Return to FAT City - Part III

The following are some good points that Lavoie raised:

• Kinetic melodies.  Muscle memory is how I know this term.  Some children who suffer from learning disabilities (LD's) lack this.  When I brush my teeth, I don't have to think about what I'm doing.  I have done it for so long, that my body knows what to do.  I am able to multitask.  The children who suffer from LD's have to focus on what they're doing, and they're less able to multitask.  They are sometimes easily distracted as well.  To be so easily distracted and unable to perform two tasks at once would be incredibly challenging and frustrating.  
• "A family on a waterbed".  When a child in a family has an LD, the entire family is directly effected.  It's as if they're on a waterbed together.  The effects are felt by all, and this is often very challenging.  These families are in crisis, and they rarely respond the way that you'd want them to.  When this happens, it is important that you take their responses seriously, and not personally. 
• "When elephants fight, it's the grass that gets trampled".  Unfortunately, I am familiar with this as well.  There's a young man in my life whose parents have been going through a brutal divorce for the past 3 years.  He is under the age to make his own decisions, and his parents have been fighting tooth and nail over him.  They both say that they want what's best for him, and on the part of the father, I believe him.  She, on the other hand, is still hurting and acting out of spite.  She refuses the father access to his son, which she is saying is the best for the boy.  A son needs to see his father.  It's as simple as that.  She is operating under the guise of protection, but she is causing great harm.  Side note: I hate divorce.
• Self esteem is built by regular educators.  When a child with an LD is in a separate classroom with separate teachers, the praise of those specialized teachers means little to them.  Those teachers are supposed to praise and encourage them.  If a child's self esteem is to be boosted, they must be praised by a regular classroom teacher.  Makes sense!
• "The only person who succeeds in competition is the one who knows there is a chance of winning".  Holy smokes, this brings me back to my childhood.  I disliked competition and if it was in a sport, I hated it.  I had few sport-related skills, and I always felt like I was going to lose.  I remember one time at summer camp, the whole camp was split into 4 teams, who would compete against one another every waking moment.  The sense of dread when I discovered this was crushing.  But if it was a competition in academics, I was ready for it.  I performed well in school, and I knew that I had a shot.  This still holds true for me today.  At retreat, for example, I was ready to give up on the dock for the ridiculous monster game.  We were supposed to get 10 people from the end of the dock to the shore by using only 3 points of contact.  I looked at the cold lake, and the team mates that I knew I would have to snuggle up to, and I was ready to throw in the towel.  We eventually talked them down, though, and we succeeded in the end.   
• The story of the king with the shiny stone.  A young boy dropped his stone and gashed the front.  It was unfixable, and the king was utterly disappointed.  He took it to some wise men who took the stone and started carving the stone.  When these wise men were finished, they had transformed the once ugly gash, into a beautiful rose.  This is the role of the teacher with a child with an LD.  There is a "gash", if you will, in this child.  They often see it as a horrible problem.  It's the thing that sets them apart from their peers, and because of that, they hate it.  It's up to the teacher to show the child that it doesn't have to be a negative part of their lives.  They take the "ugly gash", and turn it into something beautiful.  

October 4th, 2011

We continued watching William Ury's video today.  What follows are a few more points that I gathered from it:

• The secret to peace is us.  I found this point both interesting and convicting.  There is a certain person in my life right now, who causes me incredible amounts of grief.  I am often in conflict with this person, and my tactic recently has been avoidance.  I don't see this person, and I have found incredible peace in that.  However, I know that avoiding a situation doesn't correct it.  I know there are things that I could do to make peace, but I simply have no desire.  The past few months have been good for me.  I've found myself 'going to the balcony' and I feel like I understand better where this person is coming from.  This time has been valuable to me, but I know that I can't avoid it forever.  I have a role to play in making peace.  I just have to muster the nerve.
• When you're involved in conflict, you often lose focus.  I understand this well.  As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I have found myself in many terrifying conversations over the past few years.  When I am in the midst of said conversations, I certainly do lose focus.  I think about the conversation later, and I think of everything that I should have said.  I then spot the numerable flaws in the other parties arguments, and I think, "why couldn't I see it then!  We might have one this one."  My mind turns to mush when I'm being verbally attacked by a group of angry people.  Maybe that's normal, though.  
• When you're angry, you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.  I wish I had nothing to say on this point, but I unfortunately know this feeling.  In the heat of an argument, I have definitely said the wrong things.  I am reminded of an argument I had on the school bus in grade 8.  Meghan was a rather irritating girl in my class.  She was explaining that it's bad for you to wear undergarments whilst you sleep because your body needs to breath.  Because cotton is such a stifling fabric.  Ridiculous!  Seeing the many flaws in that statement, I challenged her.  I ended that conversation with, "well at least I have friends!"  Childish, I know.  I shouldn't have said that to her, whether it was true or not.

During Ury's talk, I remembered back to my high school days.  Each day after school, I would come home to watch Dr. Phil.  I watched many episodes, but only one episode stands out in my memory now.  He was speaking to a young girl who had a very angry father.  Pr. Phil explained to this girl that anger is only ever used as a mask.  I remember the impact that statement had on me.  It made so much sense!  My father had quite the temper while I was growing up.  He owned his own business and the stress of that had quite an effect on him.  Thankfully, he later sold his business, and then became wonderfully jolly.  I learned from Dr. Phil to look past the anger and try to understand what's causing it.  Then you can focus your attention on that and try and solve the problem.  This is something that I need to do more with this person in my life.  However, she is a great deal older than myself.  I don't think that I'll be able to diagnose her anger issues well, because I haven't known her for very long.  I still need to try and look past the anger, though, and try not to take what she says personally.