Inspiration from the 8th grader

I am having a unique experience with my daughter. One I wonder if other people experience with their children. 

 My daughter is in 8^th grade. She has been a “B” to “C” student most of her school years, just getting by because she didn’t want to not get by.  She rarely had teachers that motivated her, or gave her a reason to reach further.   But in her down time she is creative and sets goals for herself about writing stories and drawing pictures.

 I have known she was capable and shared with my kids my theory that a “C” is proof that you can get the work done but are not really working on it. A “B’s” and “A’s” signs that effort has been taken.

 My daughter has been inspired by creative arts and theatre arts the last couple of years. She went to a summer program that stresses leadership skills and used theatre arts as a way to build these skills. She loved it. She loved the feeling of being around the stage and clear parts of theatre organization.  Granted, the way this program was run, she might have been inspired by the CSI leadership program also, but she is part “ham” so performance did not hurt. 

 We have a Performing Arts high school in our district that is enrolled by application and grades only.  We went to the informational meeting about the school early in the school year and, despite suffering the tail end of a head cold, she was sold.  “I want to go here!” she chimed on the way through the parking lot to the car. Immediately she began paying attention to her school work. She voluntarily followed up with her teachers about missing assignments when out sick. She started speaking up when she had questions. And with the one class where she is struggling to work with her teacher, she is making it known and not giving up.  Her grades are showing the effort.  And she sees the relationship between this effort, and the results on tests and her confidence in her work.

 I wonder about the kids who are pushed and prodded and harassed into “A’s” from the day they start kindergarten.  I wonder about those whose parents teach that the “A” defines the person’s worth.  Do those kids learn relative differences between their emotions?  I am not saying “C’s” are a good thing.  I am not saying you should just get by.  But being able to have the perspective between what it takes to get a “C” and what it takes to get a “B” or an “A”, is a life lesson worth having. And knowing that you are capable of both is amazing. It is the ability to recognize ability in your self instead of expectation of others.  From my perspective the messages are clearly different, “You are able,” not, “to be worthy you have to be better.”

 The magnet schools make acceptance decisions strictly on grades and number of openings. With the performing arts school the grades will get her as far as the audition.  Then there is some need for ability or promise necessary.  They only take a two or three kids from each of the surrounding feeder schools. I think she has a fair shot at getting in and if she does, once in the door she has learned the lesson of caring about her work and being part of it.   This is a lesson, I am sad to say has taken a long time to filter into my soul the same way. But my daughter is inspiring. I am learning from her.

Spacelessness and dementia thought 1

I am a little concerned.  Part of my packet study this semester is to look at the possibility of meditative practice or prayer being helpful to dementia patients.  But is the state of spacelessness state healthy or not in that case?

 I am looking at journal articles, Jill Bolte Taylor’s book, My Stroke of Insight and a book called How God Changes the Brain by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman.  I am realizing that as Bolte Taylor describes a state of consciousness she calls “thetaville” (taylor, 36) a kind of freedom, detachment that she compared and contrasted between just before you wake up and a nirvana state she experienced, and that called to her, during the stroke experience.  According to Waldman and Newberg, this “timelessness and spacelessness” experience comes from a decrease in activity in the Parietal lobe and that activity is decreased by some forms of Buddhist and Christian meditation. (Newberg, pg 51)  So, is it possible that meditation is not good for increasing the understanding of duality that is actually necessary to physically live in this world?

Feeling welcome

I went to my second Toastmaster’s meeting last night, and enjoyed it very much. I think the process of learning and being expected to speak regularly, both planned and extemporaneously is a great opportunity for both presentation and internal organization which is a form of executive functioning as I understand it.

 (I am drifting in my thoughts here)

 I wonder if continuous speaking opportunities would not be beneficial to people suffering with dementia and people with learning disabilities.  As I believe it is written in several places, and I will have to find the documentation, the brain continually rewires itself and it seems to me if there is a continual change and necessity for it the brain to function doing things like this, and lethargia is not allowed to set in, then the brain will continue to find ways to move on.  – this of course is something to add to what I look into for the meditation and dementia part of my packet work. YES.

 Back to the meeting.

 I am a little frustrated that I am anxious to join and get started. but the newcomer routine seems to be difficult for them to get going on.  But I have been part of volunteer run service organizations before and I understand that we are all busy people who have to set our priorities on a day-to-day basis and sometimes the volunteer work gets a short shrift. (What does “short shrift” mean anyway?  Note to self: look it up.) The art of “Welcoming” is a huge thing for me.  It is what makes or breaks that first impression so often.  Not everyone will see the bigger picture and give you a second chance. In this case, the group is important to me.  I giving it a second chance because I think it is important.  Hopefully it will work itself out this week.

Getting a grip on scheduling the packet work

 This is my immediate solution for doing better this round. 

It is a beginning andI plan to update and post progress as I go.

Hoping that by specifying time blocks for turning "on" and "off" school work time, I will see more clearly how I am going to get the work done.

 

And I am hoping that by spelling out my goals for each day, I will be able to reach something more clarly. Ya know, I am the mother of a kid with Aspergers. I know how to do this for him, why do I never see it for me?

 

 

 

Not pleased with myself.

I am so unhappy with the work I turned in on Monday.  It wasn’t lack of spending the time on the work.  But my organization of the work, my documentation of my experience and my inability to really flesh out what was on my mind was frustrating and disappointing.  I would make notes and write and realize I had something good to work with, saying to myself, you have to fill that in later, and then I would lose the time to something and it would be left hanging.

 As I said, it isn’t about not spending time. It has something to do with how I structure and put off. Something in my lack of planning how I was putting it together. A lesson I seem to have trouble learning but this time, I may actually be aware of it. 

This is something I have to overcome. It affects more than school work projects but also party planning that I love to do and my theatre productions that I am always frustrated about when I get there and realize there was some effect, or stage craft thing I wanted and never was able to get to.I am trying to sit down now and block out my time better now.  And a better tracking mechanism which I think I will be using this blog for. 

 The first thing I am doing is posting a sign over my desk:

 Multi-tasking is fine,

But really,

You can and should

Do one thing at a time.

 

As “Dr. Emerson Winchester III” said on M*A*S*H,

“I do one thing at a time, I do it very well, and then I move on.”

  I know awfully self serving and not sure anyone will give a hoot to look at it, but I will try to be more interesting than past entries and much more interesting than this whine. 

 Look later or tomorrow for a sketch out of how my schedule will look for the next three weeks and also a question to any readers who happen to be reading and wouldn’t mind sharing an idea or two.

 Happy Wednesday!

Judith