Tuesday, September 6, 2022

 Tuesday, September 6, 2022  

 

  I was wide awake before the alarm went off but lingered in bed. It was still dark out. I went all the way around the block. Because I worked on turning out my hips to propel myself forward, my inner thighs were in complaint mode. I remember asking another dancer about turnout at the University of Wisconsin in my twenties. She snapped, "I use it to walk." Huh? That was a new concept. I rediscover the meaning over and over. Maybe someday I'll get it right.

  I posted my public blog and completed the day's Wordle puzzle on the third try before heading to the DMV to renew my driver's license. I was going to leave at 8:30 for my 9 a.m. appointment, but I decided I better leave earlier in case of a long line. 

  There was no line. It was by appointment only. There was no one there to check me in. A sign said to fill out the application and take a seat. Someone would call me when it was my turn. I read more of the 6th-grade book assignment for W, Fish in a Tree. Someone did come out around 9 a.m. with a clipboard. He found my name and asked if I had completed the application form. Why did I need an application? This was for a renewal. They had all my information; my name, age, sex, and social security number hadn't changed. There were questions on my arrest record. That could have changed in the last two years, along with my address. 

   I spoke to a clerk around 9:15. I had to take a vision test. "Read the numbers on line 5." "3? No, 5." "It's another number." "Oh, 9." And that was with my good eye. Then I had the same test for my left one. I could see there were separate digits, but I couldn't read one of them. They were all a blur. I thought, "Damn! Am I going to be able to pass the test two years from now? Am I going to have to give up driving?" How's that for a depressing thought?

  I had forgotten to bring my checkbook. The DMV only accepts cash and checks. I forgot to replenish my cash reserve after paying $75 to sponsor Fr. Lio's walk for Catholic Charities.

  I drove home to get my checkbook. I didn't have to wait when I got back to the DMV. I went in, paid my $10, got my picture taken, and left. When I got to my car, I looked for my phone. Nowhere to be found. I opened all the doors and looked under the seats. I started to pull out and decided to go back and check before returning home. I pulled into a parking space askew. My clerk was gone. I checked on the floor. Nope. I asked one of the other clerks. No one had handed one in. I drove home, hoping I'd left it there.

  I first checked the hoodie sweatshirt I threw off before leaving to pay. Nope, it wasn't in the kangaroo pouch. I used Find My Phone on my computer. It showed the phone was on my street. It must be in the car. Sure enough. I heard the pinging when I opened my car door, but where was the phone? It took me a while. I found it between the passenger side seat and the door where I had looked. Ah! 

   I had my first session with Adolescent K in eighth grade. My intuition said this was going to go well. The support teacher at his private school said he needed help in writing. He felt he was just intellectually lazy. I never assumed that. I immediately considered an auditory processing problem. When I asked about his reading, he said it was okay. When I spoke to his mother about his reading, she said, "We read together every night before he goes to bed. He reads a page or two, and I read the rest of the chapter." Oh, boy. This is a twelve-year-old boy. Yes, he has trouble with reading.

   I asked him to talk about something he did well. We were going to work on what he couldn't do that I could; I needed to know what he was good at. He struggled for a word he didn't know as he talked about it. "What's the word? What's the word?" Ah, the telltale sign of an auditory processing problem, which I already suspected. I asked him if he was interested in overcoming that problem. He said yes. 

   He talked about a hunting outing with his father and his brother. I saw the possibility of developing a story. I had to ask a lot of questions. I had to create the sentences and structure the piece. But he did much more than I expected. I have done this exercise with lots of kids. I can see their potential. I asked him if he created videos of events in his head. Yes! As I thought. It won't be that hard to pull these stories out of him.

  When I asked him where they went hunting, he gave me a long Hawaiian name. It was somewhere on Mauna Kea. I tried to spell it from what he said. He corrected me and spelled it without hesitation. His visual recall is good, not just for things but for words. It's unusual for someone with reading problems to be good at the visual memory of words. This is more confirmation that he has an auditory processing problem.  

  When we finished the story, I started the Phase I demonstration, breaking up the words in the story we had just created into their phonemic elements and showing which letters represent each sound. I asked him how this felt on a rate from 1 -10, 10 being completely comfortable. He said a five. This is more confirmation that he has an auditory processing problem. I continued with the process, doing it slower than on the audiofile. I checked every once in a while on his comfort level. We got it up to a seven and a half. Good enough. I sent his mother the link to the Phonics Discovery System's 5 stories with instructions to play it for him every night for a month. Hopefully, she will do it. I often have problems getting parents to cooperate. In one case, the problem was the mother couldn't stand the sound of it. But in most cases, it's just a lack of will.  

   I had a makeup session with Adolescent D, who is in ninth grade now. Did he get his homework done yesterday? That's why his mother canceled so he could get that work done. No. He did none of it. Oh, boy. I suggested we work on one of his assignments. He chose an algebra assignment. He could read the directions, except for the word required. We never encountered the qu combination in our year and a half together. Odd! He knew the order of operations: "Pemdas." Wow! Of course, I didn't ask him what the letters stood for. I just realized my failure. I can't assume anything with this boy. He won't tell me. I was so impressed he knew the acronym for the procedure, PEMDAS; I just assumed he knew more. I can't do that with him. I can't assume anything. 

  He had no idea what to do to solve the algorithm. 6m +3= 2m + 15. I walked him through every step. He had some strategies. He would write the operation under the expression. That was good. But he didn't write the next line below what he had already done. And he didn't line up his equal signs. I had a lot of fun teaching math. It had been years since I'd done any algebra. I can handle the basics. He didn't understand why he had to group the 6m with the 2m, getting them on the same side of the equation. He has problems with abstract reasoning. I gave him a concrete image for m, mangoes. We had to get all the mangoes together. That worked. He said I made it all clearer. I was so pleased I could help. 

  I started watching Queen Marie, which Jean, my Hanai sister, recommended. It's about an English-born woman of nobility who became the queen of Romania. She was devoted to her adopted country and fought for the powers to approve a unified Romania at the Treaty of Versailles. She used backdoor strategies only a woman would use. Men might do something similar, but it would look different. She succeeded in getting Romanian unity where no one else had.