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The facebook adventure continues. I’m still gradually adding people I know to my friends list. Thanks to everyone who has reached out to add me. That is really helpful.

Facebook certainly makes it easy for me to find vast swathes of people that I’ve not spoken to for decades. As I’m looking through the profiles of people I knew in high school I am seeing a much wider range of life experience than I’ve been accustomed to. Most of the people I interact with regularly are family, writers, members of my church, or Sci Fi fans. I hadn’t quite realized that I’ve been paddling around in an eddy of the river of human experience. It is a little scary to contemplate reaching out more, but I also think it is a good thing to do.

Giggles are required at a slumber party with four teenage girls. We had them in abundance last night. There was a remarkable lack of fingernail polish, hair dos, or phone calls to boys. Instead they watched Doctor Who “Blink” and Speed Racer, listened to video game music, and read each other sections of the manga novels that they are writing. At one point Howard mused aloud wondering if we were hosting a slumber party or a writing group. Whichever it was, I love seeing Kiki have geek girl friends who share her interests. We were also greatly amused to hear them divy up dibs on the male leads in the Speed Racer movie. They also declared David Tennant to be cute until they learned that he is *gasp* 37 years old! This morning the four girls amused themselves by creating a game out of the premise for “Blink.” Two of the girls took the parts of the angels while the other two tried not to get caught. They really needed a larger space. We’ll have to let them play again some night in the back yard when the weather is warmer.

Cold
Rainy
Gray
Housebound
The tap of keys
One story finished
Two in process
David Tennant’s Doctor Who Video diary
cold pizza for lunch
Kids play video games
Quiet

On Wednesday Kiki’s German teacher was sick and there was a substitute. Instead of following the lesson plan, the substitute teacher showed a documentary of his own choosing. The documentary’s purpose was to show that all psychiatrists are evil people who make up illnesses in order to get money. In support of this claim the documentary showed footage and photos of dozens of unethical, torturous experiments done on humans and animals. It also showed interviews with people who claimed that permanent damage had been done to them by psychiatric medication. Kiki came home from school and cried for two hours. We talked through everything she had seen and how she felt about it. We also carefully sifted out the truths from the falsehoods. We had a long digression into conspiracy theories and why people would ever think it was right to do these experiments.

A huge part of Kiki’s upset was because she knows that her brother takes medication for ADD. She was terrified that his medicine might be doing him harm. I talked her through our decision process for putting Link on the medicine. I also helped her remember her own observations of her brother’s behavior both on and off the medication. Her observations were a direct contradiction of what the film showed. She was also appalled that people could be so cruel to each other and to animals. It took a lot of talking and soothing to help her work through her emotions about that. She was hugely conflicted because she was not sure whether the video had been given by her regular teacher (whom she adores) or the substitute. She felt sick the whole time the video was shown and even gathered her stuff to leave, but was scolded back into her seat by the sub.

Because of the A B schedule, today was the first chance we had to talk to Kiki’s regular teacher. We found him in the office with both of the school Principals. It was such a relief to Kiki to discover that this video was not approved in any way. Her regular teacher was nearly in tears. He’d spent most of the day talking with his students and getting written statements from them about the video. The Principals were both very focused and apologetic. They intend to pursue disciplinary and legal action to make sure that this man is never able to substitute in a classroom again. They’re also going to make sure that the school district reviews the screening procedure for substitute teachers. They requested a written statement from me, which I gave to them. I’ve also volunteered to testify in person should that become necessary.

Kiki is going to be fine. She has me and Howard to talk her through all of her concerns and to look at this experience from every angle. She now has a deeper understanding of how cruel humans can be to one another. She also has learned that just because a person holds a position of authority does not mean she should automatically trust them. She has also learned that there are times when we must stand up and testify about the wrongness of something. These are not bad lessons, but this is not how I’d have her learn them. I am much more concerned about the other students, the ones who don’t have parents who can talk them through it. I’m worried about the kid who is on medication and decides to stop taking it because of that video. I’m worried about the kids who tell their medicated friends to stop taking medicine because of the video. I’m worried about the kids who may decide not to see a therapist when they need one because of the video. For these reasons I intend to keep on top of the situation. I intend to track the disciplinary action to make sure it goes through. I intend to make sure that the affected children get information that counteracts the video they were shown.

I’m pleased to say that most of my action will be just watching. I am very impressed with the teachers and administrators at Kiki’s school. They have the situation well in hand and I believe they are making the right steps to address the issues.

Concentration and focus are in short supply today. So naturally I decided to start a facebook account because that won’t be distracting. I’m still trying to figure out this social media networking thing. It has been really cool to discover how many people I know are already there. I’ve only had the account for a few hours and already a high school friend that I lost touch with has found me. I’m still figuring out how to find and friend people, so it may take me awhile to find everyone.

It bodes ill for the day when the first coherent thought is a realization that I don’t want to do today at all. In an attempt to account for the desire to huddle in a ball under my covers, I poked around to see what else could cause it. I was rewarded by a cascade of angst both realistic and fanciful. But none of it was new. I knew all of it yesterday and it didn’t bother me so much then. I jellyfished my way through the day. I would do a task if I bumped into it, but I was incapable of focus. Also I lost track of things easily. (Like the fact that I’d volunteered to help bring dinner to a new mother. whoops.) I went out to a late lunch to celebrate a couple of friends’ birthdays and at least three people commented that I seemed vague or tired or something. Belatedly it occurs to me that I may be sick. I was probably a vector at lunch. (lovely. What better way to say happy birthday than passing around a nice rhinovirus.) I still want to curl up into a ball, but instead I need to oversee homework and bedtime.

Postal rates went up again yesterday. It makes me sick to see the prices that our customers are having to pay to transport books from our house to theirs. We really need to find a way to distribute so that people can buy locally and not have to pay shipping. Either that, or someone needs to invent an instantaneous transporter. I wish we could afford to do what Amazon does and offer free shipping. Perhaps when we’re bigger we can, but the margins are too slim right now. We were glad to try offering it over the holidays so that we could get books out to people who otherwise could not afford to buy, but it cut into our margin too heavily for us to make that a permanent option. Now I need to go into our store and tweak all the shipping settings to make sure that postage is being calculated properly.

One of the most necessary skills in the management of young children is the ability to anticipate their behavior. This is particularly true with groups of children. It is even more particularly true with groups containing high energy children. I feel like I spent a large part of today focused on anticipating and preventing problem behaviors.

I started with Gleek. She’s had some trouble settling in to class time at church. The new year, new teacher, and new expectations are not beyond her capability to handle, but I needed to figure out how to get her to want to put forth the effort. I meant to sit down with her before church and talk things through, but I forgot. So I found myself in church, knowing that I was going to have the full complement of my primary class which would need my full attention. I really needed Gleek to manage herself without any intervention from me. I really hoped she could manage herself without causing trouble for any teachers. So sitting in sacrament meeting, I wrote her a note. Thus began written negotiations in which we defined what things she can do to settle herself when she feels antsy and what reward she can expect if she makes it through without troubles. The process of writing the notes was sufficiently engaging, that Gleek was fully committed to the idea of controlling herself during church. I haven’t yet had time to check with people who could observe her, but I know that she did not come to me at all.

It was good that Gleek did not come to me because all of my energy was completely focused on the six kids in my care. In most groups that size there are one or two children who need extra attention to help them stay focused and attentive. This group has one or two kids who don’t need extra attention. I was on high alert constantly scanning to see who might need an encouraging smile, or a gentle touch to the arm, or retrieving from the other side of the room. The job is going to get easier when I know the kids better. Right now I have no idea what that peculiar look on that child’s face means. It could be a precursor of anything from pants wetting, bursting into tears, hitting another child, or fleeing from the room. As I get to know the likely behaviors, I’ll be able to relax more. It will also be nice when my co-teacher and I can get a solid working relationship going. She couldn’t be there today, so I was flying solo.

During the large group song and lesson time, my whole focus was on keeping the kids happy and more or less in their seats. In some ways it was like musical chairs. The kids were constantly moving and switching and I switched too depending on which child needed to sit near the teacher or on the teacher. I also handed out several rounds of fish crackers. 2 pm is a hungry time of day. One of the boys has attentional challenges. Sometimes I was able to direct his attention to the lesson or song, but mostly I just tried to keep him occupied in ways that would not disturb others. At one point I could see that sitting still was starting to be too much for him, so I grabbed the roll of masking tape from my bag and wrapped a piece around one of his fingers. I instantly had his full and quiet attention. He asked for me to put tape on all of his fingers. Then he sat quietly for several minutes, just wiggling his fingers to absorb the strange feeling of having them taped up. Then a couple minutes more were spent carefully removing each piece of tape and handing them to me. Later tape was place on his back as dragon wings. And then the dragon wings were transferred to me.

The one thing I am not sure of, is whether my child management decisions were viewed as a disruption by the other adults/teachers. My focus on making sure the kids enjoy primary has the potential to grate on the nerves of someone who feels that children should sit still and learn. Trying to make these kids sit perfectly still and quiet sounds like an exercise in frustration and misery for everyone involved. Young children are wired to absorb information on the run. I’ll make sure there is a lesson of sorts, but my first priority is to make sure that they like to come to class. As the year progresses we can work on more expanded lessons.

It was exciting and fun to teach the class, but I came home feeling like I’d been run over by a truck. I’m exhausted.