Thursday, August 22, 2024

 Thursday, August 22, 2024

  

    Back to grief. Damn!  I can’t shake it. It’s a feeling I remember from before my sister was born, so it doesn’t have to do with losing Mike. However, his presence and his care for me kept this demon at bay for 45 years.

   While I got up at 5:30, I didn’t get out for a walk until close to 7. I didn’t do the 4,000-step route. I cut it a bit short. Elsa sure prefers that. I should consider that her four little legs on her thirteen-pound body do way more steps than my two. 

   I did some garden clean up before breakfast. I filled two 5-gal. buckets with green waste from the Plumbagos. Then I walked down to Darby’s to pick up the trash barrel.  Next, I ate breakfast before I went out to fill the trash barrel with large branches.  I did more cutting on the mock orange with the chainsaw.  Once it was loaded, I walked it down to Darby’s house.

   As I left my house, I  heard the sound of aggressive gardening. Was it my neighbor across the street and down the block? His bougainvillea needed serious trimming.  Nope, it was right next door. Three men were clearing the empty lot.  The owners haven’t done anything with this property for nearly ten years. It’s just been allowed to grow wild. Pigs make it their home.

   I managed to speak to one of the men. Were the owners preparing the property for sale? Yep. They were uprooting every shrub and every tree. They were bringing it down to the bare soil, building a house, and planning to sell it. Oh, boy. This will impact us.  We’ll see how much.   Having all those trees gone will improve my view of the Pacific. We’ll see where they build the house.  It will impact someone no matter what. The north side of the property is up against the homes that line I’lau Street. Two houses butt up against that property. 

   At two o’clock, I left for Ulu Wini to start tutoring. Second-grade KJ ran up to me and said, “Me first.”  She asked to work on third-grade material she knew I had on my computer. Sure, why not? Her word recognition was very good. She’s going to need some work with multisyllabic words. However, her comprehension was impressively bad. I wasn’t sure if she was confused by all languages or if her confusion was just in English because Marshallese is her first language. She read a passage about how zoo managers had a new way to wash elephants; they ran them through a car wash.  She knew what a car wash was. When I asked what came out of the car wash clean, she said it was soap and water. When I asked her what came out clean when she took a shower. Again, the soap and water. Not knowing the cause of her confusion, I had trouble figuring out how to teach her. I finally modeled it and asked the same question in several contexts, which was a good old-fashioned drill exercise.

    The next person to ask me for help was fourth-grade MH. He often refused to work with me in the spring. I only had one or two sessions with him.  I still had my notes from the spring. He was struggling at a mid-first-grade level.  Now, he read the same third-grade passage I had used with second-grade KH.  (My Microsoft program was giving me trouble. I couldn’t access any other material.) He read it slowly but accurately. He did reasonably well on the comprehension.  Wow!  I asked him if he did work over the summer. Yes, he had worked independently to improve his math and reading. The method I use shows students a technique for figuring out how to learn to decode words independently.  I usually see students have improved after a break in the lessons. I asked him if his behavior was better in school. He also said yes to that. Then I asked him if he felt better. It was yes to that, too.   

    Neither sixth-grade ML nor third-grade CL wanted to work with me.  ML was working on a writing assignment. I asked if I could see it.  She wrote on the level of a second-grader. She had multiple ideas, but none were fully developed.  It was a list of activities.  One session with me would greatly help, but I doubt she will agree. 

   As for CL, I doubted she had improved much in math since I last worked with her. Hopefully, she will let me help her. I allow students to work with me as they choose. The alternative is too frustrating for them and for me.

    Shauntel said these kids aren’t interested in learning. I ask why should they be?  Most of their parents are illiterate in their native language no less in English.  Most of the adults don’t even speak English. None of the adults have jobs that require reading or writing.  Their lives in the Marshall Islands were simple.  Life in the USA is complex, requiring academic and problem-solving skills. Neither of these was necessary on the islands. Most problems had been solved by generations of people before them.  All everyone had to do was learn from their elders. If an unfamiliar problem arose, a wise man or woman stepped up to figure something out.  Can you imagine such a simple life? How relaxing!

    A new student approached me. Second-grade AN. She had just moved to the low-income development. She said she had problems reading. She sounded intelligent. I figured she’d be an easy fix. Oh boy, did I ever have that wrong!  She couldn’t recognize the word the.  Her mind told her it was the word is.  Her mind read all words as is.   I got her to remember the after a distractor but had no success with a second word of.  

     AN reported spinning. It went from in to out and sped up.  I figured that people who have the spin move from the periphery to the center have the movement slow down.  These people generally present as cognitively challenged. Hers went from the center out and increased in speed. I didn’t want to do the spin release with her. It didn’t feel right. 

    I saw anger in her spin. She said yes. She reported being tormented by the Marshall Islanders. She was Hawaiian.  There is racial conflict between the various minority groups here.  AN claimed she had no friends in the development. She only hung out with her sister. She was picked on by t other kids.

    I went to Shauntel to ask her. She smirked. I asked her her thoughts. She said AN starts the conflict by throwing out racial slurs. She was one against a group. She was asking for it.  I will have to work on her behavior. Other Hawaiian families live in the development. Why isn’t she friends with them?  Something is rotten here.