Monday, March 6, 2023

 Monday, March 6, 2023

The tech who manages my Internet connection texted yesterday saying he had to make some adjustments on Monday and asked when I was available. I had my first appointment at two pm. I was good up till then. At around one-fifteen, my internet cut out. I called him. "I told you the morning was good for me." He said, "You said you were free until two pm." I was, but I figured starting at one-fifteen would cut it close. I anticipated that he wouldn't be finished in time. I was angry. I calmed down and thought of what I could do if I couldn't meet with D on Zoom. Needless to say, I got a text shortly before 2 p.m. saying he was running late. What a surprise!

 The two pm appointment was with adolescent D.  I thought we could do the work we were doing over the phone. Even better, I could involve him in a new way. I planned to work on Phase I today and do Phase II on Wednesdays and Fridays.

  I told D to get paper and a pencil. In Phase I, we start with the sound of the word. I said the word. Then I asked him how many syllables there were in the word, what the sounds were in each syllable, one sound at a time, and finally, what letters represented the sounds, one sound at a time.

    In the past, I wrote the words on the Zoom whiteboard. Since I didn't have that available, he had to write them. He could have chosen to wait until I said the letter before he wrote it. He didn't. He tried to figure it out on his own. At the end, I asked him how he did with the spelling. Did he get fifty percent right, more or less? He said he had over fifty percent of the spelling correct. I thought that was terrific. The boy has severe problems with memory. The more letters he has correct, the more likely that spell check can catch his errors.  

   Later in the afternoon, I thought, "Duh!" We should have been doing this all along. This makes learning multisensory. The possibility of this approach is legion. The trick to getting him involved was to have him say "yes" when he was ready for me to move on. It requires him to attend without putting him into an ego-threatening situation. He can hide or not. It's his choice.

   When we started this process, he took at least half a minute before he responded. His response time has decreased substantially. This process gives him time to think and draw on his memory. It's so obvious, like all great ideas. You have to wonder why no one thought of it before. While I have used modeling as a teaching method, this includes a new twist. Before, I decided when I gave the answer, assuming the students would think of the answer. In this approach, I have the student tell me when to provide the answer. This means they determine how much time they need to think before they get an answer or know they have none available.

  Wright wrote about the role of emotions in making judgments. The research shows they determine our decisions. He didn't discuss the role of analytic thought when evaluating between two choices. He argues that emotions are the final arbitrators.

   I often hear the comment that someone is judgmental or not judgmental. That's a big deal. People who are overly sensitive to 'judgments' see condemnation in everything. There are degrees of judgementalness.  

   We make judgments every time we compare two things. A is bigger than B. A is sweeter than B. A is harder than B, and on and on. These must be relatively free of emotional input.   

     At the next level, we judge what we like and don't like. Wright argues the human mind, probably all living things, reacts to a stimulus by that metric. It will likely benefit me and support my life if I like it. If I don't like it, it is probably not good for me and may harm me. At another level, there are judgments of character or judgments against a whole person, leading to total rejection. The problem in our contemporary world is that we are exposed to unfamiliar people, which can trigger an "I don't like" response, leading to a moral judgment of that person.

   It's complicated. Given that it is impossible to be judgment-free, how do we evaluate our judgments? Some people put too much faith in their visceral reactions. "If I don't like it, it must be evil." That makes all their personal judgments like judgments from God. Therefore, the lesson of Genesis is: Do not eat from the tree of good and evil. It is not for us to make judgments.

  Hey, wait a minute. We can't make no judgments. Ted Bundy killed people. If we don't make judgments, do we let him go about his business without interference? As I said, it's complicated.

   Then, there is the other end of judgments, those who feel judged. They walk around anticipating the judgments of others and calling them judgmental for the judgments they hear in their own heads. Now, we all do that to a certain extent, anticipating the judgments of others. To not do so would mean we were sociopaths. As I said, it's complicated.