d. m. arney, m.a.

One of my best friends has Cerebral Palsy and one of my best childhood friends as well. I was teaching a student the other day who thought he made a ‘stupid’ mistake, and he started hitting his chest and imitating someone with poor vocal control. I had a heart to heart moment, and thought I’d share it with you in case the distinction was never made in your lives like it was in mine. CP results from oxygen depravation at a key point of growth, usually within the first month of pregnancy. The extent of that deprivation causes mild to severe motor control issues as the muscles in the body literally work to distort the skeletal structure. There are cases where the oxygen depravation goes on to cause lasting cognitive impairment, but this is not as frequent as someone who is perfectly intelligent but has difficulty vocalizing. One of my college neighbors had to wear a colostamy bag because his colon didn’t have enough control on its own. He graduated Summa Cum Laude. Watch “The Music Within” to see a great actor honestly portray the life of someone with CP. We are very biased when it comes to intelligence, so be careful what you assume when you see someone that’s different. And pass the information along. Hopefully others will thank you for the education.

My sister reminded me of a Batman quote from “Dark Knight” – “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villian.” It was apt because I’m facing a tough client situation where I am starting to become part of the system. I had to remember why the mentor always dies in the hero sagas: if she didn’t, the hero could not learn to stand on his own, to become a ‘warrior’. Loss, ending; they are normal parts of life, and one of the final roles of a tutor is to give each student a positive ending. Once you’ve planted your seeds, sown what wisdom you can, then you must move on and let the student harvest what she can. The success of a tutor is his own redundancy.

I’m reading Geneology of Morals for a student’s paper, and I was about to tear my hair out with the translation I had. No paragraphs, more commas than I thought possible; my eyes couldn’t figure out what line I was on. Anyway, went back to the bookstore and found the one by Walter Kaufman (p.s. he’s the best,) now I can read and stay awake. Nietzsche is totally worth some time too. But the real point is to really research a translator before you pick one, I hated Kafka until I found the right translator. Now he’s one of my top authors for short stories.

It’s getting nearer to end of term. Here’s a cool visual trick for studying things like vocab, names, dates, etc. First you look at the thing you need to remember, (alliteration). When you read or say this word, figure out what the first association you have with it is. Example: A lit nation. Whatever your association, make it visual. Colors, shapes and so forth. Try not to have it “sound like” something else. This is called the anchor. Next take the actual definition of the word, (the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.) Last, you take your anchor and put it into a picture of the definition. So in a “lit nation” all the citizen words start with the same letter. You can draw this out at first to help you visualize, but don’t be too detailed. You want a striking, clear image. When you get this down, you can breeze through a large amount of material in a lot less time than you used to. Questions?

It’s that time where things are just getting harder. I’m stuck with a few of my clients. Grades matter and then they don’t. Part of the reason I get paid is to improve ‘performance’, but the environment is so wrong at times. I haven’t found the right mix yet, and I’m afraid there isn’t one. Even when I was in school, about this time was when it felt like there was no way back out. Deep breathes, lots of patience. But it does scare me that I’m pushing students to achieve, when my heart is telling me to help them learn and grow. I’ll be happier once summer break arrives. I’ll have the luxury of deep thought.

So, I’ve always seen how a slant board helps with reading and doing book work, but I hadn’t really questioned why. One of those, it just does so why bother with science. However, I was working with my college student yesterday and we reviewed how the brain fixes the way a page is skewed due to perspective so that we still think of it as flat. But if your right brain is too heavily involved, it can’t help but notice this apparent perspective change. A slant board actually raises the book to be parallel to our plane of reading, and therefore eases up the tension between left side ignorance and right side insistence. It’s not the whole answer, but at least I have an answer when the question comes up again. (PS, in case you didn’t know, a slant board is just a wooden/plastic surface raised at about 30 degrees that sits atop a desk.)

There are a number of auditory issues that aren’t picked up by a standard hearing test. Especially an nerve based auditory processing issue, or problems processing auditory symbols, like language, in the brain. No matter what you are experiencing, don’t assume that hearing isn’t entering into it. Did you know that students with auditory processing disorders also have trouble writing? Anyway, be safe and see an Audiologist, don’t take the school or GPs word for it. Remember, there is always more to a situation than is on the surface.

Ran into a teen at Borders who had to read 600 pages by next week. He’s dyslexic and it was obvious that reading was not hard, but grueling. When I inquired about the accommodations that he was receiving his mom told me that the rest of the kids had to read 800. It’s a fallacy to think that accommodation means less of the same thing. He learns differently, reading is a entirely different task for him. So shouldn’t he have a different assignment? If your legs are nearly unresponsive, no one would think that running a shorter distance was a fair and equal accommodation. Thoughts?

Sometimes the moody and argumentative child could actually be depressed. There are even rare cases of BiPolar effecting children as young as six. There are certain types of mood disorders that come directly from brain chemistry. If you have a family history, keep an open mind about your ‘moody’ child. Early intervention could mean a huge world of difference.

I have a student that wouldn’t talk when I met him. Now, he’s handling important phone calls on his own, and he said it started less than a week ago. Before this he’d been improving, but I can see the sudden surge myself. Two things happened, the first is he communicates very well with his deaf ASL instructor, and the other is his new dog. Both of whom are doing an excellent job of ‘hearing’ him when he speaks. It’s very powerful. Being heard makes us feel human, feel alive. Try listening again, sometimes a student really needs to talk.