Sunday May 21

[Shirlv]

Morning All, 60° and sunny. Same ole here. Lots of plants to water inside and out. Busy day on Shirls farm. Finally got fresh broccoli with pickup order so my favorite dinner salmon cakes and broccoli salad. Going to visit family after lunch to catch up on the latest news. Be safe.

Anita, think positive. The new manger was very busy being a good manager. I hated moving

[Bethers]

Morning Shirl and all who follow. Basically to be in the 60's here today, maybe some rain and maybe low 70's for a couple hours. Nothing on my agenda today. About to walk the gardens with Ty. My kind of gardening is being in wonder at all they do here. And all that so many of you do.

[OregonLuvr]

Good morning, I am on my second cup of coffee. My friend is leaving today, I will miss her. She helped me out in the garden and planting more flowers in the new pots I got. I really like flowers. My garden looks good, it is still alive so that makes it "good" ha ha I am thinking I will put a second coat of stain on my deck this week as we are definitely cooler. It will be in the low 70's and even a 68 one day so perfect weather to be working outside.

Pat good to see you posting again, I know we miss seeing you on here. Anita hope your communication with your new manager gets better. Beth aren't you about done at your volunteer job?? I lose track of time for myself so no hope for anyone else LOL Barbie I have Visible that Beth recommended and it works really good. It is a division of Verizon but they wont help you with it. I found going to their FB page and chatting with them on there was much easier. They helped me get activated as I didnt have my "pin to port" number as I was using my account pin and they pointed that out and then all was good. I too dont understand the sim card problem you are having. Worked one day and not the next interesting.

Will do the laundry this afternoon so I will be done with changing the linens and towels from the guest bedroom and bathroom. Will change my linens in a couple of days. Henry has been doing his job so that is one chore I dont have to tackle. My neighbors daughter came over yesterday and cut mine and Lisa's hair. She is a hairdresser and does a good job. So handy to just have her walk next door LOL

Time for some breakfast and then a shower and start my day rolling

[Shirlv]

It turned into a very interesting day. My friend, Edith, has always struggled with math so since the memory of teacher I ask her if she had the same teacher and she did. Edith has always said she is too dumb to do math. I started searching and there is a math disorder “Dyscalculia” which seem to fit Edith so forwarded her the article. We had a long phone conversation and the disorder fit her perfectly. I’m sure it was unknown back in the 1940’s and Edith suffered because of it. She is printing it for her younger brother who balances her checkbook. She is so happy her problem has a name and it isn’t stupid. There is help for young children because their brain is still developing but not for adults. I will keep searching for ways that might help her cope.

[Cudedog]

It turned into a very interesting day. My friend, Edith, has always struggled with math so since the memory of teacher I ask her if she had the same teacher and she did. Edith has always said she is too dumb to do math. I started searching and there is a math disorder “Dyscalculia” which seem to fit Edith so forwarded her the article. We had a long phone conversation and the disorder fit her perfectly. I’m sure it was unknown back in the 1940’s and Edith suffered because of it. She is printing it for her younger brother who balances her checkbook. She is so happy her problem has a name and it isn’t stupid. There is help for young children because their brain is still developing but not for adults. I will keep searching for ways that might help her cope.

Interesting post, Shirl. A day or so I posted the reason I hate sewing (a lot to do with a junior High School teacher), but I deleted the post because I thought it was just too. . . well, you know.

Anyway, I have also had a problem with math. That is, I had a major problem with math during my growing-up years. It moderated quite a bit as an adult - as I began to know myself better - but it has always stayed with me to a greater or lesser extent.

My problem with math was that (on a math test, for example - and even on homework back in those days) one was always required to "show the work" on the equation - that is to say, one needed to write down the steps one used to reach the answer.

I couldn't do this. What I could do, is that I could look at an equation and know intuitively what the answer was - without really knowing how I got there. So I would just put the answer down below the test equation, without "showing my work".

Well, if I was able to magically pluck an answer out of (seeming) mid-air, I was (obviously, according to my teachers) cheating. According to them, there was no way I could arrive at the correct answer without "showing my work", unless I had copied the answer from the test of a classmate sitting nearby.

I was very shy and withdrawn when I was a child (still am, a bit, but I try to keep this hidden). When I would be taken to task in front of the entire class my brain would freeze and I would be unable to speak (even to explain myself). Obviously (to the teacher) my "unwillingness" to speak was "proof" that I had cheated.

Of course, "cheating" and "stupid" go hand-in-hand, so I gave up on math at an early age. Obviously, I was stupid if I couldn't figure out how to "show the work". When my math class would be given a test, I wouldn't bother to do it, because (even though I still intuitively knew the correct answers) I was "bad" and "stupid" if I put down an answer without showing the calculations of how I got there.

So I just didn't bother. This saved me a lot of upset and anxiety, and, of course, I failed math.

I had a fractured home life as a child, so discussing this with my parents wasn't an option. It was easier - and far less stressful - to just "accept" that I was stupid, and so not to worry about failing math.

Which is what I did.

I am fairly good at math these days, thank goodness. But it took becoming an adult and learning my own worth to get there.

Anne

[Bethers]

Anne, I started out loving math. But never liked writing out the steps because I usually skipped some. That got worse when geometry came along. Like you the steps being written down were required and I couldn't do that. That was pretty much the end of my liking math. Worse we had to know and write down the names of the steps. I've never, ever been good with names of anything.

Shirl, I love finding explanations for things that made people call us stupid. I hate that word and I think I was another who took it to heart too often.

So far, strange day. No rain was predicted until about this time. At noon I heard thunder and next thing I knew it was pouring. I'm going to try to get another walk in now when the rain is predicted, but won't count on being able to get very far. Oh, first I'll move my laundry to the dryer. Yep, exciting, eh?

[OregonLuvr]

My friend left a little after noon. Got the sheets and towels in the washer now need to get them out of the dryer LOL Sent Henry in to vacuum the room and soon it will be already for new guests....should some show up LOL Made a pot of Tortellini soup as it is rather cool and cloudy outside. Then think I will just park myself in the recliner for the rest of the afternoon

Math was never my best subjective....algebra was hard for me but I managed to ace the class but it wasnt because I knew what the heck I was actually doing it was because I could memorize the steps. As a nurse we used to use math all the time doing calculations for drugs, entering weight, volume, time etc. So it did come in handy. Nowadays almost everything is brought up by Pharmacy in their desired dose. In the NICU we had to double check almost everything with another nurse and I was often surprised at the answers they came up with YIKES but it was a teaching moment. I loved science Anatomy & Physiology, Microbiology, Chemistry not so much hah No one should ever be made to feel dumb or stupid. Some learn faster than others...so what. They just need a little instruction, encouragement, or even a tutor. I was lucky I remember having good teachers, but not always nice ones. All thru nursing career we had to learn umpteen things at all times and they were changing them on a whim. Continuing education was always a drag. Had to be recertified for CPR (BLS)and Advance Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) every 2 years. Now that class was hard for me because I didnt work with Code drugs on adults. But they mentored me and taught me skills I never thought I could posess LOL I also worked Labor & Delivery but I figured out that blue button on the wall was my friend and the code team would appear if we had a patient in distress. My point is anyone can learn anything....we just can't know what we don't know unless someone guides us.

[chalet05]

I was lucky no one made me feel stupid or maybe I just didn't catch on to what they were implying. I took high school geometry twice and still didn't get it! I had loved math to that point! Interesting information you found, Shirl. Monica was just telling me about a disorder I hadn't heard of before - a defiant disorder! She has a student with it - Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

Karen, glad you had a good visit! Pat, always nice to see you post!

Monica came to help with some of the cleaning and loading the car with round 1. She is so stressed with work and taking tomorrow off so I'll have help from her and Alan. I took her home and watched traffic on the still very high, fast river. After all the mishaps this year, the kids are thinking they don't want to go rafting again.

More decisions to be made before movers come in the morning!

[Acadianmom]

Pat, hope they can fix your sister's problem. I can barely make a weekend with mine. I would be nuts if she spent several months with me.

I made it all the way thru trigonometry which made no sense to me. I probably couldn't have worked a problem two weeks after the class ended. The only person I knew that used trigonometry was my brother that worked in the satellite industry. I still laugh when I think about my algebra teacher. If someone wasn't paying attention she would go off on a tangent about "I thought you said." I thought you said roses when you said noses and you said you wanted a big red one. I thought you said books when you said looks and you said you didn't want any. I wish I could remember all the things she would say.

I started making doll clothes with my grandmother when I was just a kid. By the time I got to junior high I was making my own clothes. The home economics teacher wanted me do do everything by the book so we butted heads.

I didn't do much today, didn't even cook. I took some cooked roast out of the freezer. Went fishing for a little while but there were gnats attacking me. Insect spray didn't faze them very much. I have never seen gnats at the pond before.

Anita, good luck with the move. I hate to think about ever having to move.

Martha

[JudyJB]

Shirl, when we were kids, there were a lot of things wrong with us that adults and teachers never noticed. I did well in math until I flunked calculus in college and changed my major to English and teaching. I probably could have managed if I had been given better advice and help in that class.

For most of us, if we had a problem with reading or math or whatever--they just called us dumb or labeled us as mentally retarded. My best friend always had to retake the standardized tests, and looking back, I think she probably had a problem with dyslexia because she did OK in class--just could not take a test. And in my case, because my name started with a "B" I usually sat in the front row in class in elementary school. In 6th grade, my teacher put me in the back row and noticed I could not see the board. In fact, I could not see much of anything, and i think that still affects my identifying faces. When I got glasses in 7th grade, I was amazed that I could see the branches in trees!

And I remember our old family doctor. I can't remember him ever taking my blood pressure. He took temperature and looked at us at one of those early x-ray machine that you stood in front of, and it showed your whole body. And the people in my family never knew what drugs he prescribed because he always referred to them by color, shape, and size--the little pink pills, or the oval yellow ones, or the white square ones, for example. I remember my aunts and cousins comparing diseases by the descriptions of the pills the doctor prescribed!!!

Amazing that we survived!

[snowball]

when my #2 daughter was in first grade I think she was told by her teacher that she wouldn't be able to read or basically amount to anything... her 2nd grade teacher was a teacher who taught well and my dd learned to read not that she liked it but she does read and is now a counselor in the middle school... my son didn't do well in kindergarten so since there was several students that didn't do well they created a pre first grade... he still didn't do well and we couldn't understand it at all as you could put him in front of an educational tv and he absorbed it all could remember what he learned but school forget it... they tested him and found out that he had a true oh what was the word disorder his test was off the wall one way for some and the opposite for others .... the way they tried to explain it was that he heard a word different than what it printed out kinda like a dyslexic of the ears... sorta and his short memory was very short by the time he could figure out the first sentence he'd forgotten the first words it was a struggle... they eventually figure out how to learn their way ... he actually addressed the envelope that my flowers came in and a small card and I could read it... he is a foreman at his work
I too hate the word stupid it does no good at all... to anyone...
it was a normal Sunday
you all have a great day
sheila

[JudyJB]

When I was first divorced and desperate for a job, I was supervising the tutoring lab at a local college a couple of hours two nights a week. One night I got a call from a parent who told me his daughter was having problems learning to read. Since my degree was in K-12 reading instruction, I was happy to help him, so I asked a few questions about his daughter. Turned out that his daughter was four years old, and he and his wife had taken her to register for Kindergarten the next fall. The teacher who registered this poor child had observed her and told the parents that she could tell that this child would have difficulty learning to read in Kindergarten!!! What???

I was furious and told him to completely ignore any teacher who tried to predict that his child would be a failure when she had never even stepped foot in a classroom. I said that if any teacher tried to do that with one of my children, I would talk to the principal and insist on another teacher or even a different school. How dare she???

And, Sheila, how dare your daughter's first grade teacher tell your child such a stupid thing!! No teacher has the right to discourage a child in any situation. (And I won't even get into how schools these days are expecting tiny kids to learn academic things like reading in kindergarten.)

[MandysMom]

Judy, I totally agree with you. Reading in kindergartens, algebra in 4th grade??? My Mom was so glad she could retire before the new wave hit! A dear friend took early retirement because of the things she was forced to teach.
Velda