Mike's death; Betty's life...: November 2026

Monday, November 2, 2026

Monday, April 21, 2025

I mowed the large grassy area today. The seed stalks were already two feet tall.

At 1:30 pm, I had a doctor’s appointment for my Botox treatment. I see Dr. Farringer every six months on Kaiser’s dime. It’s prescribed because my right brow droops so low it obscures my vision. The shots are painful. The doctor told me how well I did. I thought he was kidding. While I didn’t groan, I did writhe. He recommended I get the surgical solution, a brow lift. Kaiser would cover it. The ophthalmologist offered it as a solution. I chose Botox because the brow lift would eliminate whatever forehead I had. Dr. Farringer assured me I’d have the same amount of forehead after the surgery, but that’s because he’d make the incision above my hairline. What would happen to the hair in the area of the incision?

I mentioned the surgical solution to Dean and Nina. They scoffed. The doctor would make a tidy profit from my surgery.

Fifth-grade ZN’s mother texted me early in the day to tell me he wouldn’t make it tonight. He was invited to a birthday party for his cousin.

I did have fifth-grade GV and fourth-grade LG. GV wanted to prepare for the state exam, which would be administered the following week. I used questions about division from IXL fourth-grade math, “Complete the division equation.” He didn’t have a clue. The questions were about finding the missing number in the equation. He had a poor idea of how to solve any of the problems on his own. I showed him the triangle, with the product on the top angle and the two products of divisor and dividend and the bottom two angles. I hope he would remember to refer to it when doing such problems.

I hope he would remember to refer to it when doing such problems. i showed him the triangle to depict the multiplication/division fact family.

He said, “Ah! That makes sense.” But we’ll have to see if he’d remember it in our next session on Wednesday.

With LG, I continued working on multiplying a two-digit number by a one-digit number. I asked if he did better in school after our last session when he locked himself in place and breathed while I modeled the procedure. He said yes, but he did only slightly better as I modeled it.

LG asked if he could work on his multiplication facts. I’m sure learning them took a chunk out of his soul. He had made progress. When I started modeling multiplying a 2-digit by a one-digit number, he managed to control his body and not wriggle or get up and walk away, but his mind went blank.

I created problems with the 9 times table because that’s what he had been happiest using to demonstrate his knowledge at the beginning of the session.

12 13 14 15

X9 X9 X9 X9

I drew the lines showing the order of the process each time. Then I gave him 21. He multiplied 9 x2 first. He thought he always had to multiply the number one first instead of the number in the one's place.

There is nothing wrong with this child’s brain. He was a nine-year-old kid who took an old computer, got his father to order the parts online, and built a new one on his own. I thought he learned it from his. Nope, he learned it from YouTube videos. The poor kid wants to be an engineer but can’t learn anything abstract. He has full-blown panic attacks when he has to deal with the abstract. He thinks something’s wrong with his brain. There isn’t. His blank mind is a typical result of panic.

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Easter Sunday. I got up early, as I needed to leave earlier than usual. Good thing I did. Ali'i Street fronts the church. It's a two-lane road with a 15 mph speed limit and stop signs. The traffic is always heavy. I spotted a man from the parking lot ministry as I approached the church driveway. He guided the traffic in and out of the church, stopping the road traffic when needed. Everyone was respectful of his directions. I found plenty of parking spots.

I finally have a satisfying name for the source of my agony: loneliness. In the past, being in the company of others helped, but it doesn't seem to do me as much good anymore.

A college roommate identified me as lonely in my freshman year of college. I don't know what she saw in me, but it's true. This feeling isn't new. I remember it from when I was four. I always felt lonely. I have no idea where I got my expectations. I can't be the only human who didn't get the needed 'connection' with their parents. But I have a concept of connectedness that defines my sense of well-being. I think many, if not most, mothers bond with their infant children. My mother was not one of those mothers. She focused on her responsibilities. She did that well.

Mike and I went through a period in our marriage when we lost that connection. We didn't fight; we weren't rude or uncaring. We didn't have that connection. We both considered leaving the marriage quietly within our minds. Then, suddenly, it broke. We spoke about it when it happened. We both had considered leaving and concluded we had nowhere else we wanted to go, and the other person was a good person. We would make ourselves comfortable within the remaining emotional space. As I said, it broke. Our remaining years were joyful.

It brings us back to the question of what a loving or even satisfying connection with another human being is. Love has different faces. Christianity and Buddhism speak of compassion. Fr. Boyle of Homeboy Industries helps LA gang members rejoin society, speaking of not offering others compassion but Kinship. Compassion's near enemy is pity, which is too often taken for compassion.

How does Kinship differ from compassion? We feel compassion for someone who suffers in ways we don't or aren't at that moment. They are the other. Kinship acknowledges the shared suffering of all human beings. It acknowledges that we could all suffer what someone else suffers. This Kinship is attained through cognitive and emotional empathy.

But all meaningful connections have a similar feeling of bonding. What creates that feeling? It's something neurological. Our brains synchronize; we're in harmony.

The shortcut to that harmony is mob action, whether it's a military, a crazed mob, a rally, a rock concert, or a crisis. The unrestrained emotional output of those events unites us. There are more subtle bonding experiences: classical music concerts, lectures, and unexpectedly, running into a single human being who shares our beliefs, religious, political, cultural, or philosophical. We even know how close the person is to our point of view by how we harmonize with them. The harmony can be blocked by caution. Sex is undoubtedly a way to harmonize. If we're lucky, we meet one or two people with whom we harmonize enough to make us feel connected at all times. I had that with Mike. I had 45 years of it. As I said above, it wasn't perfect. When people tell their partner they don't feel loved, I suspect it's the absence of that feeling they are referring to.

Having a common cultural practice or fixed roles can provide a sense of connection and belonging. Actors achieve commonality by fulfilling their roles in scripts. They all have a part to play. A strong family structure can ensure that. We had 'assigned seats' at the dinner table in my family home. It provided me with a strong sense of security that might be lacking through other means. That provided a type of bonding.

Sometimes, we bond with people by following a destructive script involving endless fights. Relationships can't be judged from the outside so easily. People find each other according to their needs. We look for the 'negatives' in people as well as the 'positives.' We prefer not to be consciously aware of it, but there's plenty of research backing up that theory. The question is not where the relationship starts but where it ends. Are the two people good for each other? Do they become better people through the relationship?

I observed one couple and developed a theory of complementary neuroses. We inevitably seek out someone who complements us. How we respond is not inevitable. I found myself attracted to the same kind of man over and over. He would be just like my mom, defensive. I let Mike into my life because I recognized my poor choices. I set out to date any man I didn't think would do me bodily harm and do precisely what I wanted to do. I set a limit on how often we could date and how often he could call me. Mike was the third date. I still would have rejected him had he not decided he was going to marry me before our first date and remained persistent.

In today's sermon, Fr. Lio spoke about exiting the parking lot, pleading for patience, kindness, and respect for the parking ministry's directions. I left shortly after Mass. There were no donuts and coffee today. They wanted people out as soon as possible.

I headed to Target, only to be surprised by an empty parking lot. Do all Target stores close on the major holidays? I have no idea.

I did a bit of gardening, loading a bucket of garden waste to take to Darby. I planned to carry the dozen eggs Dean and Nina left with me for her in the bucket to her house. Before I could, Darby was at my door to pick them up. I walked her back to her house carrying the bucket while she carried the eggs. Darby showed me around her property. I saw all the places she stuck orchids, tied to a post or tree, or stuck between some rocks. You have to do less when planting orchids rather than more.

I had one student, fourth-grade MH. She chose to work on the dictation/spelling exercise. It was a passage we'd started a while ago that proved confusing. We reviewed the sentences we had already covered. "Few early Americans used rugs on their floors. Instead, they were painted colorful designs." I asked, if few Americans used rugs on their floors what do you think their floors looked like? She said they had rugs.

I drew a line: "none a few a lot all." First, I just wrote 'all.' What's the opposite of all? She got none easily. Where would I place a few' on the line? First, she said closer to all than none. She corrected herself.

If only a few early Americans had rugs, would you be more likely to find a rug in that house or not? She said you'd be more likely to find a rug. It turned into a math lesson. I find these kids have serious problems with pattern recognition and probability. I know that when they're methodically walked through a problem, they can learn how to do it themselves. I have to try this passage for comprehension with Twin A. I have to try this passage with all my students.

Saturday, April 19, 2025

I had no students today. I thought I would have the Twins. When I tried to connect, Mama K texted me to say they were down south at her uncle's 80th birthday party. She planned for the girls to meet with me. She brought the iPad in anticipation, but no Internet connection was available.

I went out to do some gardening and worked on updates intermittently. Mostly, I slept.

I've been contemplating a definition of love, a loving or even satisfying connection with another human being. Love has different faces. Christianity and Buddhism speak of compassion. Fr. Boyle of Homeboy Industries, which helps LA gang members join or rejoin society, speaks of not offering compassion but kinship.

How does kinship differ from compassion? We feel compassion for someone who suffers in ways we don't. They are the other. Kinship acknowledges the shared suffering of all human beings. It believes that we could all suffer what someone else suffers. This kinship is attained through cognitive and emotional empathy.

But all meaningful connections have a similar feeling of bonding. What creates that feeling? It's something neurological. Our brains synchronize; we're in harmony.

I heard a TED Talk on the subject. The speaker told the audience that while their brains were all on different frequencies before the talk started, the moment the speech began, their brains reflected a similar pattern. (This was based on research in similar situations.) So, a shared activity produces synchronization. There are short-term and long-term synchronizations.

The shortcut to that harmony is some form of mob action, whether a military action, a crazed mob, a rally, a rock concert, or a crisis. The unrestrained emotional response to a singular event unites us. There are more subtle bonding experiences, such as classical music concerts, lectures, or running into a single person who shares our religious, political, cultural, or philosophical beliefs. When traveling, we can bond with someone just because they come from the same country. We even know how close the person is to our point of view by how we harmonize with them. The harmony can be blocked by caution. Sex is undoubtedly a way to harmonize. If we're lucky, we meet one or two people with whom we harmonize well enough to feel safe and connected all the time. I had that with Mike. I had 45 years of it. As I said above, it wasn't perfect. When people tell their partner they don't feel loved, I suspect they are referring to that neurological synchronization.

Having a common cultural practice or fixed roles can provide a sense of connection and belonging. Actors achieve commonality by fulfilling their roles in scripts. They all have a part to play. A strong family structure can ensure that. We had 'assigned seats' at the dinner table in my family home. I feel it provided me with a strong sense of security that might be lacking through other means. That provided a type of bonding.

Sometimes, we bond with people by following a script that looks destructive, is destructive, and involves endless fights. Relationships can't be judged from the outside so easily. People find each other according to their needs. We look for the 'negatives' in people as well as the 'positives.' We prefer not to be consciously aware of it, but there's plenty of research backing up that theory. The question is not where the relationship starts but where it ends. Are the two people good for each other? Do they become better people through the relationship?

I observed one couple and developed a theory of complementary neurosis. We inevitably seek out someone like that. How we respond is not. I found myself attracted to the same kind of man over and over. He would be just like my mom, defensive. I let Mike into my life because I recognized my poor choices. I set out to date any man I didn't think would do me bodily harm and did what I wanted to do. I set a limit on how often we could date and how often he could call me. Mike was the third date. I still would have rejected him had he not decided to marry me before our first date and been persistent.

My theory has holes in it. Love has something to do with safety, not just for protection against others but also being a safe place to be. I felt bonded with my mother throughout my childhood. When I told her I didn't want to talk to her for a while because I had always been afraid of her, I was sad about losing my bond with her. My mom was very committed to her children. She took her responsibility seriously. As I learned later in life, she loved being a mother. That came as a shock. How can someone be constantly angry at her children and be happy to be a mom? But I had glimpses of her love for me. That was enough to keep me hanging on? The question here is, did I do it because I wanted her to love me or because I loved her? People often confuse the desire to be loved by someone with loving them.

Harlow's monkeys clung to the wire mothers with the soft cloth cover rather than the bare-wire ones with the milk. We settle for what we can get. Is that love?

My neurological synchronization argument might not be it, either. Can't people synchronize in mutual hatred? Maybe neurological synchronization isn't a good, simple answer. Love has to be a synchronization of a specific sort. Does it involve particular parts of the brain or specific frequencies? I know it when I feel it. However, I have sometimes felt that warm, comfortable presence with someone who wound up disliking me intensely. I have more questions than I have answers.

she had a trip to Costco planned. We haven’t seen each other in person for years. Twin E was with her. I got to give her a hug.

I didn’t have a single tutoring session today, and I was good with that. It’s spring break. Fourth-grade LG always goes away for school breaks to grandparents. It gives his parents a break from childcare. Mama K and Twin E were in Kona and not available. Fifth-grade GV had a playdate, and his mom asked if I could switch the session to tomorrow. Sure. I got gardening done. The plumbagos were getting out of control. I must ensure they don’t expand into my neighbor’s yard. As Darby says, we don’t plant in Hawaii; we just cut back.

Friday, April 18, 2025

I met with the Twins at 8 am. It was Good Friday, and they had the day off. I started with Twin A. I told her outright that if she wanted to work with me less, she had to begin decoding the longer words instead of guessing, using only the first letters of the words, and even ignoring the context. We worked on comprehension. She read two passages on the same topic but from different perspectives and had to determine the main idea. She knew the vocabulary. She was mentally 'lazy,' as many of my students were. If it didn't pop into her head immediately, she wasn't interested in giving it a moment to figure it out. Could it be she doesn't know how to do that? I should consider that and not assume hostility. It works better when I take a sympathetic point of view of the student's motivation.
   Twin E chose to work on the dictation and spelling exercise, where I dictate phrases, clauses, or sentences. She had to remember the words and spell them out to me. She still struggled at a 3rd-grade level. The disparity between the girls is a concern. Twin A tests on a fifth-grade level in reading now, while Twin E is a good two years behind.
Twin E experienced a trauma that Twin A didn't. She fell out of a two-story window when she was crawling. The doctors gave her a clean bill of health physically, but how did the fall and everyone's reaction affect her?
   Elsa had a 1:30 vet appointment to get a vaccine shot and an ear culture, the latter at my request. I wanted the test to provide concrete information about the effectiveness of the treatment I had been using. It had been a month since her last test. I requested the results from the test taken a month ago so I could compare them. Was the yeast infection better, worse, or the same? It was better.
   Elsa is prone to ear infections. The vet says her ears react to the same allergens that caused her skin lesions. She has had many rounds of treatment. The vet always said to return in two weeks to check her ears. I never did before this last treatment. Her ears looked clear. Why did I have to have the vet check them? I don't know why I went back for the checkup after the last round.
The vet entered the room and declared, "Of course, she still has an ear infection!" It's a complicated problem to deal with. I told her I found a way to stop her skin outbreaks. The vet snarled, "That's temporary!" Whatever the vets had prescribed wasn't even that. Her lesions got worse. She didn't say so, but I believe she wanted me to put her on medication. I had her on medication at one point; it did no good.
She told me about one poor dog with intractable ear infections. They fixed the problem by sewing up his ears, preventing environmental allergens from entering them.
   That last bit gave me an idea. Elsa's skin problem had been solved by bathing her once a week and leaving a heavy coat of conditioner on. With her skin coated, the allergens couldn't affect her. I could do the same for her ears. Every morning, I coated her ear flaps and outer ears with Intrasound gel, known in the family as "Makes No Claims." Also, every morning, I injected 3 mL of a half-and-half solution of apple cider vinegar and Epiotic, an ear-cleansing solution for pets, and every night, a solution of Epiotic and Intrasound powder. The results were rewarding. Where she had a +1 rating in both ears a month ago, there was no or negligible infection in her left ear. She still had a +1 in her right. That was the worst ear all along. I felt safe in assuming the infection was less. Yay! I found a non-toxic solution to both her skin and ear problems.
    I asked the receptionist for a document proving Elsa had received her vaccine and headed down to Petco. I was halfway to town already. Elsa needed a grooming. I could take care of it immediately.
   The groomer couldn't take her today but could tomorrow. I handed her the vaccine documentation. She looked at it and said, "I couldn't have groomed her today anyway. You're not supposed to do it immediately after receiving a vaccination. You needed to leave time in case the dog had a negative reaction. Also, you needed to wait for the pinprick from the infection to seal before bathing her." I had an appointment the next day at 9:30. Elsa and I headed home.
I only had one student for the day, fifth-grade GV. We continued working on math. He grabbed a piece of paper. He wanted to take notes so he could tell his mom what we had done when she asked. We covered a great deal in half an hour. I didn't take notes. However, I see how logical thinking patterns are taught through math for the first time. There are other ways of teaching them. My dad taught us syllogistic and dialectic reasoning over dinner.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

I woke up this morning in my too-often-usual agitated state. My nightmare is people who insist they are the only ones who know everything. I had a situation where I asked someone for something I wanted, stating my reason for wanting it. They finally gave me something that addressed my request, because they realized what my ‘real’ concern was. They said no to my original request because they deemed my reason ‘irrational’ and said yes when they came up with a ‘rational ‘ reason for my request. How’s that for gaslighting? I don’t care who the person is who’s asking, from my point of view, the decision should only be based on “I can do it” or” I want to do it” versus “I can’t do it/ I don’t want to do it.” That’s what it all boils down to.

I can hear you arguing, there’s more involved. Yes and no. There’s certainly more involved if someone threatens me. Someone holds a gun to my head demanding something from me, money or sex, I don’t want to cooperate, but will because I don’t want to be shot. If an addicted family member pleads with me to give money for drugs, do I say yes or no? There’s what I want to do and what I can do. If I have the money, should I give it? That’s the ‘can’ aspect. Do I want to give them money, knowing they will go out to buy drugs? I guess that many people in this position are torn. Our heads and our hearts do battle with each other. Judgment in this situation is appropriate. Judgment is appropriate when someone is doing something harmful to themselves or others. Addicts self-harm and often harm others. But what’s the right call? It’s not that easy. Whatever we do, don’t justify it. We do it because we want to.

I learned not to judge the reasonableness of others’ actions in my sophomore year in college. I attended a talk; I think the presenter was a minister. He told the story of a college professor in an Asian Indian College. One year, he had a student yell out in the middle of class. Naturally, he ordered him to leave. The student did the same thing two more times. The school had a rule that missing three classes three times was grounds for expulsion. The professor marveled at the student’s irrational behavior, concluding the student was mentally ill.

Many years later, he stayed in a hotel in Switzerland. When he went to pay his bill, he was told it had been covered by the manager. He asked to speak to the man. It was the student he had thrown out of his class many years ago. The student had behaved that way not because he was mentally unbalanced but because he didn’t want to go to college. His father had forced him to go. The man wanted to go to the family hotel business. With the help of this professor, he got his way. The minister's message was, never assume someone else’s behavior is irrational just because it doesn’t make sense to you. I’ve carried that message with me for the rest of my life.

What does being irrational even mean? For most of us, it means behaving in ways we don’t understand. There’s also the definition of being guided by strong emotions. A mother fiercely defending her child from a dog attack is irrational, meaning she is strongly guided by emotions. Is there something ‘irrational’ about that behavior in a bad way? My guess is the answer is a universal no. We’re back to what irrational means to us: it doesn’t make sense to me.

If we have to forego the wonderful defense of rationality versus irrationality, how do we set our boundaries? We’re back to “I can” / “I want to,” or “I can’t”/ I don’t want to,” clearly demarking our boundaries without involving the larger world of abstraction.

I had a session with Shelly, my therapist/life coach, today. Very interesting. In the past, I had many therapists who were antagonistic toward me, considering me a total mess. Now, I have two I have to convince I need help in ways they don’t consider a problem. The things that upset me sound reasonable to them. Knowing that I’m an empath, someone who can read the minds and feelings of others, they think of me as better than people who only want to know their own thoughts. I’m with Ben Franklin: “Everything in moderation.” There’s no one way that’s better than the other.

I consider myself overly reactive. At eighteen, I saw that I shared the tendency with my mother and swore I would never have children and subject them to what I had been subjected to. I’ve spent the rest of my life trying not to be that person. As I recovered over the years, I would marvel at how something that had triggered me in the past now triggered only a minimal or no response. I don’t mean I didn’t ‘act out.” I mean, I had no internal response. That’s what I wanted to work for. Living life like a burn victim, sensitive to every touch, as my mother lived, was not for me. I tried to change not only for my own sake, but also because I thought my mother’s behavior was immoral. She had no regard for her impact on others.

I wound up arguing with both Rob and Shelly this week about my reactivity. Rob argued it wasn’t pathological. I agreed, but it was dysfunctional. Shelly argued that I was that way because I was an empath, someone who could feel what others felt. I argued that my responses were infantile. Wow! That rang a bell.

I have described others as infantile in their responses. I have family members whom I see that way, my mother for one, and two others that come to mind. If they don’t get their way, they find it intolerable.

The thought I had that made a difference was that if the reaction is infantile, the trauma happened in infancy. I know that was true for my mom. That brought about a significant change in my strategy. When I respond to a trigger in my adult state, it’s usually verbal. When I consider my experience from an infantile perspective, the view is different. An infant lies there helplessly, utterly dependent on the care of others. If that care isn’t cautious of the infant's nervous system, it can be damaging. I was my mother’s first. All first-time mothers in our culture approach motherhood with apprehension. With the second, they’re good to go. They’ve been there, done it, and no one died. My mother approached all tasks with alarm even when my sister and I were adolescents. I had to think what she was like when I was a newborn. Besides that, she never held either me or my sister the way you expect a mother to hold her child. She never allowed herself to take pleasure in bonding. She thought there was something wrong with that. Go figure!

Vipassana, a form of Buddhist meditation, teaches us not to think about our problems or emotions, not to categorize anything, but to maintain our focus on our physical sensations in every part of our body. We’re instructed to focus on a small section of our foot until we feel a change in the sensation, then methodically move from one small spot to the next over our whole body, watching for changes in sensation.

I had been feeling vibrating sensations within my body for about a month. I assumed I was becoming highly sensitive. It was an annoying sensation. There wasn’t an emotion attached to it. I wasn’t upset; I just marveled at the feeling. I chose to focus on the sensation in relation to my infant state, vibrating with my fear and my mother’s fears. It made a difference. Let’s see what the long-term impact will be. Hopefully, it will be good.

I never strived to be one of those folks who appeared on a Maury Povich show with people who talked calmly about abusive situations. I know those folks were reactive, but in a different way from me. There used to be only two recognized responses to fear: fight and flight. A third was added to the list: freeze, staying with the F pattern. (In the 1980s, when I audited a neuroscience class at Princeton University, there were the Four F’s on basic human responses: fight, flight, feed, and sex. No one is talking about feed and sex anymore. The focus is all on fear responses.) The folks on the Povich show were reactive, but it manifested in different ways. Several of my students suffer from the freeze response when new material is introduced. Their brains freeze, and they can’t comprehend what is being said.

Fourth-grade LG is one of them. I considered it tremendous progress when he didn’t go into freeze response but into a flight response. Instead of curling up and shutting down, he would get up and walk around. Then he progressed to the point where he could identify his fear.

We had a breakthrough today. We reviewed addition and subtraction with 6-digit numbers with regrouping. No problem. How did he feel about talking about multiplication? He could handle talking about the multiplication facts, but not multiplying a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number.

I told him he didn’t have to do anything but watch. He couldn’t sit still. He was on the move. He found another seat in a spinning chair. I led him through the visualization to release some of the fear. That did something until I went back to modeling the multiplication problem. He shifted in the chair. I saw him doing something with his hand. What was he doing? Drawing. He said it helped calm him. I said that it would be good if it helped him stay calm while learning, but it doesn’t.

Then I told him to grip the arms of the chair and not move, and to breathe. He compulsively drew. I would tell him to stop, but he grabbed for the pencil again. Then, he threw the pen across the room out of temptation. That was very brave of him.

I told him we all had to deal with fear, fear of failure, fear of rejection, oh so many fears. I’m sure I’d told him this was something all humans had to deal with, not just him. I’m sure I told him that before, but he heard it differently this time. I also told him that every time he moved, driven by fear, he was telling his body that he had something to be afraid of. He had to resist moving.

This isn’t some weird strategy for dealing with fear that I made up; the Buddha is the one behind this. This is what Vipassana meditation is about.

LG did it. He gripped and didn’t move. I asked if I could put a line under the multiplication problem. Yes. Could I multiply the first number in the problem? Yes. Could I multiply the second number in the problem? Yes. He looked calm. He was ready for this exercise. I could never have done this with him even a few months ago. I hoped today’s exercise would have some long-lasting benefits. We’ll see.

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

I woke up early last night and only dozed intermittently for the rest of the night. My spirits were raised. I have no idea why. I can only be grateful that I wasn't caught in grief. I hadn't even enjoyed writing during this period. That's pretty bad. I love putting thoughts into words.

Many years ago, in the 1980s, I had a twelve-year-old student named Matthew. One day, I gave him a ride to the shopping center to meet his mother. He asked, 'Do you like to talk?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I love to talk." After a brief silence, I said, "I love to think." He followed with, "Yeah. Think about talking." We then shared how people often told us to shut up. That was at least forty years ago. I wonder what became of Matthew.

There was another incident with him. His mom had come to pick him up. We chatted for a minute. Matthew asked me a personal question. His mom told him he was rude. I said I asked personal questions. She said, "But you're sensitive.' I assured her I hadn't been at twelve. My sensitivity was learned through experience and failure to be sensitive. My guess is Matthew remembers those moments as much as I do.

As I lay in bed before rising, I had some thoughts. Yvette showed me her rash. Holy cow! She was covered with redness and bumps from her ribs down to her hips. I just got a quick glimpse. As I lay in bed, I remembered it was only on the left side of her body, from the front midline to the back. That could be shingles. I was anxious to speak to her. When I got hold of her, she told me she had thought of it. The rash wasn't as painful as shingles usually are. I had shingles twice: the first time, I was twelve, and the second time, I was sixty. In the first bout, it hurt when I scratched it. That's how my parents figured out it wasn't just any rash. Other than that, there was no pain either time. Shingles is infamous for its pain because when it is painful, it is very painful.

Yvette said there was no pain, not even when she gave in to the temptation to scratch. There were other counterindications. I suggested she get a shingles vaccination as soon as possible. I never had any residual effects from the outbreaks, but I understand they can be life-altering.

Mama K texted me first thing in the morning to let me know the girls would be busy today and couldn't meet with me. She is much better at communicating and supporting my work with the girls than she used to be. Recently, I commented that she hadn't supported it as much at first because she held out no hope for the Twins. Since Twin A is reading on grade level and doing reasonably well in math, she's changed her tune.

I had an appointment with fifth-grade GV at 1:30. I was available at that hour because the Twins had canceled. We continued working on math. He aced the addition of fractions with mixed denominators. He got an answer of 1 and 3/15 but didn't understand he had to reduce the fraction to its lowest terms. I planned to review that in our next session.

I asked if he wanted to work on multiplication of fractions. He said no, he wanted to work on his multiplication facts. He didn't know how to multiply 6 x 9=. I told him to find the nearest multiplication fact he knew and use it to add and subtract from there. I gave him 6 x 10=. He didn't have a clue. I had to show him the pattern. Whenever I showed him another pattern, he would say, "Cool!" However, he didn't look for patterns on his own. I would have to teach him to do it.

I drew a number line and wrote out the 6 times table. He said he used that idea when finding the lowest common denominator, but not to solve multiplication problems without fractions. I can see why he has a low mark for his complex thinking skills.

I signed on at 4:20 for my session with LG. I had forgotten his mom said we had to do it earlier because there was an event at the school at 5 pm. I still had one appointment with him the next day..

I finally had fifth-grade ZN at the end of the day. I told him he had a fantastic memory for spelling, but not when it came to reading words. I thought of a way he could transfer his good spelling skills to reading. I had him look at each word of the first 50 words on the Fry Sight word list, then, using his index finger, 'write/spell' the word on a textured surface. He aced every one of the first 25 and got 23 out of the second 25. Then, I had him read and 'spell' every word in the passage he had spelled in our last session. Again, he read every word accurately. I may be on to something, or it may just be a fluke. We'll see.

While the Orton-Gillingham instructor focused on phonics, I had a background in cognition and neuroscience, which was not readily available at that time. Educators focused on presenting information without considering students' cognitive and emotional needs.

I started watching A Remarkable Place to Die on Netflix. I'm enjoying the production, but it's worthwhile watching for the views. It takes place somewhere in Australia.

Because GV's teacher said nothing other than she had done some work with him before I started working with him, it left me wondering what she thought of his improvement. Did she think I had any impact, or did she believe it was all her work? Believe it or not, education is a very competitive field. We're rarely sure of our impact on our students. We can be sure we put together a good lesson, but we cannot know how it impacted our students. Did she think the school had done it all, that she had done it all, and his family was wasting their time and money on me? Her silence left me feeling uncomfortable.

I commented about the schools not allowing volunteers to help the children. The school has bought into the Success for All program, which insists the students should not be exposed to any other method. GV's teacher agreed it was a ridiculous proposition. While the program is a good one, no one approach will always address the needs of all the children. One has to wonder why a company or a school district would adopt such an extreme stance.

I worked with Shelly today. I worked myself into a state of agitation again. Damn! We need to deal with the human condition of inner rage when we don't get what we want. It comes out one way or another. We have to learn to live with it. I help others face it. It's such an unpleasant emotion. I love being loving, kinship-love a la Father Boyle of the Homeboys Industries instead of the compassionate form of love. Compassion often separates us from others. It says I'm okay, but you're not. Kinship acknowledges we're all in the same boat.

I pulled up an Audible mystery that captivated me for the whole day. It's well written and well read: Tim Sullivan's The Patient. That was my day.

I ran into Fifth grade GV's homeroom teacher this morning. I hadn't seen her for about a year. I've been walking later, and she had stopped running in my neighborhood regularly. First, she caught me up on the developments in her personal life. She had been in the process of leaving her husband, the father of her children, last year. They had been in couples counseling forever, and nothing had changed. She had filed for divorce and started dating again. She fell in love. She said she never thought she could feel that way about someone. They got married shortly after her divorce was finalized. She had moved to the other side of Kaiminani, and she and her new husband were looking for another place to live.

She told me she was fifth-grade GV's homeroom teacher. I would love to have had feedback from her, but she felt she was required to respect his privacy; she could face charges if she didn't. I didn't feel quite as confined. I don't talk about my clients publicly, except on the updates where I don't use their names. Writing about them serves two purposes. It helps me think through their issues and how to resolve them. Second, I believe I have worthwhile insights into teaching, and it's a way to put my ideas out there.

I shared that GV had made significant improvement in his word recognition and fluency skills. He still got stuck on multi-syllable words, primarily because he couldn't tolerate not understanding the meaninglessness of the individual syllables. They usually have none.

In phonics training, some programs have students work on nonsense syllables. The Whole Language folks find that a waste of time or worse. However, that's what readers encounter in multi-syllable words and nonsense syllables. GV has a low tolerance for things that don't make immediate sense. It's perhaps the biggest obstacle to his learning. You need to have a tolerance for not knowing to be a good learner and producer. Having a high tolerance for failure is an essential key to success. His teacher only commented that his low tolerance for uncertainty also impacts his social relationships.

GV had made substantial improvements in spelling, but he couldn't sustain it when writing. The neurological load when composing, writing what he composes (versus dictating), and spelling is too much. I realize teachers have marveled about students doing well on spelling tests but not when they write. It's now clear to me why that happens. I teach spelling by dictating whole paragraphs. They have the opportunity to practice writing the little words as well as the big ones. Spelling tests these days include dictated sentences, but only in the context of a test. Testing is not a good way to teach. It only identifies what the student has trouble with. I have never seen a teacher teach students how to study spelling. It's as if everyone should know what to do. I learned my study skills from my dad. If parents don't know more than their children do, the kids sink. This may explain the heavy correlation between Socioeconomic status (SES) and student performance.

I'm working on comprehension with GV now, too. He dismisses information as incorrect when he disagrees with it and, therefore, gets the wrong answer. He doesn't know the difference between comprehension and agreement. Many of the kids I work with have this problem, and I have to revisit it repeatedly.

In his writing, I find his sentences awkward. The method I use, having the students dictate their stories to me, significantly impacts their language development because they hear me modeling how to express their ideas. I started using this method without considering the consequences other than creating a well-written story based on the student's ideas. I was as surprised as everyone else about the impact on their verbal expression skills, both oral and written. I have recently incorporated using Grammarly with them to correct their work (and my typing) for clarity. Grammarly is an impersonal evaluator. Using it on my updates has improved the quality of my writing. When using it with students, they can choose whether or not to use Grammarly's suggestion. I can chime in if I think their manner of expression is unclear. I rarely do. What I do with many students is write their stories myself, using their sketchy input. That's where I have to start with some kids. Then, slowly, they start giving me whole sentences.

I pulled up an Audible mystery that captivated me for the whole day. It's well-written and well read: Tim Sullivan's The Patient. That was my day.

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

I slept well but woke in a pit of a mood. My bad moods seemed to be getting worse, and I was concerned I might be digging myself into a hole. There are life circumstances I can't change that make me sad, but I have enough of a life to be content.

I had time in the morning, so Elsa and I visited Paulette to get more Kangen water. When we arrived, we had trouble finding even one stuffed mouse. Elsa located one on the end table next to the rocking loveseat. Paulette threw that for a while. Then, Elsa couldn't find it. Paulette peered over the railing of the lanai. There, it lay on the ground below. Paulette headed down with Elsa to get it. When she came up, she said there must be another one around. She found a white one; then, she had a black and a white one. Before she left, she located a green one. Elsa was in heaven.

I had to leave before 11:30 because I had an appointment with Tomi, the craniosacral therapist. I had to drop off Elsa before heading out. As I made the U-turn to go down her driveway, Paulette told me to turn off the motor and come look at the front of my car. I had smashed into some shrubs, making the turn. I assumed there would be some damage. She said no, it was something else; I was to come and look. When I did, I saw a narrow black plastic strip that resembled a refrigerator gasket. It didn't look like a serious problem. I was in a hurry. I would drive until the car told me it would quit. Then I'd call Tomi to tell her I had a problem and couldn't make it.

After dropping Elsa off at our house, I drove to my appointment. I got there 10 minutes early. Tomi's energy is spectacularly good. She works in silence, focusing on physical changes. She asked if the left hip replacement caused problems with my right hip, which I was having some issues with now. I told her the doctor told me that the arthritis was worse in my right hip than in my left before the surgery. The pain had been worse in my left hip because an accident had caused an angled joint. Also, my left thigh was visibly different from my right one in my twenties. The left thigh was slender; the right looked beefy. I preferred the look of the left. It was the underused leg. It was the disparity of use that caused my hip problems, back problems, neck problems, etc. This problem had been in the making for a long time.

While Tomi thought the surgery caused problems in other joints, I thought it caused changes in the body that people didn't consider significant. They were just relieved to be out of pain. I had to look away as I watched people move after the surgery. I saw how they were moving their bodies, freshly liberated from pain. I saw how that movement was impacting their other joints. Ow!! No wonder they needed a second hip replacement and two knee replacements to boot.

After my session with Tomi, I drove right to the Kia service station. Joe took one look at me and gave a wan smile. I told him I thought my car yearned to be home at Kia. No, it was not the old problem the shop had worked on for several years.

A mechanic came out, bent down, and peered under my car. While the gasket was no longer visible from the front, he could see it. He said it was installed during the manufacturing process to protect certain parts of the car. Joe asked if I wanted him to remove it. He said he couldn't guarantee it wouldn't do damage to something else. If I kept driving with it dragging, it would eventually catch on to something and detach. I chose that.

I immediately went to Ulu Wini to tutor the kids in the low-income housing units. I was there by 1:30, expecting to have time to work on my updates. However, I saw fourth-grade LK playing on the playground equipment. I asked him what he was doing at home. He had a doctor's appointment. Did he want to work with me? Yes, he needed help with comprehension. I did a fourth-grade IXL exercise for the main idea. He had no concept of categorization. When I asked him what apples, bananas, and oranges all had in common, he had no idea what I was talking about. I don't think he was ever exposed to the concept of categorization.

I ran into the same problem with second-grade JM. I see this problem a lot, not just among children from poor families with little education, but among my white middle-class students whose parents went to college. Huh?

I finally had second-grade KK. He also wanted to work on the spin release. I thought he would fight against it. There's no way I would force this on someone; it's too profound a change. I also told him I didn't feel well enough to work with him. I need to be alert and watchful of the children's reactions during that process.

I also discussed the warts on the palm of his hand. He couldn't work with the slime because they were contagious. He first told me he was born with them. I took a close look at his hand. Yes, he had some 'freckles' on his palm, but that didn't explain the grey, rough, raised spots. He said his mom would take him to the doctor when they had the money to have them lasered off. They had been diagnosed as warts. I said they could buy something at the drugstore. He said they didn't have an extra dollar. They had no money. I first volunteered to buy it for him. Then I thought better of that idea. I could get in trouble. I spoke to the director of the center. She said he had insurance. She would talk to the mom.

I had my second session with a fourth-grade OW. He tests at the high third-grade level, the mid-fourth-grade level, and the low fifth-grade level. I turned my attention to comprehension and his insecurity. I did the WbyW activity, which uses questions instead of sentence diagramming to figure out the relationships between parts of sentences and sentences to each other. He did very well. I encouraged him to form the questions. I never do that. He's the only student I could do it with without extensive training.

As we worked, he frequently glanced to his left. I asked him what he was looking at. He said his younger brother was a few months younger than him and in the same grade. His mother wasn't asking for help with that brother. Oh boy. Is that brother soaring ahead? That would be hard on the nerves. I did some EFT tapping with him to relieve his fear of making mistakes.

OW had closed the door to his room to prevent his brother from sticking his head in. But then, at the end of the session, it sounded like his mother was in the room, talking to someone else, perhaps his brother. It was disturbing.

I had my second session with fifth-grade ZN at the end of the day. He didn't want to read the two Carpenter stories we had worked on so far. he wanted to work on the sight word list. He got stuck several times on the first twenty-five words, which are the most frequently appearing words in any text in the English language. That's how the Fry list was compiled.

The original sight word list was published by Dolch in 1936. He was a proponent of the Whole Word method, a precursor of the Whole Language Method. Both methods opposed the use of phonics in teaching reading. Fry's was the result of a computer program that ordered the words by their frequency of appearance in the text. The word 'oil' is 78 out of 1000. Words 1-100 are on the first-grade list. I doubt the word can be found in any first-grade children's literature. The literature used to compile the list includes newspapers. Oil was a high-frequency word when the list was generated. What would its place on the list be now?

I don't remember how the next activity came about. ZN must have proposed it. He wanted to spell words. I got a surprise, more like a shock. His spelling was excellent.

He generated the list. Basketball, meeting, Hot Wheels, Hawaiian, light, and Happy Valentine's Day. Basketball, meeting, Hot Wheels, Hawaiian, light, and Happy Valentine's Day. He spelled everyone correctly.

Seeing how well he spelled, I dictated words to him from a second-grade text to see how he would do: A baby only three days old likes water that is sweet better than water that is not sweet. Even a baby can tell one kind of water from the other. Except for spelling the final -er as -ar, he spelled every word correctly but couldn't read the words he had just spelled. Oh, boy.

I remembered Aylett Cox, the woman who created the Alphabetic Phonics program, where I got my certification as an Orton-Gillingham instructor, saying that she could not help children who could spell better than they could read. Let's see if I can find a solution.

Monday, April 14, 2025

After returning from my morning walk, I affixed a battery to the hedge trimmer and set it near the shrub I planned to work on. This would push me to get it done. Then, I went inside, finished my morning NY Times puzzles, and ate my breakfast. Did I hear rain? I sure did. I rushed out to save my hedge trimmer. It poured for most of the day, so much for my gardening plans. I devoted the day to indoor chores. I washed the floors.

At 3 pm, I had fifth-grade GV. I reviewed adding fractions with unlike denominators. Forget it! Well, he had. I started from scratch. He got it with a bit of refreshing. I then taught him how to reduce fractions. I started with the number line. That didn’t work for division as it did for multiplication when finding the common denominator. What did I do when I was a kid? Ah. I started with the two times table. Did two go into both the numerator and denominator? If not, I tried 3, and so on, and he got that.

I discovered that he didn’t know that all numbers ending in an even number are divisible by two, regardless of the size or nature of any other digit in the number. He said, “Cool!”

I impressed upon him that when reducing fractions, he had to do the same thing to the denominator as he did to the numerator to assure the numbers were equal. He showed me! He subtracted five from each. That didn’t work. I knew it didn’t, but I couldn’t explain why in a way that would be easy for him to understand.

I did show him why the equations are equal when multiplied by the same number. I drew a rectangle, divided it into three equal parts, and then multiplied the numerator and denominator by 20. I showed him that the total quantity didn’t change; it was only the size of the pieces inside the rectangle that did. Let’s see what he remembers from what was covered on Wednesday.

Fourth-grade LG was scheduled. He didn’t respond. I called. His mom had left him with her phone. Every time he connected, he was bounced off. He probably was doing something wrong. When I spoke to his mom later, she said they wouldn’t try that again. I would prefer if she observed him and saw what he did wrong.

At the end of the day, I had fifth-grade ZN. His mom was still sick and didn’t have the time or energy to buy the tablet. ZN had turned a corner. He is more responsive. The Carpenter material, which is very low level, suits him well. He proposed timing his reading to see how he progressed. He read the first two stories, Sassy the Cat and The Little Lad. He read all the words from Sassy the Cat from a list in random order. He didn’t want to read the third in the series.

I broached his ‘memory’ problem. He said his mom thought he had one, but he didn’t. I showed him the first twenty-five words from the Fry Sight Word Lists. He misread two immediately. His mom said his short-term memory works, but he couldn’t recognize words he hadn’t seen in a while. Reading the Carpenter material boosted his memory because the words were embedded in a story. He could memorize the story.

Sunday, April 13, 2025

I wasn’t doing my yoga exercises regularly as I used to. I found it exhausting to do my exercises and then my long walk around the block first thing in the morning. I changed my schedule and did the walk first, and the stretching exercises after. While I no longer dragged myself around the block, I was still exhausted after doing both.

Thanks to Facebook shorts, I found arm exercises good for my circulation, blood pressure, and sleep. In the past, I heard that doing exercises right before bed disturbed sleep. This is the opposite message, which matched my experience. I switched and did those yoga exercises, including the Chinese gymnastic arm exercises, right before I went to bed. The results were spectacular. I couldn’t even stay awake to do a bit of reading before I turned out the lights. I then slept long and deeply. I highly recommend it.

I was ready to leave for church before 8:30, my usual Sunday departure time. Knowing I had extra time, I dawdled and left later than usual. When I arrived at church, I was surprised to see the parking lot packed. I found what I thought was a spot at the front of the church. I pull up over a curb and a peninsula of lawn to park. I made it to a seat on the lanai just before the beginning of the celebration. Someone handed me a palm frond. Ah. It was Palm Sunday. No wonder the church was packed. I didn’t sit in my usual spot.

I wound up sitting with the family with the disabled son. The parents had considered having me work with him. I found he could learn but needed very explicit instructions. How much he could learn would be another matter. He was eight and enjoyed stacking blocks in a manner appropriate for a three —or four-year-old. I saw some glimmering of intelligence. I could have accomplished something, but not without a lot of support at home.

The mother insisted there was nothing wrong with him. He was just a boy, and boys developed more slowly than girls. More recently, she admitted to seeing her son the way the school staff saw him, which was in accord with the results of two I.Q. tests.

I spotted another child with a serious problem. I initially saw the mother and grandmother with the child shortly after she was born. They sat on the lanai near me. Neither woman did anything to support the baby’s head. It lolled back, leaning on the baby’s upper back. It was distressing to watch. I had to force myself to look away. The grandmother handled the child the same way the mother did. The mother was one of four children. The grandmother should have known better. My mother drilled the need to support a baby’s head into me by the time I was seven.

The child I observed yesterday was approximately six months old and shouldn’t have needed support, but she did. At least now, the mother and grandmother made efforts to support her head, even if they were inconsistent. The baby could make minimal efforts to support her head, but nothing appropriate to her age.

Besides the problems with her head, she had a small bandage on her left cheek with a thread that went around to her ear. I had no idea what that was about. She coughed periodically, and the mother and grandmother’s reactions showed alarm. I suspect from their behavior that the baby had trouble swallowing.

I didn’t stick around after Mass the way I usually do. I went right out to my car. I had been down, feeling so lonely. Usually, contact with others lifts me up. While being around others has helped for the last two weeks, it was also a strain. That’s how I felt today. Besides, I had left my phone in my unlocked car. I wanted to get to it before someone else did.

My phone was fine, but I was happy to be in my car. I discovered I had parked in a spot appropriate for a motorcycle but not my SUV. I sat there for quite a while, waiting for the traffic to stop so I could maneuver myself out of my parking spot without ripping up the lawn I was half parked on with my rear wheels. Once the exiting traffic slowed to a trickle, my car and the car immediately in front of me were the only cars left. It probably belonged to one of the Deacons staying around for the next Mass. I backed up just far enough to pull forward and safely past the car parked in front of me.

I went to the KTA. Progresso lentil soup was still on sale. I bought four. I also bought a small container of McCormick’s garlic powder. The large container I purchased from Costco had congealed into a brick. It’s hard to chop even with a knife point. I remembered to pick up a bottle of Clorox. I use it every time I shower to dip my toes to combat toenail fungus and rinse the glass doors. I checked out the bakery. Judy told me KTA sold donuts to die for. I really don’t need donuts, but I checked them out. They use an old-fashioned recipe. I bought a box of donut holes. Hopefully, I won’t make this a habit.

I drove to the Unity Church for the crystal healing they sponsor every second Sunday of the month. When I entered, I was surprised to see the chairs still set up for the service and not cleared for the healing. We all lie on the floor so Denise can lay the crystal on our bodies. Diane greeted me and said the event had been canceled because Denise was sick. I turned around and headed for Target.

I thought I would check out the availability of Progresso’s lentil soup there. Every time I went to the store for several weeks, the shelf hadn’t been restocked. It hadn’t been today, either. I suspect there won’t be any more Progresso soups on their shelves. I hope it’s just that Target had discontinued carrying them versus going out of business. I picked up four frozen dinners on sale. I always check out their sales.

I texted fourth-grade MH’s dad to say I would be free for a session after 2 p.m. I didn’t hear from him until shortly before 2 today. He and his wife were both off-island. Could they reschedule? In this case, they would skip the session for the week. Sure.

One of the advantages of working with Zoom from home is that if someone cancels, my chores and pleasures are at hand. The adjustment is easy.

I did work on the 2019 blog entries. About a year ago, I printed all the entries for 2019 and had Office Depot bind them. I never took the book out of the bag after picking it up. About a month ago, I did. I checked the last page only to discover that Microsoft Word had deleted all the entries after September 30. I reclaimed them through the blogger.com entries. I could also have reclaimed them from my Yahoo emails from 2019. I reviewed them in Grammarly before adding them to the Blog Book 2019 file and the Blogger.com site. I’m slowly working my way through. I was just about finished with October and only have November and December’s entries to do. I assume all electronic devices will be dead and gone. I can read these in my old age instead of looking through pictures. Something just occurred to me. My sight won’t be good; I’d better reprint it in a large font instead of the small one I used to save paper.

Saturday, April 12, 2025

I didn’t work with the Twins again this morning. I signed on to Zoom at 8 am, and nothing. Mama K called to say she couldn’t wake her older daughter to get her to sign the girls into the Zoom meeting. I do not know why they don’t teach the girls to do it independently. There’s a good chance they will ‘forget’ to do it if left to their own devices, but how’s that different from them missing their appointment because their sister slept in.

I woke up in a down mood, qualifying for depression, except all I needed to get my mood to shift was half an hour of contact with another human being. I’m a true extrovert. My vision of hell is being surrounded by introverts who object to my behavior and don’t think they should have to tell me why. It’s the “something’s wrong with you if you don’t give me what I want” philosophy of life. My mother held that vision. I couldn’t imagine anyone actually believing that until she finally convinced me toward the end of her life.

Now, there are circumstances where the assumption of absolute authority is an appropriate position in military combat. In preparation for that, personnel are trained to say “Yes, Sir,” or “Yes, Ma’am” to everything. The highest ranking person says, “The moon is made out of blue cheese,” the only appropriate response is “Yes, sir!” Everyone is cannon fodder. What they know, think, or feel is irrelevant. Their inner life is as irrelevant as the inner life of a car. The only question is whether it will serve to forward a military action. You have to love it when people hold that they are entitled to that degree of self-abnegation from others.

As you can see, this is an issue I have been subjected to. I’m delighted to say I didn’t return the favor when it was my turn to be the one with the power. You’re not to confuse that with the thought that I made no errors. Of course, I did. I don’t even have to know what they were. I’m human; I made mistakes. But I didn’t hold it as a concept that my mother was supposed to do everything my way.

Dean and Nina came today as usual for our game of Sorry. I won handily. Nina, who usually wins, only had two pawns on the board. It was a weird game.

Dean told the story of his early school experience he had told before. When he was in second grade, his teacher sent him for special help in reading. When it came time for him to read, he would stammer or not read. Dean didn’t have a speech problem; he was painfully shy. The teacher who evaluated him discovered he read on a 6th-grade level.

Dean said that when his class went to the library, his teacher tried to direct him to grade-level books. In the meantime, he was reading the encyclopedia at home, even checking out references to other entries.

Dean’s experience brings me back to the conflict we have about wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen. Shy people hide and don’t want to be seen. However, he wanted the teacher to treat him as someone who read the encyclopedia even though he looked like someone who was below grade level.