Inside the Pandemic, Day 14

 Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Had a really interesting Zoom seminar on dyslexia yesterday. Unfortunately, I was unable to see anything on my computer, so I called in, which meant that I was on the phone for four hours yesterday. Probably a record for me. The instructor was really good about referring to things on the slides for people who couldn’t see. I was able to dart out to the internet and look up the things to which she was referring so that I could understand what she was talking about. **Humble-brag** I took six pages of notes. However, I feel like it just touched the tip of the iceberg about knowing how to work with dyslexic students at the high school level. Luckily, she referred to two books that should be helpful--they’re on my TBR list!

Right now I’m reading a book by Temple Grandin, Animals Make Us Human. If you don’t know who she is, Grandin is an autistic woman who developed systems to help make animal care (and slaughter) more humane--primarily based on the “squeeze box” she developed to help her deal with her own autistic symptoms. You can find more about her at her website, templegrandin.com. I’ve read the chapters about dogs, cats and horses so far. Even though I don’t care about horses, it was interesting reading. She and my students have in common that she often writes things like “I’ll tell you about that later,” or “Now I’m going to talk about . . .” Perhaps that’s just her style, but I find that it takes me out of the text. A bit distracting.

In world news, many countries/states are talking about ending quarantine. President Trump has encouraged (by Tweet) residents of at least three states to protest the “draconian” measures created by the quarantine.  Mostly, people are out of work and unable to afford to live and support their families. This is an especially hard time for those who are in service industries that have been closed for months. My sister is in that boat, though as a single parent she is eligible for both unemployment and the stimulus payment of $600 per week made to people who are out of work. 

The COVID-19 confirmed case count is up to 2,585,468 world-wide with 178,845 deaths. There is a lot of talk about “flattening the curve” which means that we (the world) want to reduce the growth of new cases. It’s hard to tell if that is happening or not--hard to look at the big picture when you are a tiny dot of paint in a pointillism canvas being created. An ABC article recently said that it’s beginning to happen (Dastmalchi). We’ll see. Below is a graph from the same article indicating what will happen if we continue social distancing, washing hands, wearing masks, etc (blue) versus just going back to the way things were before the virus (red). Blue, people, blue!