Letters from Lisa

When I’m more coherent, I’ll tell you all about how we got here.

But for now… I’m back.

And now I’m going to bed. Cheers!

After several days on the west coast visiting family and friends, we have arrived at Snowbird for four days of skiing. I was very nervous before I got here - I am not a great skier, and I’d heard that the skiing here was very difficult. As it turns out… it is. As a still-beginner, I have fairly limited options about where I can go. I’m glad that I took lessons all day today so that I could get used to the “easiest” trails and note where they cross over, or just turn into, harder trails. I feel pretty good, though, aside from a lot of pain in my lower legs from where they were cramped by the ski boots. Complaints, complaints.

We’re staying at the Inn right on the mountain, so we’re fairly well situated, as least as far as distance goes. Some of the restaurants around here are extremely high priced and fancy (read: pretentious) but I’ve been managing at least to have nice desserts. And long baths too.

We’ll be here until Friday, when we’re flying back to Portland for one night. Then it’s home on Saturday morning.

I was a busy girl this weekend… Saturday I went to the Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design. It’s a small show - took me longer to get there by subway than it did to walk through the entire exhibit - but enjoyable. I was quite taken with a few of the pieces, and left baffled by some others. I had several favorites - the dress knit entirely from shredded money, the teeny-tiny gloves and sweaters that fit on your fingertips, and the collection of coral snake “skins” that were knitted as an alternative to killing the animals and pinning their skins inside a glass case.

And speaking of that, today I went to the Museum of Natural History, where it was apparently Let Your Tiny, Crying Child Run Amok Day. Don’t get me wrong - I am a science educator - I believe in exposing children to the natural world early and often. I must simply be cranky. I think I’ll run around at high speed, collapse into a heap on the floor, cry hysterically, kick an exhibit, bang my head against the glass, and demand a toy as we’re passing through the gift shop. Hmm, wait, that sounds awfully familiar…

I was only at the museum a few weeks ago, but there is a new hall open - the Hall of Human Origins. It’s glittery and new and beautiful, and I highly recommend it. Just not for two year olds.

You have to be of a certain generation to appreciate Tetris, and more specifically, the Tetris music. I’ve already extolled the virtues of the Nintendo Midi Music Page, but we must give the YouTube users credit - their performances are live.

There are hundreds and thousands of them - but I am of course bringing you only the best.

First, there’s the Tetris song as God intended it - on the piano. Try this one for a fairly good representative sample.

There are some American Idol versions too. Try this one - a duet on violin. Or better yet, this one. Warning: remove all small animals from room before attempting. 

This guy probably belongs on American Idol, too.

In this version, the audience claps along.

Your band director would be proud of this one. And this one.

A whole chamber music group plus electric guitar goes at it…

Then, there’s this one - a 10 minute expanded masterpiece. One might term it the Goldberg variations of Tetris.

If you’d ever really learned to play the recorder in elementary school, you might sound like this.

On the other hand, your drama director’s ticked off that you’re messing around backstage. Stop it. 

Next, if Spinal Tap ever got a hold of it, this is probably what it would sound like. No, on second thought, this one. Or this one, if Spinal Tap were dressed as ninjas. Hey… might be good stage production value. Maybe if we built a gigantic Mt. Fuji that exploded on the stage…

Unplugged version.

This one just needs more cowbell. So does this one.

A ska version? From Japan? Sure, why not. 

Nintendo in Paris? Turns out there are dozens of accordion versions. I didn’t even know that many people played the accordion anymore.

Finally… the grand finale, Nintendo A Capella. If you’re not into the Super Mario stuff, stick around for the Tetris re-enactment.

What does all this prove? That there are lots of people out there obsessed with this song. It’s not just me. At least I don’t have a video of myself playing the Tetris song on YouTube… yet.

Can we talk? This has been bugging me for quite a while, and I thought it only fair that we get it out into the open, before any more resentment builds up. Basically, I can’t stand riding public transportation with you. Here’s why:

• You hog the seats. You sprawl with your knees jutting out in all directions, as if you’re on your couch at home and not on a packed train. You slouch and stretch out and take up seats that other people could use. Frankly, it’s rude.
• You sit on the aisle on buses with an empty seat next to you, but then act all offended and irritated when someone needs to sit next to you. Then instead of moving over and making room, you get up and make the person climb in, or even better, you just shift slightly and make the person climb over you.
• You stand around in the worst places. People are trying frantically to get into or out of the train, and there you are, stopped dead still blocking the doorway. Maybe you’re trying to figure out where to sit, or even unsure if you’re on the right train. But can’t you think of a better place to stand while making that decision? You do the same thing at the bottom of stairwells and escalators. There are people behind you, you know.
• Those earphones you’re wearing render you oblivious to what’s going on around you. If you’re standing on my foot or blocking my way, I practically have to get in your face in order to pry your attention away from your music (which, by the way, I can hear - did you know that your volume is so loud that intelligent alien civilizations are picking up your frequency?) No one wants to rip the headphones off your ears, but believe me, sometimes we’re tempted.
• You read the New York Post, for Pete’s sake. Do you know what a piece of junk it is? Not to mention biased. This is the publication that featured photos of the Iraq Study Group members’ heads attached to the bodies of baboons. There are tons of free papers being given out at the entrances to the train stations, so why waste your money on stupidity?
• You have no idea how much room your backpack, purse, shopping bags, or suitcases take up. Either that, or you’re smacking into us on purpose.
• Repeat after me these three little syllables: EXCUSE ME. There. That wasn’t hard, was it?
• You bring out the worst in me. I enter mass transit a nice person, a decent person, a patient person, and I leave an irritable, angry mess. I even find myself acting like you! I don’t think we should be spending nearly as much time together.

This student is complaining that he’s “bored”, but I can’t give him more challenging work to do. He can’t even hand in the work that he already gets. His homework is always late, if he turns it in at all, and his written responses are too short and simplistic. How is he going to handle more difficult material?

This is a common myth that appears in a variety of forms, and applies not only to students with diagnosed learning problems, but to all students who aren’t “working up to potential”. In the case of a child with disabilities, it’s very clear cut. The mistake here is confusing cognitive skills with organizational skills, handwriting skills, or other skills that are separate from the actual material of a subject.

There is an “unwritten curriculum” at most schools surrounding organization. Neatness is taken to be a marker of competency and caring about the subject. A child with crumpled papers, scrawled handwriting, or lost books may LOOK like he doesn’t “care” about the subject, doesn’t take “pride” in his work, or isn’t “motivated” to do well. In fact, his papers are probably crumpled because he is too distracted or disorganized to put them away properly, or doesn’t have the fine motor coordination to slide papers neatly into folder pockets. (I’ve worked with lots of kids who simply lay the papers in the middle of their folders and don’t use the pockets for that exact reason.) The result is that the papers slide to the bottom of the backpack and are crushed by books and other belongings, assuming the child can remember to even bring those things home.

Then there’s the homework issue. Kids with organizational issues can forget to take their homework home, forget to do their homework, forget to bring the finished homework into school, or simply forget to hand it in. Not completing the homework cycle successfully makes it look, to many teachers, like the child is “irresponsible” or “can’t get the work done”. Therefore, the child can’t possibly given anything “harder” when he can’t even “do what he already has”. They mistakenly conclude that it’s the subject matter, or the child himself, that is the problem.

As for the writing issue, many teachers depend upon a child’s ability to express his ideas in handwritten (often cursive) prose to judge whether he has mastered the material. This is a bad idea. Kids with handwriting difficulties are unfairly penalized and assumed to have less sophisticated understandings than those who can handwrite fluently. If a child can explain his thoughts in typewritten form, or dictate the content to an adult as he is learning to type, you will get an actual reflection of what the child thinks and knows. We also unnecessarily introduce language tasks into subjects that don’t necessarily require them, thus obscuring the achievements of students who have language issues. Many general education teachers, in an effort to teach “higher order thinking” in subjects like math, ask kids to write paragraphs explaining their ideas. Thus it might look like a child with a language-based issue “can’t” do the work, and therefore doesn’t “know” the material.

Finally, children with disabilities often perform inconsistently on tasks over time. Their ability to pay attention to what they’re doing on any given day might fluctuate, especially if they were up late the night before or are preoccupied with worry about that afternoon’s therapy appointment. They have difficulty retrieving learned information from memory in a timely fashion, which causes difficulty on timed tests. Teachers often want children to demonstrate 100% mastery on a skill before they are “ready” to move on to the next. However, if this is rigidly followed, many children will end up “stuck” repeating only basic skills, which will lead to a loss of motivation and plenty of frustration. Children with advanced thinking - who may be both gifted and learning disabled - will check out if they do not have the chance to move on to challenges at their level.

Throwing off the confines of this myth’s narrow thinking is relatively easy. It involves observing the child and analyzing the situation. What is it, exactly, that the child isn’t doing?

• If a child is performing well and “knows” the material, but is not handing in homework or taking good care of his papers, the problem is not the material. It is disorganization. Give the child tools to organize his belongings, directly teach him how to use them, and give him the time during the school day to use them. If they only have three minutes to pack up before they have to be on the bus, they will be almost guaranteed to lose and forget things! Organization is an important skill for success in school and life, but does not indicate how smart or skilled a child is in your subject. Don’t confuse late or missing homework with not knowing the information.
• If the child seems to “know” the material but is having trouble producing written work, maybe it’s the writing that’s the problem. Consider having the child type his responses, dictate what he wants to say, or draw a diagram that illustrates the same ideas in non-verbal form. Teach writing in writing class, and move the kid on in math. Many students with problems in one area are on or above grade level in other areas, and it’s unfair to hold them back because of irrelevant elements into the task.
• If a child is having trouble memorizing something, but otherwise is doing well in the subject, assign the memorization as supplementary work and move the child on. You don’t need to have the multiplication facts all memorized to do 2×3 digit multiplication. Separate the task into its component parts and have the child work on each part separately. Memorizing information is not always necessary or even desirable. Why do you think every chemistry classroom has a periodic table hanging up in it? Don’t confuse memorization with understanding.

Note: I am NOT advocating that we release children from learning and practicing organization, writing, or memorization of basic and important facts. I AM advocating that we teach these to children directly, over long periods of time. And I AM advocating that children can move on and engage in other things while they are, say, learning to color code their papers. We simply should not treat these as prerequisites for doing interesting and challenging work.

I’m glad to see my spam has recovered from its depressed mood - it now seems to be waxing philosophical: 

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.

My spam definitely desires your happiness. If by “happiness” you mean purchasing impotence drugs over the internet.

What my spam fails to realize is that desiring one’s own happiness is not enough. There are plenty of people out there who are simply doing whatever they can to get what they think will make them happy, and the problem is that they are oblivious or uncaring about the consequences to everyone else. Hence gas guzzling cars that contribute to global warming and multi-million dollar diamonds that fund slave labor and war in diamond mining regions. I don’t think most people desire the unhappiness of others, but I do think they value their own lifestyle goals so highly that they are willing to live with the indirect, slowly compounding harm that they cause.

Though I DO think that the polarization of politics in this country has led to a climate in which people do feel good when their opponents get slammed. It’s become about the competition, just getting your people into positions of power, never mind what those people will actually do when they get there. More important to shore up your power for some future date. So you have Republicans, who have traditionally believed in less government oversight and intrusion into private life, supporting people who engage in wiretapping and snooping without a warrant.

Hey, spam, thanks for a lovely thought provoking morning. So good to see you out of your funk.

This is a shawl in progress.

I call these my “Barbie needles” because they are huge - size 17s - and also stupidly pink. I don’t anticipate using huge needles all that often, so I went for the cheapest plastic ones I could find. Just because they look like they came out of Toys R Us… 

Tetris at Brown University, on YouTube.

They did this right after I graduated. Still, I feel sort of a tenuous connection to this Tetris game, since a) I love Tetris, b) I worked at that library for four years, and c) I made my entire club of 38 kids dance to that stupid theme song during one of our theater rehearsals.