Thursday, October 17, 2024
I turned off the light around 9:30 pm and slept straight through to 4 am. How's that for a good night's sleep.?I have been dealing with the dark side of my personality, the part that obsesses about things that go wrong. I wake up feeling just fine. Then, I feel a surge of 'distress' rising in my body just to the left on the midline in the area of my stomach. Thoughts don't trigger the surge; thoughts don't come up with the surge. It takes a moment for an appropriate thought that matches that feeling of distress to come up. the sensation of distress precedes the distressing thoughts. This means the unconscious mind precedes the conscious one. Is this what causes psychological states attributed to 'chemical imbalances?"
It isn't wrong to say that negative mental states are caused by chemical imbalances. All neurological activity is driven by both electrical and chemical elements. All brain activity is fueled by electrical and chemical activity.
Our nervous system strives for homeostasis. If we're still alive, the system is working. Why change it? Therefore, people have a default state of mind. Is it inherited? Even if it is, can it be altered? Vipassana says yes; it can be.
In the Vipassana method of meditation, you're instructed to focus on body sensation. You observe the sensation on a small patch of skin. You don't think of the sensation as either pleasure or pain. You describe the feeling as hot or cold, prickly, itchy, numb, throbbing, etc. You observe the area until the sensation changes. Then, you move on to the next patch.
Over time, with careful observation, you catch those mood changes, particularly when you're triggered. You get better at catching yourself before you do something you'll regret. You learn you can survive the ego wound.
I set a challenge for myself when I was in my early thirties. I observed how quick I was to speak, interrupting people constantly. I was a nervous wreck. I set the challenge of not talking but only responding in writing. I did that every Sunday for several weeks. Having to write down my response slowed me down. I learned I could survive without speaking immediately – or even sooner. I don't mean to suggest that fixed me. I had a long way to go before my behavior approximated normal. I have no idea how people put up with me.
As Joseph left the house this morning, our conversation from the previous night lingered in my mind. He had asked me to define 'thinking '. After some contemplation, I concluded that 'Thinking' is a broad category encompassing all mental processes in the mind. This simple question led to a fascinating discussion about the nature of our thoughts and how they shape our understanding of the world.
I finally saw Dean on my morning walk. I hadn't seen either him or Nina in days. She still tested positive for Covid when I last saw her. I texted her this morning to see if they were okay. Everything was fine. It was just a coincidence we hadn't run into each other.
Dean talked about procreation between breeds this morning. One of his chickens sat on the eggs of another chicken of a different breed. Yes, his breeds of different chicks could procreate. It had something to do with mitochondria, which is really a bacteria. There are twelve strains. As a piece of miscellaneous knowledge, all humans have DNA from Charlemagne. I believe one in every three people has DNA from Genghis Khan. These were busy boys.
When I worked in a school in Trenton, I encountered one young man who was one of fifty kids sired by the same frisky adolescent male. Wow! I wondered how that would play out in subsequent generations.
I called the building permit department today to see how my permit for the new solar system is progressing. The plans were submitted on September 17. It has been exactly one month, and still nothing. Provision Solar told me that the permit has been approved; we are just waiting for the out-processing. That means the planning department submits a bill for the permit to Provision Solar. Spencer, the project manager at Provision Solar, told me this process takes 72 hours on Maui. The Big Island Building and Permitting Department will take forever. It's been over a month and counting. When I spoke to someone at the permit department, they told me only three people were processing the permits. There are different types of permits. They process one kind on Monday, another on Tuesday, etc. No wonder it takes forever. They don't have enough staff. What does Maui have that we don't? Hmm! Maybe more wealthy people and a large tax base.
Eli, the new gardener I hired, arrived at 7:40 when he promised to be here at 7:30, which was pretty impressive. I lay down for my early morning nap at 7 and set my alarm for 7:45. Eli is Mexican. He would run on Hispanic time. I was surprised he was that punctual. He had his 18-year-old son Cesar with him. I asked the boy to accompany us as we talked. Eli's English is not that good.
Mike and I hired Eli and his company when we first moved here. I switched to another company because I thought they were responsible for the landscaping job at the Coffee Shack. If they were, it was all an accident. We kept them on until I finally fired them. I wasn't that happy with the work or their connection with me. I didn't have any professional gardeners for a year. I hoped to do it all myself. It wound up being too much for me. the terrain is irregular. I fell working in one area. The first clean-up will cost me a pretty penny, but I have a tenant now and am collecting rent. It should cover it once I get over the initial expense of reining the growth back. Ah, yes. I also have to hire a tree company to cut trim the trees so I don't lose my view. That's what we all have to do to maintain our views. Hopefully, our neighbors won't let their trees grow to block our views.
I left for Ulu Wini shortly before two, after I paid Eli for his day's work, even though they hadn't finished yet. Eli did more than he originally said this morning. He cut back the completely-out-of-hand plumbago, trimmed the bougainvillea shrubs, trimmed all the shrubs at the top of the driveway, trimmed the high mock orange shrubs, cut out some agave growth (Lord, they get big), and took a chain saw to what was left of the Ficus tree and treated it with Round-Up, pouring a small amount into the new cut. That should get rid of the stumps permanently. They also cleaned up the driveway, littered with fallen green waste.
I had a session with Shelly today. I was in high spirits, feeling good with my new insights and the hope that I had finally resolved, perhaps dissolved, that spot of agony I'd been dealing with since a young child. It had been a couple of days. We'll see. That would be great news, making the rest of my life bearable.
Shelly packed a surprise for me today. The one unresolved issue is my work. First, I want more clients. Second, which I didn't mention in this session, I want the fortitude to broadcast the approaches I developed to teach reading. I asked Shelly directly if she would recommend me. She said she had no contact. I remembered her husband was a child psychologist. I assumed he had retired and had no access. He was still working, but he could only recommend evidence-based methods. Whoa! That was a shocker. Most of what I do is evidence-based.
I have a master's in reading, and I'm Orton Gillingham certified. My emphasis on phonemic awareness versus phonics is evidence-based. Most phonics programs don't use it because most educators don't even understand what a phoneme is. They have merely relabeled their phonics instruction programs as phonemic instruction. They have poured old wine into new skins.
Certain things I do are not evidence-based and are not grounded in previously used methods. The BrainManagementKills work. No one is going to check which part of the brain a student uses and direct them to use a different part than they are currently using. However, this exercise is benign. No one can be alarmed about it.
When I get into the spinning, that's a different matter. Students can be alarmed to think of what is happening in their heads. Does it mean there's something wrong with them? Are they crazy? Other than those two activities, everything is evidence-based. The irony is teachers continue to use methods of teaching that are not evidence-based.
When I called to volunteer, I was told I had to do precisely what the teacher wanted me to do and nothing else. The example was a sight word drill. The teacher would give me a deck of flashcards, and I would have to go through them with the students and do nothing else. I couldn't sound out the phonemes or work on their memorization techniques. There is evidence that this approach is NOT effective. It harkens back to the Whole Word approach to reading, which assumes we learn through repetition. We know that alone doesn't work. Does repetition have a role in learning' sight words?' Yes. Dahaene, a French neurologist who researches the brain when reading, says we process letters and individual sounds even when reading sight words. The Shaywitz's, also neurologists, testified to this argument years ago. Evidence is ignored when it suits the establishment.
The evidence-based programs are all put out by publishing houses that charge a fortune for their new programs. The research supporting their programs is all sponsored by the publishing house. The method I developed requires no new materials. You can use anything at hand.
While I am Orton-Gillingham certified, I don't use it in its pure form. It is a highly structured and sequenced program. It is scripted. It requires three years of lessons, one for every school day for 180 lessons per year. There is plenty of evidence as to its effectiveness. I don't think these principles are incorporated into reading programs. It's too specific. It's impossible to use in a classroom where you can't assume students will be there daily. To boot, the Orton Gillingham program doesn't just teach reading; it teaches spelling. The teaching aspect is synthetic phonics; the spelling is analytic phonics. Students get to approach the letter sound correspondence from both perspectives.
There is debate about the efficacy of the synthetic versus the analytic approach to teaching phonics. In the synthetic approach, the student is 'taught' what sound a letter represents; they do not discover it for themselves. They use this acquired knowledge to identify each sound in a word and blend it to get a word. The analytic approach is used in spelling. You start with the word; you have to analyze the specific sounds in the word, identify which letter (s) represent those sounds, and write them down. in the Orton-Gillingham program students are drilled in both activities. This is evidence-based. I differ from the Orton Gillingham program only because I assume students can be taught to figure out the sounds of the words independently. When they have the word in front of them, they figure out which letters represent those sounds. My method teaches all students to do what good readers figure out on their own. It is a small leap that makes a huge difference.
I recently developed a new twist on an old method. The multisensory approach was codified by Grace Fernald in the 1930s. There is tons of evidence for its effectiveness. Students with difficulty perceiving letters write them on texture surfaces, like shaving cream, cloth, clay, etc. Teachers are instructed to write letters on students' backs. I will write them on the students' foreheads. The difference is I have to write them backward. I have recently made a shift, instructing students to imagine writing them directly into the surface of their brains behind their foreheads. It has proved to be a satisfyingly successful strategy.
The big difference between me and most educators, including those who create and provide evidence for their expensive programs, is that I have a strong background in linguistics, cognition, and neuroscience. When I speak about my methods, they are grounded in this background knowledge. Most teachers don't have a clue as to what a phoneme is. They will have no way of coping with the allophones, slightly different pronunciations for a letter. For example, in American English, the medial T, a T that is sounded between two vowel sounds, is pronounced as a D. They don't know what connected speech is. It goes on and on. All most teachers do is learn a program and teach that. That works for many kids. But these programs allow for no variation.
What I do works because I watch the child and diagnose the problem. I am very good at what I do. That makes me weird. My perspective makes me weird; my educational background and analytical approach make me weird. A teacher who loved me as a person and thought I was excellent as a teacher called me a quack. This was close to twenty years ago. I told her that she would be doing what I was in ten years. That hasn't quite happened. No one is doing what I'm doing, but they are using more of my vocabulary. Again, pouring old wine into new skins. The BRAIN, writ large, is big on everyone's mind now. But it's just the old methods repackaged.
The one change is that the Whole Language Approach is now being condemned. That approach condemned phonics. Now, the pendulum is swinging the other way, and phonics is in. There are some materials that look like improvements to the Fountas and Pinnell books and methods. They will help many children. However, all the wisdom of the Whole Language Approach will be lost. It's the old problem of the elephant and the blind men.
