. B said the police won't do anything because they're minors. His granddaughter wants to drop out of school or go to another one. The other school won't let her in "because she is being bullied." That doesn't sound right. They possibly think she is one of the bullies. Also, she will need a ride to school. Her mother says she can't do it. She is overwhelmed. Parents complained to the school. His granddaughter had complained to her teachers. They had spoken to the girls, but nothing had changed.

     As B and I talked, I saw Lutz walking up the street. He is an information junky. If anyone knew what to do, he would. I told B I would call back later. Lutz said they had to bring in the Feds. The state schools get federal funds. It is their job to make sure biased bullying doesn't happen. If they don't do something, the feds will take over the school. This happened on this side of the island many years ago. It was the Hawaiians who were beating up haoles, white people. Now it is Micronesians beating up Hawaiians, maybe everyone. The feds were called in for Kealakehe. The feds took over the school for three years until the situation was righted. I don't know if they can accomplish that in time for B's granddaughter.