Beyond FAT City - Part I

We started watching Richard Lavoie's video today in class.  I had seen his video from the 80's, and was sad not to see the same amusing garb and hairstyles of the guests.  This video was made quite recently.  The format was different from the last as well.  The last FAT city video took place in a classroom, with a bunch of adults standing in the place of students.  Lavoie would hand out worksheets and try and get them to understand the way that so many teachers try and "help" students who have learning disabilities.  It was incredible to watch.  This new video was filmed as a seminar.  Lavoie was on a stage teaching.  There were several small group sessions that were thrown in there where we heard past experiences of people in his audience.  I found every second of this video wonderfully applicable and helpful.  What will follow are some points that I found particularly interesting.

• He told a story of a boy who went to the grocery store with his mother.  She asked him what he wanted to have for dinner and he said french fries.  She assigned him with a job, and that was to find and bring back some potatoes.  He was confused by this.  He had no idea that french fries were made of potatoes.  He made the point that even clean cut, 'smart' looking children can suffer from a learning disability.   I experienced something like this during my observation.  There was a young man in one of the classes that I had taught a few years before in KPED.  I struck up conversation with this fellow several times, and I was shocked at how well spoken he was.  He used words that were far beyond what I would have expected.  I was helping out in the class by assisting the students fill in a worksheet.  I looked at his written work, and I was shocked.  His writing was very far behind the writing of the other students.
• He explained the difference between a child with no attention span and a child who is easily distracted.  Often these two labels are used interchangeably, but they mean the opposite.  The child with no attention span pays attention to nothing, while the child who is distractible pays attention to everything.  
• Lavoie also listed three reasons why adolescence sucks, which are as follows:
• In high school, you are expected to be good at everything.  Teachers are disappointed in you and try to push you to be better in any subject where they feel you aren't making the cut.  This is completely unrealistic.  In life after school, you have a few areas where you've refined your skills.  You're not expected to be good at everything.
• It's the only time in life where being different is automatically bad.  I definitely felt this when I was in elementary school.  I did my very best to hide my strangeness from my friends.  For a few years there, I had a halloween tradition.  I would take a pumpkin, of a smallish size, and I would cover it with tinfoil.  I would then cut out holes in the foil in the shape of eyes.  I would take my moms art supplies and paint eyes on the silver pumpkin.  I would then carve out a hole in the lower stem of the pumpkin and lace a rope through it.  I would run out to one of the trees that was closest to the road and hang the pumpkin from a branch.  I remember standing back, and feeling such a sense of pride.  I had made that pumpkin!  It was only this year that I looked back on that memory and realized how incredibly strange it was.  I never told anyone at school about this because I feared their judgement.  
• There is recognition of permanence.  There typically comes a point in this stage, where an adolescent looks into the mirror, and realizes, "that's it!"  They think that this is what they'll be like for the rest of their lives.  This is a wonderful realization if you're happy with yourself, but terrible if you're not.  I've heard the middle years described by many people as the worst years of their lives.  I hope that they didn't look in the mirror and feel this way.  Thankfully, life does change a lot from that point.