lauren loves apples

So the last time I blogged was September. Which hopefully will only show that I’m working hard in school. All of my extra thought was taken up by assignments and therefore none did run over into blogging.

Finals next week. And still no extra thought to spill over here.

my goodness. I have a test tomorrow, I’ve had a billion things to turn in this week. I had papers to write which caused the unique situation of productive procrastination. I got a LOT done while I wasn’t getting my paper written. But perhaps I can attribute that to needing to think out what I needed to say and do.

So far everything I’ve turned in has earned successful scores. I’m very pleased and hopeful I can keep this up!

Ugh is the sound I make when kicked in the stomach.

Tonight I went to a  “how to help your child with their studies” class and then it happened to be open house at my oldest son’s school so I wandered thru and talked to some of his teachers. This is good because I want to poke him. I want him to know I’m watching and keeping in touch with his school. I was in fact delighted because they all seemed very enthusiastic about his average performance. He isn’t really an uptight learner, he’s sort of mellow. He’s sort of social, thinking about where he fits in with the world.

Then I talked to his reading & English teacher, we talked a little about various things and he mentioned he co-teaches in reading with a special ed teacher. I mentioned that I’m taking SPED 208 and was interested to know how the co-teaching is working out. Then I felt compelled  to explain why I’m taking that class, no I’m not majoring in special ed. though I should. I’m getting certification to teach art. And then it all starts feeling like a flashback, only in reverse. 

Remember that day I was assistant manager of my store, and found out what my raise was going to be, and the very same minute looked on the company intranet and saw basically that they were bankrupt and beginning closings? Well today I did the reverse, sort of. Paid my bill. Wrote a check for what to me feels like a heck of a lot of my very own money to my school. Later was told by this middle school teacher I was talking to that basically there aren’t a lot of art teacher jobs in the district, not a lot of openings. Fabulous.

As I sort of crawled away from him, my spirit hovered above my body, looking down upon myself from the acoustical tile and fluorescent fixtures…wandered around blindly soul-less for a few seconds till a kindly math teacher showed me the way to the door.  Sorry ma’am. No zombies allowed.

A new week begins anon and I am hoping for a better one. Of course last week was not bad, but doesn’t everyone wish for better? I can’t wait to get started on my 2 practicum(s?) I am excited about getting in the classroom soon. Mainly because it is cool to spend time doing that. I have always enjoyed the times I spent helping in my kiddos’ kindergarten classrooms.  Regrettably I don’t think they actually enjoyed kindergarten. They mostly dreaded it but I think it was a result of some kind of bizarre character clash between the kindergarten teacher and the boys. My boys. How I wish for them to have had a sweet loving kindergarten experience. But they didn’t.

So I wonder what the week will bring. I had a haircut Friday. Wow and I got all kinds of other errands done Friday too. We went to a wedding Saturday, and he did NOT try very hard to catch the garter… ugh.  I sat at the firehouse kitchen table and watched Vikings football this afternoon – they won 34 to something.

My poor little sister is pregnant & has chicken pox so I am praying for her itchy self. Also my mom, she’s a CNA and the lady she cares for died so now she needs a new job. I think my youngest sister is fine. My daddy seemed fine last time I talked to him. My boyfriend’s in Fargo for some kind of fireman stuff, just left today and I miss him already.  Ugh I hate when he leaves. Plus next week is duck season. Quack quack.

I think I’ll go to bed.  I’m wearing the wrong glasses anyway.

This week we had 2 different speaker days in SPED and I loved the Gospel Mission one the best. I hate their graphic design. But on the other hand, it’s sort of working for them. It’s old timey. It’s put together strange. And they still seem to get funding. So I’m not complaining, but I still hate it.

I totally can’t remember Monday. It was only a few days ago.

I thought up a good mnemonic, even though I canntoth promnounch thasth word!

M – multiple disabilities
I – intellectual disabilities
D – deafness
A – autism spectrum disorders
S – speech language impairments

S – specific learning disabilities
H – hearing impaired
O – orthopedic disabilities
V – vision impaired
E – ED/BD
D – deaf/blind

T – TBI (traumatic brain injury)
O – other health impairments
D – developmentally delayed

see I totally just listed that without having to look, and it took maybe an hour to memorize. Plus figuring out the mnemonic was fun. The individual letter method is better for many people than the string of words method. It seems more efficient to me to reember a simpler phrase than Allen Drove His Messy Silver Van Down Endless Roads Deliberately On Squishy Tires Or Something Because There Are Too Many Different Words I Can Use for Messy, and It Isn’t Right Anyway Because Mentally Handicapped Is Wrong Now. We have to use Intellectual Disabilities.

The 8 big things are more difficult still. I have no idea what it is to “lip riff” but it has some imaginary meaning related to guitar riffs mimicked by the mouth (lips)… so I LIP RIFF          (I don’t!)
I – IDEA

L – LRE
I – IEP
P – parental rights

R – related services
I – individual assessment
F – FAPE
F – federal funding

I haven’t memorized these as well at all. Mainly because I’m not sure these are all there are. I should ask.

Okay I don’t have my glasses and I’m giving myself a headache squinting at this screen.

I used to tell myself stories about what I was doing, in my head. As in, not speaking aloud. My brain noise included the discussion of everyday things as a narrative. Sometimes as a child the voice telling the story would be the voice of the author whose latest book I was reading. That was some time ago. And by Voice… I do not mean “the people, the people!” voices in my head. I mean the voice speaking out from the pages I was reading and then ‘writing’ about other things inside my mind. I am used to writing. I write constantly, I write while I’m not even writing.

These days I spend more and more time in my head, because of all this philosophy of teaching I’m supposed to be inventing. About myself. I know myself really well, I’ve spent long long years, days, hours, writing and later blogging about what’s in my head. Generally I think nobody should have to know that stuff about me. Lots of it is public, lots of it reads like I wrote it in another life, but it’s not like I’d give out that website freely. At least not to anybody that knows is aware of me. (Knows is different from being acquainted.) Some of it is devastating to read. Some is jubilant but lots of it was written by a deeply conflicted and struggling author, trying desperately to figure out just exactly what happened, what went wrong, how did she (I) get to that point.

I have a hard time explaining that even to myself. Why not let everybody see my deepest darkest moments, especially since they weren’t all self-induced? I’m not an addict, I’m not a freak.  Generally, though, I’m not sure a person’s public self is the same person as their innermost thoughts indicate they are. Sort of like a cigarrette filter. Nothing coming out of my mouth is unfiltered, although at times you’d never know that while listening to me. I’ve gotten better though, about not blurting out ridiculously thoughtless remarks. We would hope I’m an improved version of that girl writing out the past.

So I want to write my philosophy of education.

Where do I start?

Teacher. My definition of a teacher. Someone with useful information to transmit into the brains of learners. This information should be transmitted in an orderly fashion while still allowing for the different styles of each learner. Ideally the learners should all sit up like little baby birds eagerly devouring the delicious tidbits of informative nutrient offered. In the event that the learners are already feeling rather full of themselves, the teacher needs some tactics. The teacher needs skills. A tool-kit of behaviors useful for gaining the learners’ attention.

So that’s why I’m here. I need some skills. I have some information. I know down there in the deepest crevices of my gray brainy matter, there’s something filed away about art. And not just paintings, or which artist was which, I’m talking about how in certain circumstances, a straight line is way less interesting than sort of a crookedy line… and going outside the lines is not necessarily bad.

I took the Teaching Perspectives Profile and was surprised to find I’m not more nurturing. After all, I’m a mom, even if I’m an interrupted, half-time mommy-co-op mom. (Maybe I’ll have to elaborate on that later!!) Am I not Nurturing? Probably I should do more research on that concept before I concede.

I had high numbers in Apprenticeship and Developmental. I think this is from training associates at Linens N Things. Nurturing is not really what I was trained to do. I spent a lot of time listening to weird excuses like “I ran out of gas, can’t come to work!” Which was not a good excuse considering there is a paycheck involved with “coming to work” and money is of course required to purchase gasoline. I really think my 3 years ensconced at a retail establishment would be an asset to my teaching career. As a manager I was very involved with teaching people our ways of doing things, and by “our” I mean the corporation specific to our store management… we had much higher standards than some management at other LNT stores. This was a learning experience for me because I had a huge variety of personalities to work with. With some I worked splendidly, and some clashed. I did find it possible to work with people with whom I clashed.

So okay.

I have been chugging home made ayurvedic smoothies… almonds dates milk honey, oh and some frozen peaches and strawberries and the odd blob of yogurt. Almonds and dates especially are good for sick people. Well, for me anyway. I’m a big fan of the placebo effect, if nothing else.

So I had a little left in the fridge and took it out to swig while I made the guys some melty ham and cheesey wraps. And my youngest looked at my glass of smoothie and said “Can I have a taste?” and I said “no, I have a sore throat, don’t drink after me.”

Mainly I didn’t want to share, so guilty of being stingy, I felt I had to come up with something good. I made a face and “Anyway,” I said “It tastes a little like old bananas.”

“Old men?” he asked, and nodded. He seemed perfectly satisfied with that as a reason he wouldn’t like the taste. I realized he didn’t hear what I really said, so I said, “no, old bananas,” and made my face. Again.

So as I finished up cooking the wraps and my beverage, I thought about that. Obviously I’ve been trying to apply some kind of teacherly behavior to my interaction with the boy. But mostly I wondered what he’d come up with!

“What exactly do old men smoothies taste like, Mr. C?” I asked.

He looked a little thoughtful and replied, “Oh, you know, green stuff, ear wax, and pimples.”

In other news, I finished Chapter 6 – having spent all day on it. I have possibly renounced my ADHD self-and-other-experts-diagnosis with the even more accurate and psychiatrist diagnosed LD … the Chapter was on Learners with Learning Disabilities and it’s childhood-me to a tee… spacey, makes people uncomfortable, (as in, behaves in bizarre, “I think I’m a pony, so I’ll gallop around the bases and toss my mane while we play kickball, that’ll teach you to pick me last,” ways) social-emotional problems, completely devoid of self regulation, learned helplessness, memory problems,  inattentive if I’m not really interested or you aren’t teaching reading, blah de blah de blah. Oh. Meh. Gawd. That poor child.

So what. I failed math for 12 years. It took till I was 30 to stand on my own two feet socially. I’m still here.

The long weekend is upon us and gratefully I attended my one Friday class and went to the nurse to complain about a sore throat, verbally crossing my fingers it wasn’t some sort of porcine avian somethin’… whatever it was, it isn’t affluenza. I’ve been so anxious about my authentic passionate “why I wanna be a teacher” reflection, I forgot about money for a while. So I hope I can channel my glee that my MidAm bill was only $88 into any statement I have to write about my impending teacherhood.

Tom Cruise is showing Oprah how to cook. Bacon? Oprah weighs more than me. She could hire people to lift her feet for her to exercise. And she’s cooking bacon. Oprah needs to pick tomatoes for a few weeks and walk to college from her house for a few weeks. She’d lose weight too.

My Great Aunt Jeanne told my momma, “that’s a big girl” the other day when I was walking down the hall. Great Aunt Jeanne loves me but she’s got Alzheimers now, so there’s no filter. Admittedly I’m bigger than her daughter, who is a teensy pip-squeak. Or, as my boys would say, she’s puny.

My boys are home this weekend, I have loads to study, and life seems pretty good in spite of my sore throat fatigue general malaise and ibuprofin popping habit.