Wednesday, February 19, 2025

 Wednesday, February 19, 2025

    The Grief Recovery group had its seventh out of eight meetings.  One of our group had dropped out, unable to handle the work. Her explanation was that she couldn't choose a single person to deal with because her losses had been so many.  The work has been hard for me, and I see myself as someone who has dealt with a lot of these issues.  None of the people in my group reflected any introspective work. For them, it's all circumstances. It was a great opportunity to practice keeping my mouth shut and listen.  Their pain was real.  Their way of dealing with life circumstances has gotten them through as mine has gotten me through. I don't see any of us being rewarded with the golden ring.  Each of us has and has had joys and sorrows in our lives.  I look at each of them, marvel at their coping mechanisms, and wonder what I can learn from them.  The only thing I have that they don't is self-awareness. As they used to say in NYC, when they used tokens, those little metal coins we dropped into the turnstiles to enter the subway system, "That and a token will get you into the subway." This means you still need a token. The other is meaningless.

     I remained uncomfortable with the leader.  We are stereotypical chalk and cheese, but there was only one more session.  Learning to deal with her quietly is an excellent exercise for me.  I wasn't as quiet as I should have been.  Next week's assignment required us to write a letter to the person we are unreconciled with and tell them exactly how they made us feel. These letters are not to be sent to the person. I chose my mom, who had been dead for over twenty-three years.   The thought of sharing my feelings with her causes me pain. She was incapable of appreciating my feelings. When we were in conflict, the only thing that counted was her feelings.  She was very childlike.

    I've heard that people who become very famous stop their emotional development at that point. Extreme fame is a trauma just as much as any other abrupt change in circumstances. My mom's first trauma was within the first six months of her life. She was subjected to a medical procedure that would be considered torture if it had been done under any other circumstance. The procedure very likely saved her life. That she developed as much as she did and did as little damage to my sister and me is testimony to her mental health and her basic morality.

    I found today's activity in grief recovery difficult.  I had to record a response to every important incident in my relationship with my mom, both good and bad. We were given a list of possible responses: to apologize, forgive, make a significant emotional statement, or an acknowledgment: state that something happened, and it wasn't good. I went through each of the four responses for each negative incident.  I found for most of the responses, apologizing felt the best.  I don't know how that plays out psychologically.  God knows I'm not the one who owes the apology by any normal standard. The woman was committed to all negative feedback. She also announced at the end of her life, "I didn't need therapy; I had children."  I understood that as a comfortable declaration that she used her children as whipping boys to soothe her own shattered nerves. While I was clearly abused, I really felt and still feel very sad for her. I saw she was damaged and wanted to be loved.  She was childlike in that regard.  However, she was loveable; we are all as loveable if we allow others to love us. If we invite love, it will come. Like puppies, it makes us magnets for those who want to be loving. My mom had that quality, at least with us.  I know she had it with some other people, too.

    I rushed home after the grief recovery session, remembering I hadn't taken the garbage out and it was pickup day.  I shouldn't have bothered. The pickup trucks had been through already.  I didn't have any organic material in the trash. I just bagged it and put it in the back of the car.  I put together a load of nuts from the Bismarck palm that litter my front yard and stopped at the transfer station to deposit both bags.

    I had four clients today.  First, I had the fifth-grade twins.  I tried them on some new material: reading comprehension material from IXL.  I think this material is harder than the Barnell Loft materials I've been using. Twin A read material on a third-grade level fluently, even with several multisyllabic words.  She had some trouble with comprehension, picking out a detail instead of looking for the theme of the passage.  Twin E was still struggling with word recognition at a third-grade level. The third-grade material in IXL had more multisyllabic words than the material in Barnell Loft's fourth-grade series.

   I had fifth-grade GV later in the afternoon. We spent a good deal of time talking about a bullying incident.  It turns out that there is one boy who is the primary bully. Some of the other kids follow him, probably to appease him and protect themselves. I asked GV if that boy was local or a haole.  I have heard several stories of locals (primarily kids from Polynesian backgrounds) ganging up on haoles (white people).  No, this boy is haole.  GV said he had a terrible home life. How does he know? The teachers told him so.  Oh, boy.  That's illegal these days. I could do nothing to help him with the situation as much as I would like to.  Bullying is tough on the nerves.

    Then GV told me he had just taken an iReady reading test. His current score was 534, while his last was 432. I had to check to find out how much of a difference that was. The 432 fall score put him at 5% for his grade, while the 534 winter score put him at 28% for his grade. It's a double-digit improvement. I understand that's considered impressive. 

      I tried to praise him for his success. I thought he had made the jump from a second-grade reading level to a third on his own, but he only made the jump from a third to fourth-grade reading level after he started working with me. GV said no. All his improvement dates from when he began working with me. That's sweet.

    I casually asked him how the mental letter shifting was doing.  I never led him through the protocol for fixing that problem.  It never felt right. I did, however, describe the protocol.  He amazed me by saying it was pretty much cleared up. That does happen.  Just by telling students it's possible to clear up perceptual disturbances, the mind solves the problem without further conscious thought.

   I choose to do another reading exercise with him. Who says kids have great imaginations? They don't.  Yes, if they get to play house or King of the Mountain and make slight variations in the script.  Yes, they can throw themselves into playing a role, pretending to be something they're not, but real imagination. I sure don't see it.

   What do you want to write about? Mind you, they don't have to physically write it. I do that for them. Most kids are stuck.  I use one prompt for fiction, which someone used with me.  Think of a color.  Think of something that is that color.  Where is that object?  Are there people involved? What are they doing?  On the occasion it was used with me, I had volunteered to be a model for someone demonstrating a teaching technique.  I was asked to think of something green. I came up with a detailed scene in a wooded area. Afterward, someone approached me and asked me how it did that. I told her I just looked at what came to mind. Most people block their imaginations. GV has an iron lock on his.

   Finally, a true story came to mind. GV and his family had been at a farmer's market and came across a dog they brought home.  That was the width and length of his story.  It was time to stop. I had barely started to pull the details of the event out of him. 

   At one point, I told GV I wanted to know what he thought. It's taken me years, but I have discovered people really don't want you to know what they think.  I can't think of a reason for this other than paranoia. Winds up GV feels that way. I hope he can give an explanation other than fear.

   I had an appointment for fourth-grade LV. He slips into brain freeze when in doubt. We were working on this passage: An octopus can change colors.  Usually, it takes on the color of its surroundings. This is not true when it becomes upset.  The question was, "What does 'this' refer to?"  I gave him several sentences which were more accessible to his experience. He got those but couldn't apply it to the target passage. I'd been exposed to discussions on left/right brain thinking.  I thought I would use it here.  LG is brilliant when it comes to complex mechanical constructions.  He does very well in the physical world.  He can't handle the abstract. All language is abstract. It's gobblyguck applied to the concrete world and, in some cases, the not-so-concrete world. Is this the problem that both GV and LG have?  They didn't make the transition from right to left brain. They were outstanding right-brain thinkers and found left-brain thinking unfamiliar and difficult. It required thought. Oh, dear. I have to help them make the leap.

  My guess is that in primitive times, there were only a few people in a group who had to make that adjustment. They became the leaders, the wise men and women of the group. Everyone else could just follow directions.  It worked. Sadly, it doesn't work in today's world. It's every man for himself. I have to help these children make that leap to survive in the modern world. We all envy childlike innocence, whether in children or primitive groups of people, if we don't have contempt for them.