July 31, 2006

           Another great day although the cash flow wasn’t so hot. My top adult student just bought a thousand dollars worth of new computer office equipment. My newest student is seven years old, and about as restless and fed up with old people as I was at the same age. I will never forgive this North American custom of lumping people together by age groups. It does not work and it was never more than an easy way out for people who lack the skills to make value judgments.

           To relax, I took the Madwagon downtown and bought a basket carrier. A tad of rust here and there, but I took care of that with a coat of black paint. That’s me touching things up on my outdoor patio workbench. Well, it ain’t worth much else except for sitting around drinking beer which I don’t do, so why not paint on it? Cowboy Mike was in the shop today to see Mike about a laptop.
Daniel responds very well to instruction, but he’s had enough time on a computer to get spoiled into doing things his own way. That is accounted for by parents leaving long unsupervised hours on the computer. Kids quickly figure out the adults don’t know a lot about the thing. He picks up well enough and I had him creating his own games and pictures within an hour.

           This is not to be confused with opening or loading a picture, which is a real no-brainer. He designed a houseboat of his own using the new skills. Again, this is different than teaching him how to draw a houseboat. He had to design the boat in his head before starting. He particularly liked the method of drawing base lines to line things up, then erasing them afterward. Further, he instantly recognized the technique as a trick to keep to himself. Like most kids, I had to break his habit of just going crazy with the spray can, which MS optimistically calls an “airbrush”.
           For the record, this is also the first time Fred and Mike at the shop have seen me teach a youngster. They must wonder how I manage such an age spread, fifty in the morning and seven in the afternoon. To you, I tell the secret. Both methods are identical, including the patience involved. I have nine more days to turn Daniel into a real genius, not the fake kind produced by the public school system to fool parents. My ulterior motive is simple. I likely mentioned that Daniel is just a couple of grade points [or some points] shy of being placed in an advanced class.

           I know from personal experience this can happen when a kid over-thinks a geared test. Daniel’s performance strongly indicates that is the case here. He often grapples with more advanced concepts and apparently falls behind others who follow the drill. Once the project rather than the computer becomes the challenge, he will do advanced work with ease. That will close the gap in marks and I have a true whiz kid who has just aced the Montessori system in two weeks. Again, I cannot stress the importance that everything the he does is not rote, he can explain to you why each component is there. Ha, try that with some adults.

           The bike drastically increases my local mobility. I often did not do things because it would involve using the car, by that I mean I cannot lug home two bags of groceries, but I can sure bike them in a hurry. As obvious as that seems, I’ve not heard other bike riders mention it, and it is an unplanned plus for me. I didn’t know how many shortcuts there were in this neighborhood. I went over to Winn/Dixie for chicken things and made up a big batch of vegetable chicken stew for a late supper.

           Back at my desk, I have a couple extra ideas for Daniel's lessons after reviewing some of my own performance at the same age. Yes, I was a straight A student (except for classes where I did not get along with the teacher). September is on the northern horizon and I want Daniel marching back into a classroom full of wealthy kids with higher measured IQs who won’t be able to keep up with him. I think that is worth $50 an hour any time. This is all speculation as I do not know if the kid can keep up the pace. That three hour stretch is a lot for him.
           Another thing he’s got going for him is a good vocabulary. He instantly adopts the proper terms when I mention them, often from context. For instance, he now refers to the “chimney” on the ship by the correct term. No, it is not called a smokestack. Why? Did you call it a smokestack? Wrong. It is called an “uptake”. I can kind of imagine him at home tonight correcting his parents on the finer details. He is probably rewarded for such behavior, something I would not know anything about.

           [Author's note 2021: this post was updated with photos, you can see the benefits of a decade and a half of blog experience. I doubt there is enough time remaining to go through all these posts for an update. The significance of this post is it shows the red bicycle that I rode for 7,000 miles until I could walk again. Many who knew me during that difficult time remind me how I could barely manage walking a block, I myself tend to forget that recovery took many years, not many months. Seven miles a day for 1,000 days.]