lauren loves apples

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 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.

I wrote a post this afternoon on the last little droplet of battery acid… and it promptly closed the whole world down the second I thought I had clicked “save” or whatever. Just goes to show ya. On a lighter note I wore my pink boots to school today since it was raining and pouring and really I felt like snoring thru the morning. But schlepped the children and myself to school, promptly at our appointed hours.

And class was cancelled. I’ve been feeling peaked myself so I did not at all begrudge Mrs. L.  her untimely (and incredibly convenient) illness. I was then able to continue to “memorize” my 2 minute talk in Dr. C’s class. Which I swear to you was a 2 minute talk till I forgotted like 38 seconds of it. Seriously. The boys and I typed it up and recorded me on the web cam, and somewhat also recorded them on the webcam. I wish I knew where it saved those videos, because they’re probably pretty cute. The O’boyzies would hand me stuff to use. “Here mom, you should hold up the ball of yarn, here, the crochet hook” and I had I swear to you, one minute fifty beautiful seconds of it. Which I seem to have blacked out for, I heard myself babbling about how fabulous a fad Amigurumi was in Japan, and not including anything about how I make my own patterns for the little stuffed animals because I know all the stitches, whatever. I’m excited to see what grade I got. If I missed a point for going under a minute fifty, maybe I got a point for never ever saying Uuummm…

The rain this morning surprised me. I dragged my butt out the door and the little boys frolicked about and cavorted round the driveway in the rain till I got the garage door open. Little bit slippery in the rain. I didn’t think it was that bad till I walked out in it. So I of course decided to don complete rain gear. Galoshes and a rain jacket. Which guaranteed I’d be sweltering all day but hey, who doesn’t feel cheery in pink boots. Oh and lots of caffeinated goodness. And ibuprofin. Yeah I was in a great mood today. Don’t forget pain and misery are optional.