Pretty day, with mild aggravations

[shadowkat]

But, my health is bouncing back. I have energy again. I'm not insanely tired all the time. Also the brain fog is for the most part gone. Yes, there is life after COVID. Although still have lingering cough - no doubt due to allergies.

Just hope my niece comes through okay. She experienced "shortness of breath today" and it scared her. So she went to the health clinic - but they couldn't help. Instead, her parents, who are in NYC, convinced niece to go to the emergency room. So niece spent four hours in a London Emergency Room. They told her that her chest was clear and she was fine. (I actually had a little of it too - but I'm in my fifties, and have had it before, and did the breathing tests that my Aunt taught me. ) Poor niece is all alone in London, self-isolating, her roommate is elsewhere. And she has a final exam on Friday in International Law, which is eight hours long, and several essays, and she still has to study for it, so can't just relax and veg.

I worry about her. Her parents wish they could come and take care of her. I've been texting her back and forth as well - and let her know I had the shortness of breath too - it feels like the wind has been kicked out of you.

In other news, regarding COVID - NYC is now under high alert - the case level has risen to almost 10%, and is on the rise. The hospitals however are still okay - so they've not imposed the restrictions as of yet, but they are asking everyone to wear masks indoors and in public areas, also on public transportation. Not everyone is - because, sigh, people.

***

Commute

I need to set this up right. I take the G subway train every morning at around 6:40 - 6:45 am. I leave my house at 6:30-6:31, and it takes me about five to ten minutes to get to the train, which stops halfway down the platform.

The first and last stop on the G is Church Avenue, my stop. The Southbound train stops at Church, they take it out of service, clean it, and empty it, and circle it around to take the next group of passengers north to Court Square. (I get off about 10-15 stops at Fulton St or twenty minute ride. )
Sometimes you have to wait for it , and the conductor who gets on it at the same time we do.

This morning, I ran to catch it - it clearly was running a bit later than usual and was full. I wondered why? Apparently there was a homeless guy at the very back of the car, or away from the conductor's cab. I was in the last car. It's a six car train - since the G is always smaller than other trains which are usually twelve cars. G's tend to be six to eight cars.
The homeless man had a very full grocery cart with all his earthly possessions, not a lot of clothes on, was filthy, and rambling. People understandably gave him a wide berth. He'd camped out at the end of the train, wasn't wearing a mask, and it was best to move as far away as possible.

Normally or pre-pandemic, we'd just suffer him until we got off at our stop. But during the pandemic and now - they get them off the trains. Why they didn't get this guy off the train before they put it back into service, I don't know - nor do I understand how they didn't catch him coming onto the platform or getting onto the train. But whatever.

Anyhow, the conductor notices the guy, or someone points him out to him, and he decides to approach him while the train is traveling to the next stop, Ft. Hamilton Parkway. He basically tells the homeless man to get off the train - we (as in all the passengers, huddled together towards the conductors booth) watch him do this warily. Unlike the conductor we've traveled trains with the homeless, and know better than to approach them.
The homeless man screams at him and brandishes a switch blade, accusing the conductor of mistreating him because he's black (the conductor is also black). The conductor takes one look at the switch blade and high tails it back to his booth, racing past us.

All the passengers look at the homeless man, who has now made it half way down the aisle whipping around his switch blade, glaring at us and mumbling in outrage, and at the conductor - who has shut himself in his booth, leaving us trapped in the cab with the riled up crazy homeless guy with a switch blade. We exchange looks and scoot slightly south, away from the homeless guy.

Then we reach Fort Hamilton Parkway - and the conductor decides to stop the train, trapping us with the homeless guy, and calls the NYPD and FNYD to get the homeless man removed from the car. The passengers aka commuters stare at each other, realizing we're trapped and probably won't make it to work for another couple of hours. The conductor finally opens the door - and we watch hoping the homeless guy will leave with his cart - he doesn't - or can't figure out how, one or the other.

People start calling and texting work on their phones. And trying to hear the muffled loud speaker announcement. Some flee the train and stand on the platform instead. I get out with a bunch of other people and ask the conductor what he's doing. The conductor informs us that he's contacted the FDNY to remove the homeless guy, and it will most likely take a while - so what we should all do is take a train back to Church Avenue, then get on one of the express trains - because everything will be going express, skipping about five to six stations. So we tell the people who didn't get the memo what's going on, and en mass climb the steps, whip around and go down the steps, wait for the next train, jump aboard that train, and then get on board the express train.

I text work: "Running late. Crazy homeless man wielding switch blade on the G train, so we had to get off, go around, take another train back to our station, get on a new train and come."

I get to Fulton Street, leap off the train, dash down the steps, dash up the steps, across, through the gate, and then up the steps - which kind of does me in, so I'm wheezing, I take off my mask and walk rapidly across the street, down two blocks, cross another street, down another block, into the terminal, down more steps, then dash down the train platform - to the second car from the front, leap on. I'm sweating by this point, and wheezing. But I made it with five minutes to spare. Go me.

I text work: Never mind, I made it to the commuter train on time. Whew.

Although, I doubt any of us were happy with NYC Transit this morning. It's bureaucratic diva who has a great marketing unit, and requires repeated smacking.



*********

Dyslexia and Learning

Good and Bad News. NYC to Mandate Dyslexic Screening for all Students and Phonics in Elementary Schools

Good? Dyslexia Screening.
Bad? Mandating Phonics - Phonics was first dictated in the 1970s, Michael Landon got behind it. And it was introduced in all the schools at the time. The next best thing. It is also the reason I couldn't learn how to read until the second grade. And I wasn't alone, a lot of kids couldn't learn to read because of Phonics. My second grade teacher figured it out, Mrs. Viola. I'll never forget her. I desperately wanted to learn how to read - and she taught me and several other students - by pulling out an old sight and sound reader, it was the Dick and Jane books from he 1950s. See Dick. See Jane. Suddenly reading made sense to me. It wasn't a bunch of weird ass sounds that connected to nothing and sounded like machinery grinding together. It made sense. I thought visually. And the pictures didn't flip around on me. If it weren't for the Sight and Sound readers - I don't know if I would have learned to read. Phonics had been the bane of my existence, and I've met many others in my life who said the same thing.

It would help if people understood dyslexia better than they do. It's not just flipping letters around, or words around. It's far more complex than that. I remember a friend trying to explain it to two mutual friends doing a paper on dyslexia. They didn't have it. She said it was close to impossible to explain it to them - it's how she thought and viewed the world, she didn't know the other way - or how they saw things. It was normal for her.

Same.

I didn't think I was dyslexic. I still second-guess it at times. I thought I was slow or just not as smart as everyone else. I didn't clearly test dyslexic in the 1970s, when my parents took me to a child psychologist - who said I had some cognitive learning difficulties but couldn't define them. For most of my elementary school to high school education - I was told I was lazy or stupid or something. In short the damn teachers were trying to gaslight me. I decided to prove them wrong, and found work-arounds. My brother did the same thing. We're resourceful - or were taught to be by my parents. My mother and grandfather were also dyslexic and had never been discovered, but figured out work-arounds.

It wasn't until college that a poetry teacher caught it - because I was doing what she did, the same compensation techniques, and she was dyslexic.
(I was reading something aloud, and she watched as I skipped a line, skipped back re-read, subvocalized it, realized it didn't work, and jumped to the right one, all within about a minute. And didn't appear to know I was doing it. I know I did it - because she pulled me aside and pointed it out to me.)

Still handwaved, wish I hadn't since it played havoc with standardized testing. I always did horrible on standardized or multiple choice or computer generated tests. I had a high GPA, and got honors with distinction in English and Cultural Anthrolopology, but failed the GREs. I also got C's or lower in any class that was pure lecture and multiple choice test. If it was essay, research papers, discussion or long answer - I'd get As.
Interactive? As. Lectures? Cs. Also I sucked at math - because I'd flip the formulas they wrote on the board around and couldn't just memorize things, it had to have a logical basis and connect to something.

Anyhow, I didn't get tested until I was 24 years of age, and by the Menninger Clinic - a prestigious mental health clinic in Topeka, Kansas that specialized in diagnosing learning disabilities. Cost me about $1500 - $2000 dollars to get tested and evaluated. This, by the way, was required for special accomodation under the Americans with Disability Act for the Bar Exam and Professional Responsibility Tests, and any other tests in law school. I had two law professors push me to get it done, and they explained the process. I'd failed the Professional Responsibility Test twice - it was a timed multiple choice test - where we transferred our scores to a computerized sheet of paper. I kept skipping the lines or filling my scores in the wrong place. I'd have to erase it all and do it again, and run out of time. I felt like an idiot.

The tests and psychological evaluation at the Menninger Clinic took two days. I had to drive to Topeka from Lawrence Kansas, which was about a two hour drive, give or take. Through mostly country roads. The psychologist took me through a battery of audio and visual coordination tests, and determined that while I'd developed some excellent compensation techniques (many of which she'd have taught me to do and was amazed that I'd figured out how to do all on my own), I'd hit the wall with law school.

I remember when we did a paper directional test, where you audibly drive a pretend car around various roads, she stopped me at one point and commented, "you must hate to drive." She stated this - because I'd have to stop think, and figure out which was left or right. It was like looking in a mirror in a way. Everything was flipped in my head and I had to flip it back.

Also, when we did the audio test? I'd subvocalize the word first, then again, test it, and say it. She noticed there were some sounds that I just didn't catch or couldn't process, but I'd figure out what was said by context. If it made logical sense. So I wouldn't hear the word at all, but figure it out because it worked best in that sentence. I wasn't aware of doing any of this of course.

I flipped sounds. Or switched them around. Did the same thing with numbers, and with letters at times.

She didn't like the word dyslexia - since she said it was too narrowly defined, and preferred using the term visual and audio coordination disorder.

Since that time, I've met and known many folks with varying forms of this disorder. My mother and brother have different forms of it - for them math is easier, reading is harder. Although mother can't remember numbers, while I can - as long as it has a pattern or rhyme to them. For me, numbers have a sound - certain groupings have a rhythm that is unique and I can remember. Words - I see visually. I don't really hear them. I can spell the word better than I can pronounce it. I confuse the sounds. Phonetically spelling a word doesn't work for me - it sounds like gibberish. I can't make sense of it, at all. But if you connect the word to something visually - it makes sense, or it has a rhyme or sound with other words. It's hard to explain.

We want to define things, to index them, and organize them - but learning disabilities are almost impossible to do this with, and vary so greatly. People think differently and learn differently. Because of my dyslexia (for lack of a shorter and better term), I am very detail oriented, I think logically and intuitively, I'm organized, and precise. I will repeat things. I tend to be more patient with others who repeat things or ask the same question again. I subvocalize, often read aloud or while moving my lips, I double check everything, and re-read while I write and while I read. I go over it twice. I'm doing that now, without thinking about it.

I had to find work-arounds at school - to learn. Learning for me was an obstacle course - and often a frustrating game. School never came easily. I didn't have a level playing field. While some students could take notes during class - mine seldom made any sense. It was better if I recorded the class or just listened. Trying to write and listen at the same time - was distracting. (I finally figured that out. And no longer do it.) My attention always wandered during lectures - it was exhausting trying to hear and remember what he or she or they said. Discussion was better - since it engaged me, and was interactive. If memorization was involved, I was often doomed, although I had tricks that I'd learned in theater - which was to write it down numerous times, and repeat it constantly.

I could go on and on...but my point is merely this, no one form of education should be mandated. You are actively discriminating against the poor students who cannot learn that way, and that's cruel. No student should be made to feel stupid or less than because they can't learn the way that is currently mandated or dictated by some well-meaning adult who has never met them.

We do not live in a one size fits all world, no matter how much we wish we did.

*******

Off to bed. Sorry for the long entry. It happens.

Comments

[conuly]

Phonics was first dictated in the 1970s,

This is untrue.

Teaching through phonics - generally various forms of analytic phonics - predates the "look-say" method which only gained prominence in the 1930s and 1940s.

The pendulum has theoretically swung back and forth about once per generation since the Baby Boomers (who were the first generation to grow up almost entirely without phonics), but in reality schools (and teachers) have tended to do variations on "phonics and", which is mostly the "and" and not the phonics.

[shadowkat]

Oh, so it pre-existed the 70s? I just remember the huge ad campaign, "Hooked on Phonics - a new learning method". BS, apparently. Good to know, thank you.

ETA: the public school I went to in the 1970s, was in West Chester, PA and ranked at the bottom of the public school system. They only taught phonics in kindergarten through - except for that one teacher who decided to try another approach outside of the district mandate.

The difficulty is not all schools are created equal. So my experience doesn't reflect what you've related above at all.

[conuly]

the public school I went to in the 1970s, was in West Chester, PA and ranked at the bottom of the public school system. They only taught phonics in kindergarten through

I'd be interested to know - not in an arguing way, just because this is the sort of thing I'm always interested in knowing - what curriculum they used, or at least what their general approach was.

Though kindergarten is really too early for mass reading instruction. Studies generally show that if you spend kindergarten doing real-world learning and pre-reading/pre-writing activities, then students learn to read faster when you start the next year. They gain fluency faster and end up as stronger readers by 2nd grade than their peers who started in kindy or pre-k.

(That's for children who learned to read via school instruction. Those who learned to read on their own are outliers.)

[shadowkat]

I can only relate what I remember - and it was over 40 years ago. Apparently it was prior to "Hooked on Phonics brand - which came out in 1987." - and it started mainly in the first grade. We'd sit with the teacher in a circle, on the floor, one kid in her lap, looking over the piece of writing, which was all words, and only a small picture at the top. So it was basically a page of words. Each kid would take turns sitting on Mrs. Gieger's lap and reading the story aloud or sounding it out. And hand writing was basically mimicry or sounding out the word, and coping what was on the board.

We started with spelling out or sounding out words - like codes, then moved to reading, and were read to a lot, and asked to repeat what we had heard. Emphasis was on audio over visual.

Looked it up - most likely : Explode the Code, 1976, Educators Publishing Service

Or the Spalding Method?

https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/what-classical-approach-phonics/

This was done in the mid 1970s, around 1975-1976. I was in the first grade around 1974-1975, I think.

[conuly]

Spalding is an OG method... but... I'm actually familiar with it, and I have to say, it's an extremely front-loaded program, not ideal for students with language-related disabilities or problems with working memory and/or attention.

There's a reason it's not generally advised for severely dyslexic kids, despite easily being the most inexpensive and accessible (read: scripted and you don't need special training to implement) OG program out there.

(It hasn't changed much in the past several decades either, so I actually can talk pretty clearly about this rather than almost any other option, which will have been updated for various reasons, for good or bad.)

But what you describe doesn't particularly sound like Spalding, not unless the teacher heavily modified it, which is very possible. People do that sort of thing, and sometimes that's a good idea and sometimes it doesn't matter, and sometimes it's not a good idea at all.

[shadowkat]

I talked to my mother about it - to see if she remembered more - but all she knew for certain was that "phonics" was the new thing - and they were pushing it in school when I was in elementary in the 1970s. Also, she couldn't get a diagnosis for me - back then. The psychologist who first assessed me - didn't have a clue (this was in 1974). My mother was also dyslexic, as is my brother, Aunt, and grandfather. But none of us knew or were diagnosed.

The other thing they pushed was new math - which lost me completely. I had to teach myself math.

[conuly]

Getting a dyslexic diagnosis is an exercise in frustration. Schools actively resist having to do that or accept it - you absolutely have to go private, to a neuropsych.

And dyslexia is usually comorbid with a whole bundle of other interrelated learning disabilities. Half of all dyslexics or more have an auditory processing disorder, a whole bunch have one or more other language-related disabilities, lots of apraxia or dyspraxia (which may then affect the speech as well....), as you know it is very common to also have dysgraphia or dyscalculia, and of course it's all very common among the autistic and ADHD population. Teasing out exactly what's causing which part of what issue is... ugh.

[shadowkat]

Agreed.

I learned this the hard way - and eventually spent about $1000 - $2000 at the Menninger Clinic (which left Topeka, Kansas in 2000 for Houston, Texas - I was diagnosed in 1992 when it was still located in Topeka.) It's a private psychiatric clinic. Took two days - I was also evaluated for ADHD by a specialist (I don't have it - she told me it was just law school stress, and the fact my coping mechanisms had hit the wall in law school. The clinician thought I might - because my attention kept wandering during all the evaluations and assessments - which took two days. )

And the clinician who evaluated me - told me that she didn't like the term dyslexia, instead it was "visual and audio coordination disorder". But I do have dyscalculia ( I flip numbers more than letters, have spatial coordination issues, and facial recognition is a problem - I don't remember faces unless I see them a lot, and people tend to look alike to me.)

It was interesting - because the clinician was amazed that I'd managed to figure out for myself and adopt all the coping mechanisms that she'd have told me to use, or would have taught me to use as - all on my own. But most of us do. We have to find work-arounds, because we happen to think and process information differently than most of society appears to think.

[conuly]

(I realize we're now approaching the part where I start drifting into specialized opinions in a very, very narrow field. Sorry.)

[shadowkat]

No worries. I admittedly have a strong emotional reaction to a lot of this, mainly because it was so traumatizing. I wanted desperately to learn - and a combination of their methodology and my learning disabilities got in the way.

[atpo_onm]

Sorry for the long entry.

Not at all. Thank you very much for taking the time to write at length about the subject, I found it both fascinating and enlightening. You've previously mentioned some of these aspects of the way you perceive things, both written and visual, but this was much clearer with the extra details.

I had wondered before if the dyslexia was somehow related (in terms of brain processing) to your stated difficulties with driving, with "confusing right and left", which I think to most people, myself included, is something that makes no sense. How could one not get the difference between left and right?

But you are likely aware of the condition known as synesthesia, where some people perceive one sense as if it were another-- see sound as light, for example. It too sounds "impossible", but many cases have been documented now over the last several decades. Somewhere in the brain wiring, the "code" is written differently, with different results.

After one of your earlier posts where you mentioned the driving left/right issue, I even thought of calling it "visual dyslexia", which sounds a lot like your psychologist's "visual/audio coordination disorder" (VACD?).

No one form of education should be mandated. You are actively discriminating against the poor students who cannot learn that way, and that's cruel. No student should be made to feel stupid or less than because they can't learn the way that is currently mandated or dictated by some well-meaning adult who has never met them. (...) We do not live in a one size fits all world, no matter how much we wish we did.

Absolutely. But it does seem like educators are finally learning this, granted slowly at times. When I was taught reading and spelling via phonics, it helped me a great deal, and seemed natural and logical to me. To this day, I use it to figure out how to pronounce and even spell words I haven't seen before. Perfect example-- the word "synesthesia". I knew how to pronounce the word, but was unsure of the spelling. I took my best guess, after breaking the word into its phonic parts, then googled it to verify-- and I was right.

But that's my brain-- works perfectly for me. Others? Perhaps not. I knew quite a few students who, even in high school, couldn't read worth a damn. Yet they were good at other things. And you're right-- sadly, the normal explanation from most, teachers included, was that they were stupid or perhaps just lazy.

Live and learn.

I hope.

Thanks again for the read! :-)

[shadowkat]

I had wondered before if the dyslexia was somehow related (in terms of brain processing) to your stated difficulties with driving, with "confusing right and left", which I think to most people, myself included, is something that makes no sense. How could one not get the difference between left and right?

I honestly don't see any difference between the two. I used to wear a watch to remind me which was which. Now, it's I'm right handed. But it doesn't work when someone is facing me, because my brain assumes that their right is my right. Nor does it work when I can't use that trick - for directions. The two words are literally meaningless to my brain - it doesn't compute right and left as anything other than metaphors. I tend to think metaphorically not literally.

[cactuswatcher]

But it doesn't work when someone is facing me, because my brain assumes that their right is my right.

My coping mechanism sometimes gets me, because I learned to think someone else's right was always the right when talking to other people. Don't have much problems with people in real life, but ask me to describe where one person is standing in a photo compared to someone else, and I goof up a lot! I look at a photo, and I put myself in place of the person in the photo. (For example: John is actually to my left compared to Jane when looking at the picture. But John is toward what Jane calls her right when the picture was taken, and that's how I see it!)

[shadowkat]

Yep, for me - in the photo I get confused, I never know which is which - so spend a lot of time guessing. I get really confused when it is supposed to be their right. I remember taking dance courses or boxing or aerobics.

Instructor: Go right.
ME (I go left, everyone is going right)
Instructor: No my right not yours.
Me: I am.
Instructor: No you are going your right.

So I'd switch it and use their right.

Instructor: Go right =
ME - goes left
Instructor - no your right, not mine.
Me: Uh.

Instructor : face each other, and do the opposite.
Me: Uh...

I was always off, they'd lift their right hand and I'd lift my left. Dance courses were a nightmare. I was always off and doing the exact opposite of what they told me to do, or a second or two off - because I'd have to think about it, and you can't think to dance. You just do it.

[atpo_onm]

One item related to the left/right that I worked out a solution for a few years after I started driving was when I referred to the right side of a vehicle or the left side, I had assumed it was universal that it was relative to the driver or passenger sides-- driver is left, passenger is right.

But then I'd mention, say, a tire that was chronically losing air to a mechanic, say it was the left rear, and he'd go over to the passenger side, since from the front of the car...

After that happened a few times, I started always saying "Driver's side (whatever)" or "Passenger side (whatever)".

[shadowkat]

Good idea, since in other countries outside the US, the Driver's side is on the other side of the car.

[mtbc]

I had difficulty with left and right mostly because nobody pointed out to me that they are relative to the orientation of one's body, I thought they were more absolute, like compass directions.

[shadowkat]

I thought the same - the compass directions make more sense to me. I get north/south, east/west, but right and left seem weird and inconsistent.

[mtbc]

I too think visually, glad I escaped phonics. I read extremely easily, and can mentally hold the relative arrangements of things together well in my head, which is helpful in software development, kind of the opposite of my father, who was also dyslexic, and enough years ago that it broadly killed his high school career, though in later years he did learn plenty of technical stuff in self-study from textbooks. He couldn't read novels at all, it was just far more work than it was worth. Weirdly, despite being articulate verbally, he also couldn't compose letters for toffee, it wasn't just typos, the whole arrangement of the sentences was just very unidiomatic.

He ended up doing accounting and tax, my mother would review his work and unswitch the digits.

[shadowkat]

My grandfather on my mother's side was similar. He never really learned to read or write well, and did not finish high school. He created a successful trucking business, and was a cattle farmer - very successful. His wife handled the book keeping. He could do math in his head, and fix just about anything. But reading and writing were difficult for him. He read but usually just the paper, or small things. He didn't have the patience for novels nor understood them. While my grandmother would read anything she could get her hands on.

He was clearly dyslexic, and my brother takes after him a great deal - although my brother is well read and learned faster than I did. Phonics worked for my brother. But he found reading more difficult than I did going forward.

It really does vary.

[mtbc]

It absolutely does vary, hence the problem with mandating an approach!

[shadowkat]

Agreed. I think the difficulty with educational systems - is they want standardization. It's cheaper and easier to manage, but when it comes to learning - people learn differently and think differently, so any standardization or mandate is going to discriminate against the folks who don't think or learn that way.

[mtbc]

Very true. I'm certainly open to annual testing to get an idea of how the teachers are doing so long as it's compared with the previous year's so they're not penalized for having less-able students in the first place, and so long as it's not a big criterion for students' fates so it doesn't overly stress them, but I'm also all for being hands-off when teachers are performing adequately on the basis of outcomes.

[cactuswatcher]

Though there was no kindergarten available when I was the right age, I learned the basics of reading before I began first grade. I think phonics in school would have just been confusing.

The problem as always, is that people who aren't affected don't understand that dyslexia isn't one specific thing, it's a range of problems. My dyslexia is pretty minor, but it's real. Who was going to understand, when a kid like me who could read very well 95% of time, just could not read at all, once in a while. My dysgraphia is serious, but it was always dismissed as me being sloppy and careless. No one else understood when I was little, so how could I?

[shadowkat]

That's so true - the people who don't really have it or just have one symptom - don't get it. And we tend to think everyone perceives things the same way we do - which isn't true of anyone.

My brother and mother both have a form of dyslexia, dysgraphia - but it is different than mine and presents differently, also they developed different coping mechanisms - and we're all related and lived together.

And I am the same way about reading now at least and even then - 95% of the time I can read very well and fairly quickly, but then there are times I can't do it at all, and I look at the page and it doesn't make sense to me. Also, sometimes I read quickly, some very slowly, and it's not clear why or when it will happen, sometimes it's just my interest level.

The psychologist who assessed and evaluated me - stated pretty much what you state above - that it is a range of problems, and she had issues with defining it as "dyslexia" because she felt it was too specific, and my issues were broader than that. My dyslexia was rather minor, but the other issues weren't, hence the difficulty with diagnosis - because many educators and assessers just look for the dyslexia, not the other more serious issues like dysgraphia.