Saturday, February 24, 2024

 Saturday, February 24, 2024 

 

 I ran into someone new this morning. I can't remember how we started talking. Was he walking a dog, which is how I meet most people? Elsa, my dog, introduces us. He told me he lived on Holoholo and ran an air conditioning company. I knew of one on that street, No Sweat. No, that wasn't Matt's company; his was AC Air Conditioning. No Sweat lived across the street. He had hired the owner of No Sweat when he was a skinning kid. Now, he had his own company. He didn't complain about 

the competition.

   He also gave information about a mystery house. Most of the properties in this neighborhood are not density wooded. This yard was dense growth meticulously groomed. I occasionally saw a man go to the mailbox and disappear again. Matt had the story.

   The man living there was Ray. His male partner of many years died a few years ago of a blood disorder. Ever since then, Ray had become a recluse. I said, "But he takes care of the property." Matt said, "OCD."

    Dan came over today to spread the dumpster-sized mound of mulch Tanner delivered on Monday. While the wind blew dust as he pushed the dirt, it blew toward my neighbors to the north, not toward me. All my elaborate prep for nothing.

   Thanks to Yvette, I've discovered the Huberman podcasts. I'm happily going down that rabbit hole. Many of his topics are of interest to me. I also like the style of conversation- intellectual. One guide was talking about muscle strength. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I found it soothing. It reminded me of good times around the dinner table.

   Another Huberman podcast was on procrastination. We're all familiar with that. I asked Cylin, my daughter-in-law, what made her get her writing done. She said deadlines set by her editor. I have no deadlines in my life anymore to get my adrenaline moving enough to overcome my fear of failure. My childhood voice cries, "I can't do it." I don't know if that was a nightly scene, as I remember it, or if that happened only occasionally.

  Tonight, I finished Season One of Deadloch. They addressed some of the issues with the characters I couldn't stand. It was a You don't make a presentation appropriate for a first-grade class to a fifth-grade class. 

    I checked the in-person location of the Gokhale workshop. It's an hour away, as suspected. I'm still concerned about the possibility of bad teaching methods. The more I think about the instruction I got in the individual sessions, the more appalled I become.

   Instruction falls on a spectrum between teaching the material and teaching the student(s). If the emphasis is on all the material, there is no regard for the student. They either got it or they didn't. You don't make a presentation appropriate for a first-grade class to a fifth-grade class. I can't present a first-grade class with a physics lecture appropriate for a fifth-grade class. While some student in that first-grade class would get it,  that doesn't make the presentation appropriate for the group. I don't know if there ever was a time when teachers ignored the students entirely. Nowadays, the emphasis is on student needs. The assumption is everyone can be brought up to speed. Unfortunately, the educational system can't find the teaching methods to accomplish that. I have developed solutions that address some of those needs. I work with low-functioning populations and make a difference. I also pay careful attention to a student's strengths and weaknesses. I don't just follow a formula. Do I bring everyone up to grade level and beyond? No, but I give everyone tools to learn on their own.