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"Mr. Hare, will you help me tie my shoes?" Read: ”Get down on the floor so I can hear you grunt, and tie my shoes without any help from me at all, because I don't know the first thing about it.”
When I agreed to teach pre-first (kids who had been through kindergarten but were not ready for first), I worried about all the challenges of bringing them up to grade level. How do you teach a kid to read from scratch? I knew I would be struggling with their development levels and possible learning disabilities. How does a six year old work, I wondered? I never suspected I would be spending so much time crouched over little shoes, trying to force frayed laces through impossibly small holes.
While you struggle with the "threading", bad things can happen behind your back; daredevil acts, unwitnessed disputes, pratfalls, skinned joints, and dozens other events which tattletales come running to tell you as you fuss with tiny feet.
And you know your effort is for naught (pun intended) because, because the shoes will not stay tied! Even double knots do not work! Constant kid-scrambling will undo the best of them in no time. The flat laces work best though. The big round ones, at first glance, seem perfect for being handled by small, inexperienced fingers, like the fat pencils we give out in first grade. But you can't get them pulled tight enough to stay tied. They begin to loosen with the first step! We need Velcro!
On the positive side, I am getting a Stairmaster kind of workout. My thigh muscles are even growing muscles!
Shoe tying seems like a small thing, an umimportant topic compared other larger, more important sounding themes that occur to me every day. The moment I stop to ponder one of them, someone comes up and pulls on my shirt to get shoes tied. Perhaps a story will happen around one of these worthy subjects. I list them:
The primacy of play in the learning process (self-teaching on the floor)
Hugging as prelude to communication (Sometimes I feel like a docking station.)
Crying and pouting (Swallowing disappointment....'cause life ain't fair!)
Blame and reflex lying (I didn't do it, Mr. Hare, and I don't know how all this red ink got all over my hands.)
Uh oh, I'm stupid. (The school system and failure)
I think; therefore, I speak (Right now, in a loud voice, and I have no unexpressed thoughts!).
In Reply to: The Ground Is Way Down There! posted by Jim H. on November 06, 2003 at 07:56:25:
Great Cosmic Teacher and Poobah,
Good one, as usual. You always put a chuckle in my gut, a sparkle in my rhinestone, and a fresh crease in my turban. So when, after all these years, do you plan to get published? I should know this, but I just Od'd on Butterfingers and the spirits are not speaking to me (belch).
In Reply to: The Ground Is Way Down There! posted by Jim H. on November 06, 2003 at 07:56:25:
Thanks, Jim.
Listen to Madam.
Namaste`
Walt
In Reply to: Re: The Ground Is Way Down There! posted by Madam Palm on November 07, 2003 at 03:23:50:
So good to hear from a true old Stoll boardie from the 120 MHz days! Thanks for stopping by, it was getting pretty lonely out here.
In Reply to: Re: The Ground Is Way Down There! (Archive in Jim H.) posted by Walt Stoll on November 07, 2003 at 07:10:11:
Thanks, Walt, I always listen to MB, even when her crystal ball is smeared with chocolate!
Thanks for all you do!
Jim
In Reply to: Re: The Ground Is Way Down There! (Archive in Jim H.) posted by Jim H. on November 07, 2003 at 08:05:08:
Dear Walt,
Many moons have passed, but I still love you for the amazing, ceaselessly giving, brilliant being that you are. I always will. Temporary grumpinesses pass into oblivion, and I apologize for any that I may have dumped on you. I'm disgustingly, gloriously, grossly, divinely human, and I can cross the gap from asshole to saint wannabe in one second flat. I'd be honored if you'd still call me friend.
Life goes on. The PhD is still in progress. After you went through your interesting cerebral explorations and Greenwich went through less interesting restructuring, it finally settled out that I got a no time limit PhD. I changed projects from bacteria to writing a book on my development as an energy healer. A lot of it is devoted to inner sight/psychic ability. There's still a lot to be written.
The boys are growing up and endlesly hungry. Nick thumbed his nose at syringomyelia, is 5'10" at 12, and just made the middle school basketball team by virtue of sheer determination and the ability to stand up for himself. I've got a growing practice as a seer, with a personal agenda of bringing seeingness into the mainstream world. Wish me luck. Sometimes I feel like a salmon swimming upstream backwards. I whine to Jim a lot. He's an endless font of wisdom, my Hare brother.
So what's with you and your world? How's that old hag life treating you? The email address is just for you; no one else.
Lots of love to you, Walt my friend
Madam Palm
In Reply to: Re: You're still number one posted by Madam Palm calling Walt on November 07, 2003 at 22:03:34:
Thanks, Madame Palm, for the update. I wondered what happened with you and Greenwich.
I DO wish you luck!
Please keep in contact.
Walt
In Reply to: Re: You're still number one posted by Madam Palm calling Walt on November 07, 2003 at 22:03:34:
still as schizophrenic as ever, Kyra...
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