Monday, November 20, 2023

 Monday, November 20, 2023

    Holy cow! Today, two students I worked with for a while finally shared their visual processing problems. Mind you, this is not the first time I’ve asked. One was adolescent D. He read the last two letters in a word in reverse. He said the letters didn’t shift on the page or in his head. Instead, his mind read the letters from right to left. He said it was much better than it used to be. This is the first time I have heard of this problem. I told D what I did to help students solve their problems with shifting letters. I didn’t expect one of those solutions to resolve perceptual visual instability to work with his problem. I hoped knowing what I did with other perceptual problems would stimulate his thinking about his problem. I often find once I’ve introduced the idea of changing the way the brain works, the kids spontaneously come up with solutions.

    The second student was Twin E, one of Mama K’s crew. Twin A has been moving ahead, reading at a third-grade level, while Twin E is stuck at the preprimer level. The problem is with her memory. I had her read stories repeatedly to learn some words. A few days ago, I introduced the Fry sight word list. She could do list #1, the first 25 words, reasonably easy. 

     She got stuck on the second list. She said, “These are too hard.” I had her do the ‘letters/word” exercise. The students have to visualize the letters in their short-term/ working visual memory. She could only ‘see’ three letters. She could not see the d in the word word. No one has reported that problem in the thirty years I have worked with the BrainManagementSkills. Short-term or working memory should hold seven items plus or minus two. George Miller made that discovery years ago. I saw him at the Thursday cognition colloquiums at Princeton University in the eighties. He was an old man then, sadly suffering from dementia. Even brilliant minds fall prey to that disease.  

     Here’s a thought I’d like to share on a different topic. I’d announce, “I had a thought!” Mike would laugh and say, “Look out! She’s had a thought!” He found my free-floating mind amusing at the end of his life. He said he never knew what would come out of my mouth next. It is such a delight to be married to someone who enjoys you. He learned to do that, like my way of thinking, making connections between unrelated topics. It was not so much to his taste when we first got together. So here’s another random thought on the subject of good intentions.

   Some believe if their intentions are good they can do no harm, and its correlate: if someone thinks they’ve done harm that person is judging them to be a bad person. Is there a worse accusation? These folks ignore the adage: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Indeed, intending well is the best we can do. We can never guarantee a good outcome.

   The problem is more than good intentions are needed. Research into the viability of a plan of action would go a long way. It can go radically wrong if we decide what is best for the other person without checking.

   On the other hand, good intentions can ameliorate the impact of what would be considered a bad action. My mom did something that is a brilliant example of this. My dad died six months before my sixteenth birthday. My poor mom knew little about the celebrations the other sixteen-year-olds had. She felt totally inadequate.

   Over breakfast, she gave me a corsage made of sugar cubes. (Do they do that anymore?) Then she said something remarkable. “You don’t have to miss Daddy. He never loved you. He only felt sorry for you.” Her eyes were overflowing with love and concern. Fortunately, I often saw my dad’s eyes overflow with love for me. Her words did not dull that memory. Her words were a true gift. It revealed his tricks in juggling the two of us. My mom was very insecure. My dad’s attention to me must have worn on her nerves. Instead of my dad laying down the law with her and saying I want to spend time with Betty, he made an excuse. Instead of laying down the law with me and saying he wanted to spend time with my mother, he sighed and said he had to because she was his wife. Excuse me! Her comments freed me from some false assumptions. That gift helped improve my life. Good intentions count for something.

   Good intentions are great, but we all must understand we can cause problems and hurt people even if our intentions are good. If we claim our good intentions rule the day, we blame others when our good intentions go awry. We have to check with others before we take action.

  My uncle told me a family motto was posted on the wall, “Don’t call lack of opportunity virtue.” And it’s correlate, don’t call good intentions virtue. Take care.