It had to do with history. or was it time? or was it self examination?
or was it that gap in the London underground? The one they remind me to mind?
Live and Learn.
Live and Learn.
Live and Learn.
What was it?
I used to be a Reading Teacher. I taught children who had learning difficulties.
My students needed concise presentation of instruction. They needed repetition. They needed mastery of the skill sets to interact with written language.
They needed to REMEMBER on a deep level and bring that depth of knowing up to the surface of the mind all the way out to and through the tongue in a flash.
Living to learn is great, but living to learn and remember enables us to learn on a deeper level and interact with the learning.
Remembering is what we use to build our learning on and with.
It looks like it happens in a flash, it even feels like it happens in a flash.
But it, the remembering to the point of instant summoning, happens in the part of mind that is storing the learning, and that takes time….. that takes work. that takes consistency. that takes repetition. that takes immediate feedback.
My lessons as a reading specialist were based on the science of phonemic awareness. The brain science of teaching basic skills to mastery. The reality of teaching a child from where they are at.
To do that I could not assume a 6th grader could read on a 6th grade level.
Before I started working with a child I did a full reading inventory. What did they know, what did they need to know.
It was always intense to find a 6th grader that was completly faking the entire reading process.
Everything was a guess. They did not know the sounds that the letters made. W-O-W.
Here we go! stop pretending, stop faking and let us commit to starting right were we are.
From there we begin, “M/A/T. B/A/T. F/A/T.”
Three months later, “The girl on the bus is sad.”
another three months, “When shall we three meet again?”
another three months……. and it goes on.
Can we pull her closer to grade level? Can we get her to interact with the text. To enjoy reading, to choose reading. To choose reading because interacting with text is what the mind needs to grow, to mature, to learn to crave thinking.
We need the bucket to fix the bucket.
Do you have a bucket I could hold onto?
http://ashtangayoginionthemove.blogspot.com/2015/04/smrtih-vritti-of-memory.html
I am an Alexander Technique teacher. So in a way that means I teach people to stand.
I get people thinking with me to enable them to direct their own weight, to actually get over themselves, in themselves.
Most people come to me completely faking standing.
Oh sure they can do it, but they don’t really know how to do it. They need to first unlearn what they have come to think of as standing, re-learn standing and then remember the process of addressing what it means to actually stand.
I have come to think of almost all of the yoga poses I interact with as some form of standing.
Where is my central axis? where am I aiming up away from? Am I directing my self through my foundation?
this piece is not trying to say anything definitive.
these words and pictures are a musing of my relationship to standing. I sometimes wonder why I put myself in some of these poses.Why so much work? Why at 53.5 years of age am I still flipping around like this…??? And the reason is so that I practice remembering. I have a strength in forgetting. These poses are my friends and they challenge me to remember all of my principles of standing of sitting of being.
“Decide that the principles are more important than any shape you are going to make.” David Garrigues
These poses help me remember my decision to put principles into action.
Ashtanga Yoga Club Durham 
Missing you guys! Enjoyed reading this from Brazil. =)
The practice at AYCD last week was both wonderful and important. I’m so glad I could visit. Peace and Good to you and Nikos (and pups) — Homer