Wow, for my little moan two recipes have been posted here
- one food for the brain and the other food!) - and the first ever living
obituary from a poet already in heaven!
I had a little moan in search of a way out of my world
this week. Sorry, poetry/poets my way out.
I teach "embedded literacy" with a range of young adults
with profound learning difficulties - from ADHD all the way through to the
Williams' Syndrome. We were 'inspected' this week and I survived - with a good
grade (bugger, I want to leave!)
They chose to observe my most severe group of students,
'Futures.' I've fantastic learning support staff (I literally do love all
three of them). My subject: "Animals From Around The World." Not many of my
twelve students have any concept of the world, or that it is round. So, a globe
was placed centre table and 300 postcards from across the world given to them to
work out pictures of beaches, mountains, icebergs, cities, people, animals, etc.
These to be placed on large titled print pages - beaches, mountains,
icebergs.... (this bit being the "embedded literacy.")
Because all students' questions should be addressed in
such an inspection, we were worried Des might say: "can a camel do 14 farts?"
Luckily Des just turned to the inspector and said: "can you do seven
burps?" Des has very severe Autustic Savant and the autistic
often have 'secret' multiplying numbers (lucky 7, Des).
They did brilliantly. To conclude the session I peeled
away a huge sheet to reveal a whole zoo of all those awful 'animals' one brings
back from holidays from all over the world! Lots cuddly, some wooden, a
dancing mechanical and one real (the head of a crocodile) - for my students
to feel, to name, to think where they're from - Des in heaven, a huge cuddly
giraffe in his arms and face - "it's got 70 spots!"
***
There then followed a two day intensive training
course at the University of EA on embedded literacy:- long vowel, short
vowel, digraph, vowel digraph, prefix, suffix, root word, syllable,
morpheme, phoneme, consonant blend (thank goodness for a coffee
break).
Stupidly I thought our trainer was talking about 'metal
language' - and was wanting poetry and thinking that Des would hobble in
and say: "Rupert, you look 84."
I feel it. Back to the morpheme.
Go strong, go gentle, Rupert x
