Nearing the End

Today I received via email the General Judgement of the Dissolution of Marriage.  We had the court date in August.  My lawyer is just now getting it written up.  I receive it in an email, expecting me to sign it today.  I don't know if it is just lawyer speak but I see some glaring errors.

My feelings?  Anger. Grief.  Resentment.  I am sad my marriage of 32 years is ending.  I'm angry I have to pay spousal support starting March 1, 2013.  I'm worried my boys will never talk to me again.  I'm disgusted with my lawyer.  I have explained things to him at least 4 times, and he still can't get it right.

Why should I pay spousal support starting in March when I am not even divorced at this time?  It's not me that has caused the delay it is him.

It is a brutal ugly world we live in where we violate God's Natural law all the time.

So I took myself off to do some retail therapy with people who love me.

Tomorrow I will find someone to help me interpret the lawyer speak.  I will not sign it until I feel it is right.

It is a sad day...

Petty

I know this sounds petty, trivial even, but it was important to me.  There is a part of me that is just a traditionalist, especially when it came to my marriage.  I took such great pride in my marriage.

"Hey look at me!  I've been married to the same man for blah blah years!"

I was proud of being married so long and I was proud to be a mom.  I put my everything into being a wife and a mom.  I changed myself to make it work.  I would even be so bold to say I made an idol out of being a wife and mom.

You know what happens to our idols?  That is why we have the first commandment.  They get taken away.   Before that happened there was the 25th wedding anniversary.

From what I gathered the children are suppose to throw a party for the 25th wedding anniversary. I know people put their pictures in the paper with an announcement.  I wanted that so badly.  I wanted the wedding picture with the 25th anniversary picture and the cute little announcement how the children threw their parents a party to celebrate.

What happens when the children are 3 boys?  What happens when the husband thinks it is stupid or doesn't think it is anything that important to celebrate?  You get nothing.

I just gave up trying.  I was so beaten down by my husband's attitude and the attitude of my boys.  It felt silly and stupid to want a celebration of 25 years of marriage.  I was mocked for wanting such a thing so I gave it up.

There was  no picture or announcement in the paper.  There was no party put on by the children.  There wasn't even a card.  I can't even remember if we did anything at all on our 25th.  I buried my hurt, made excuses for my boys and my husband.  It hurt.

Fast forward 5 years later to our 30th wedding anniversary.  Again I wanted something special to commemorate being married to the same man for 30 years.  It was quite an accomplishment, don't you think?

I remembered thinking it would be really cool to have a special photograph done of Pat and myself.  We were going up to Portland to see our youngest son, Chuck.  Chuck has a friend who is a professional photographer and I made arrangements for us to have a photo session.

We got to Chuck's house, and the conflict started.  For alcoholics it is always about when they can have that first drink and how quickly the buzz can come on.  Next comes the personality change from the combination of prescription drugs and alcohol.  The son and father start fighting as the father tries to exert his will upon his son's household.  The women try to calm and diffuse the situation only to be mocked and told to stay out of it.

The photograph session becomes the hot spot for both of them.  A person just gets worn down.  I called and cancelled the photo session.  I was mocked again for even wanting to have such a thing done to celebrate a wedding anniversary.  It was ugly and sordid, and I felt shamed.

All I could see of my future was being married to a man who only wanted to stay home and drink every night.  Whenever I was around my sons anymore it was them mocking me and putting me down just like their dad did to me.  I was defeated.

I just wanted that anniversary picture in the paper.  I wanted that party put on by the kids.  I wanted to be loved by husband and my children.  I wanted them to show me that love in an obvious way.  I got nothing.

I started counseling to find a way to stay married to this man.  Along the way I found myself again.  I lost my marriage of 32 years.  I have 3 sons who barely communicate with me.  I don't have a family anymore, and that is all I ever really wanted.

I have myself.  I have the understanding now I can only change myself,  no one else.  I am alone- my idols destroyed.

My friends, my adopted family, are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in April.  Their children are putting a party on for them.  I am sick with envy.  I cried.  I wrote these words.

I called all three of my sons today.  No one answered.  No one called back.  I am alone.

I think I want a fancy photograph of me and my dog, Queenie.  I'll hang it on the wall.  Probably won't get in the newspaper.

YEP

you guessed it. Guess who I dreamed about last night?  Does this mean my counsellor was right about what he represents to me or was I just thinking about him because of what I wrote?

It's always disturbing....

Self-efficacy because

I like saying that word and because I fear I am in a rut.

Definition according to math studio: a belief about what one can learn to do.  It is not the same as knowing what to do.

I also wrote down this in my notebook: a generative capacity to carry one's plans through to completion.

I'm stuck, and I fear I don't have any self-efficacy about my writing.  I've been dawdling over this one poem for a month.  I'm stuck still in trying to write in meter and rhyme.  Maybe because it is so difficult for me that I don't even sit down to try?  Yet if I try free verse it feels like cheating now.  Because it is too easy?

For awhile pastor's sermons were inspiring me.  For awhile the old fame was sparking some pretty good stuff.  I went into childhood memories, and that was inspiring.  Now none of them seem to appeal to me.  Yet I know that a writer writes whether they are inspired or not.  There is no excuse like the "muse' deserted me.  Dr. Daniel cured me of that myth.  So why won't anything come or where did my perseverance go?

In one of my counseling sessions I asked why am I having dreams about my old boyfriend.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason for when the dreams occur.  They haunt me.  She told me she believes it represents the creative part of me.  That he is a symbol?  A metaphor for my creative part of me? The dreams represent the creative part of me that has been held hostage for so many years.  She believes it's time to let that part of me out again.  Get involved in theatre again.  Do something with my writing.  Baby steps.

This appeals to me.  It also wars against the parts of me that still feel insecure about my creativity.  To be creative and act upon it means rejection also.  That scares me.  I do too much comparing of myself to others which paralyzes me.  That could be the freeze dried part of my brain.

I think the other part of it is my job.  It is so demanding and keeps getting more demanding.  I allow the job to dictate my life so I don't take time to write anymore.  I HATE THIS!  I want my job, and I want my life.  It should not be so all consuming.

This weekend I left my writing notebook in my classroom and I did not want to go back for it.  I dug out one of my old ones that still had some blank pages in it.  The notebook was from last summer and had several of my poems and drafts in them.  I read them with wonder and appreciation.  The passion was blazing.  The imagery was powerful and compelling. 

 It made me realize what a hole I am in right now. I go weeks without blogging or writing anything.  I still spend a wee bit of time on Saturdays at Starbucks writing, but I only allow myself about 30 minutes.  Because of how much time I spend on my job, my days off are filled with desperate feeling errands that only allow for limited free choice.  I squeeze in my writing.

I felt so frustrated this last Saturday because I sat there and could not think of anything I wanted to write.  So I wrote prose just trying to stir up some saliva in my brain to jump start something.  Blah.  Nothing came of it.

Today sitting in church I read some more of my notes, and I came across a page from a counseling session.  I started to fashion a rhyme around the words.  I came up with a verse.  My mind was engaged with the word choices and what I was trying to convey.  It felt good.

This afternoon I sat in front of Starbucks with Queenie and tried to finish it.  Blah.  So I have been musing about what is going on in my brain.  Metacognition. " I think I can think about thinking."

What I am writing now is the result of my reflecting upon my writing.  Maybe I should try writing prose for awhile.  I need to stop comparing myself to others.  I need to stop thinking that I am too old to even try to get publish and that the train has passed me by.  I need to take the risks of rejection and fulfill the creative part of me.  I cannot accept that I am no good at this and should just give it up.  I cannot go back to the dry desert of my marriage where I chose to give up my creativity to stay married to a man who could not appreciate that part of me.

I need my self-efficacy back!

Self- efficacy

My negativity follows

a labyrinth, a beast

of reinforcement, swallows

the blood, the flesh, in a feast

of high doubt, hate, and deflection,

of a righteous, complimentary thing.

The path betrays correction,

I push on just to feel the sting.

http://basicallybarb.blogspot.com/2012/06/debris-by-wind-another-try.html

The one I found in my notebook.

More homework- EXIT TASKS

Doubles are 1+1=2, 2-1=1 2+2=4,4-2=2, 3+3=6, 6-3=3....


Yesterday I tried something new with an exit task.  It was actually written into Bridges and I thought since the papers were already ran off, and it was in Number Corner it would work well as an exit task.

Thursday's challenge has been doubles and neighbors.  I had not been consistent in getting to Thursday's challenge because by the end of the week  it is called make up time!

I have been impressed with my students coming back from DI (Differentiated Instruction), from Jessica's class.  We have split our DI time between Math and Language
arts.  Jessica does the math and I do Language Arts.  My students keep bringing up doubles as an addition strategy and I knew I needed to share that with the whole class.

I made it a point to do Thursday's challenges consistently.  Yesterday there was a work sheet on doubles in addition and subtraction.  The instructions called for the teacher to walk around the room interviewing each students way of doing the addition and subtraction.  (Were they using their fingers?  Were they counting on?  Were they using doubles or neighbors to solve the problems?)  I thought this would be a good exit task and show me what I needed to do next with the group.

I was most interested in seeing how the students that were not getting DI in math would do with the doubles.  I had a suspicion that subtraction was going to be UGLY in doubles.  I was hoping addition would show  they were getting it because I had been teaching the Thursday challenges more consistently.

Math Studio survey- HOMEWORK on Saturday!

What connections are you seeing between your implementation of your learning during Studio and your students' understanding and achievement in mathematics? Give specific evidence from your everyday classroom observations, conferences with students, formative and summative classroom assessments, and/or standardized testing. 


It gives me the courage to try new things.  Yesterday we were doing the whale's flukes, and it was just automatic for me to want to make a public record of the pattern we saw between how many whales and how many flukes. That took me a long time to become automatic for me.   I also had students remembering how we labeled the crab chart and told me we need to label the parts.  In fact labeling got brought up twice  and I was thrilled!  That means it is becoming automatic for students to think like that  Yeah!!

I constantly think about select and sequencing as I move around the room.  We were doing the lobster problem solving and I kept remembering how Jill would look for someone to get it started, so other students would have a jumping off place.  Plus looking for multiple representations, so students can see there is more than one way to do a problem.

I also collected the data from the lobster problems to see how they were thinking.  I made a point to look at them the same day while it was fresh.  It was discouraging to see how few really get it.  Perseverance!  I think it will take multiple times doing this to get results.


15. Finally, are there particular teaching ideas, Mathematical Habits­of­Mind/Interaction, Mathematically Productive Teaching Routines, and/or specific practices embedded in those routines that you hope are addressed during the upcoming Studio? Please list those below. 



Refresh. Refresh.  Refresh.  If I was a computer I would say hit the old refresh button.  I can't pick out just one. 


But since I have never tried the math seminar I need to do that, though it gives me a sinking feeling in my heart because I know it means Teena will be in my room soon and it will be HARD work and probably painful.  Yep gird up those loins-ha!  Gird up the brain and go forth into battle against my self crippling mental self perceptions about myself and math.

The Transitive Property

I have the transitive property on my mind.  Last week at our PLC meeting (Planned Learning communities)  we picked a lesson to do our math studio homework on.  We needed to plan for justification and generalizations that our students could make.  We have a new supplement lesson we have never taught before which matches the Common Core.  It is a measurement series of lessons.  The first lesson involves the transitive property.  Before reading this lesson I would not have been able to tell you what the transitive property even is.  I did not even understand it till I did the math.

The transitive property of equality states for any real numbers a, b, and c:

If a = b and b = c, then a = c.

For example, 5 = 3 + 2. 3 + 2 = 1 + 4. So, 5 = 1 + 4.

Another example: a = 3. 3 = b. So, a = b.

I am still wrestling with this and have my strips of paper out to practise.  OMG how am I to teach something I struggle to understand?

We are to have various lengths of strips of paper in different colors.  We use one as the base line(a).  We compare a to b. ( a is longer than b)  We remove a  and compare b  to c. b is longer than c.  Therefore a is longer than c.  ( Hope that is right!)  

Because I struggle so much with this I wonder how many of my students will get this?  My gut says maybe a handful of 5?

Any way this has been on my mind.  Today in adult Bible class it came to mind once again. Here is what I had meta cognition on:  

God loves Jesus.  Jesus loves me.  Therefore, God loves me.

Then I read the Urban Dictionary on the Transitive property.  Ew.

I much prefer that God loves me because he see me through Jesus.  Because Jesus took my sins to the cross and died for me God can see and love me without sin.

Natural Law originates with God.  Mathematical Law originates with God.  all things orignate with God.

I'll let you know how many of my first graders get the transitive property. It may be another Common Core pipe dream.