"Practice"

This is going to be pretty long and rambling because I just cannot seem to streamline my thoughts into a concise little bit, but here it is anyway, for your reading pleasure…

I started out just jotting down things to write about in this blog like I do every time, and by the end, I’d written, “I tried to do it right, but I couldn’t seem to make it work” or some variation on that about six different times.  That pretty well exemplifies how I felt about the drop-off.  Like I tried really hard, and I just did it all wrong.  The more I did wrong, the worse I felt, and then the more wrong things I did.  It was a pretty vicious little cycle. 

It’s no surprise to anyone that I have trouble living like I’m confident in my abilities. One of my biggest frustrations is to be/do/think wrong.  Nothing makes me madder quicker.  So, I’m still trying to swallow not being successful Tuesday; I haven’t gotten there yet.  When Mickey asked me the first time if this was a practice run, I thought it probably would end up that way because I was crazy lost, but I couldn’t really bear the thought that I wouldn’t be able to finish. Because this last run was only “practice” because I wasn’t successful.  It wouldn’t have been practice otherwise.  We can call it practice all we want, but I still screwed up the drop off.

At the end, I could tell by my own manner that I was defeated: I talked softer, I didn’t answer questions with words, but rather nods and sounds, because I was afraid I’d cry if I talked.  I was so done by the end that I couldn’t even figure out how to get into the car.  I just couldn’t put the pieces together.

I was so focused on the fact that I was lost.  I tried to keep moving, but it was like everything I did was wrong.  I just couldn’t put together two intersections at a time.

I just got stuck and couldn’t seem to do the right thing.  I don’t even have the words for it.  It was really a two-hour mess of sounds and textures and fears.  I tried so hard to keep moving.  So, I’d cross the road, not knowing where the heck I was, and then I’d get across, and I’d be screwed because I couldn’t find the sidewalk, or I couldn’t find the other way to cross the street.  Or, I’d think I was still in the road and I wasn’t or I’d really be in the road and think I was on the sidewalk.  I really didn’t do a good job of sorting out information.  I was totally overwhelmed by the options and possibilities.  I tried to fake confidence and just walk but it just didn’t work.  I’ve said all this to say, I tried to be aware of my tendencies to move too little and think too much by reacting more and keeping moving, but in the end, I couldn’t seem to get over my hang-ups.  You know when you’ve just got too much information in your head, and maybe you’re on the phone or the TVs on, and you have to stop some information in order to process the rest?  It was like that.  I couldn’t even think through which intersection might be which because there was too much in my head: too much sensory information, too much fear, and too much self-doubt.

I never did know where I was, really.  I mean, I thought I started by the library, but I didn’t know for sure until y’all confirmed it.  I was just hoping I was right.  By the end, though, I thought I had moved away from that original point.  I kept trying to move, but it was not very organized.  I thought I was at least four blocks away from where I really was.  When we stopped, I was convinced that I was on College at Bronough or Duval.  I knew I had moved a lot, but apparently it was just really non-productive moving.

I remember thinking that I’ve never been this lost in my whole life.  For real.  I’m not one to get lost in life in general, so it’s really a new feeling.  I just don’t get lost, except for a little bit in O&M.  I might go somewhere I’ve never been before or get a bit turned around, but I always know how to get back to where I came from.  I can’t explain it, but it just works that way.  Apparently, Lauren had a really hard getting me lost in the first place.  But, once I hit the streets, I couldn’t sort out the information and got way overwhelmed.  So, having few experiences with “lost-ness,” I was even more uncomfortable.

In retrospect, I think walking in the street shot my confidence.  It scared me, a lot, and I really don’t know why it impacted me so much.  Intellectually, I knew I’d be safe, but on some instinctual level, I couldn’t act on that knowledge, because, well, I was in the road, and it’s pretty well engrained in me to not be in the road.  I was I was pretty sure that I walked up the middle of the road, but I couldn’t tell which way to turn to get out of the traffic.  At first, I thought I was on the sidewalk, so I moved toward the traffic, but now, I think that I was in the traffic already, and the cars were going around me, so I wasn’t getting reliable information.  Still, it’s pretty scary, knowing you’re in the road, and not being able to process through how to get out of it.  It’s kind of a helpless feeling, and I’m no fan of feeling helpless.  Thinking back, I probably just should have committed and moved laterally to get out, but I couldn’t even square off on the traffic to know which way to move.  I don’t know if they were curving around me, or if I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t localize the traffic.  Looking back, though, I think that because I got scared in the road and couldn’t get out, I took fewer risks later because I REALLY did not want to get back in the road.

So yeah, I’m really disappointed, and I don’t have a great plan about what to do differently to make tomorrow better.  I’ll try harder to move more and think less.  I know I won’t cross the street until I know EXACTLY where I am, and I’ll just say a little prayer and do my best.  That should work, right?

Tueday's blog

For whatever reason, Amber was a bit off Tuesday.  I think what happened there was a lot like every other time that any one of us has been “off.”  Something happened early on (a bad mood, a preoccupied mind, a stumble, etc.), and that something colors the rest of the lesson.  How do we change the tone once a few mistakes have been made?  I’m not sure what to do because if you can’t get them to forget the previous mistakes, things can go downhill quickly.  Do you present easier tasks that they can master easily? So they become successful?  Or, do you just keep supporting them until they get it right?  I could be wrong, but I think that even though Amber’s skills improved by the end, and she looked so much more “on it,” she still wasn’t really happy about her performance.  So, something Billy did in his teaching must have worked to lead to the improvement.  But, is there a way to really get students to completely “start over” mentally, or do we just do our best and go from there?

I wasn’t nervous at all about my drop-off until I started thinking about it after class.  I know I’ll be safe, but like we were talking about during class, it’s a matter of confidence in skills.  I know I’ll be safe, but without the talking, I won’t feel as secure.  It’s really a mind game at this point.  The more I think about it, the more apprehensive I feel.  I know once I get started I’ll either make the right choice or the wrong choice, and then I’ll just move from there, but I’m worried I’ll spend too much time thinking and not enough time moving.  Part of the problem isn’t just that I think too much, it’s that I won’t act on what I’m thinking.  I don’t know when to cut off the thinking and move forward with action.  I don’t want to be reckless.  I mean, I am me, and I won’t be reckless; I know that.  Still, though, I have seen how frustration escalates once I get bogged down in thinking.  I’ve really just got to keep moving and reacting instinctually.  I think that will be the key to my success.  It really is silly.  I’m worried that I’ll think too much.  I know I’ve got skills that are good enough to keep me safe.  I guess the easy answer is just not to think so much.  Easier said than done, right?

I am struggling with picking a location for Lauren’s drop off.  I want her to be successful, but because she’s got such great skills, she does need a relatively challenging route.  I don’t think either of us would be happy if she finished her route in three minutes.  But, I also know she’s a bit anxious, and I would feel absolutely awful if she doesn’t get to be successful the first time.  I would really feel like I’d failed as her teacher.  So, do I pick some route she’s always traveled perfectly, or do I go for a route we’ve worked on a lot?  Lauren has such excellent skills, I’m confident she could be dropped anywhere and find her way to another place safely and efficiently.  So, knowing that, do I bank on her skills and give her a big challenge with an even bigger payoff in confidence?  

Mickey's Turn

It’s been a while since we had class, but here’s the blog.  It was nice to see Billy doing so well in class.  He has really gotten so much better, and I think it has to do with trusting himself and not thinking quite so much.  Billy and I are a lot alike, in that we both think a bit too much when we get turned around.  I can’t speak for Billy, but I know that my thinking too much really causes me bigger problems.  When the drop off comes, I have got to keep moving and stop thinking so much.

Mickey was pretty entertaining to watch underblindfold.  He just approaches things differently than I do, so it was cool to see a different style.  Funny, though, how even someone as knowledgeable as Mickey could fall into the trap of walking tentatively and slowly.  I think watching Mickey was a good reminder to us that we need to refresh our skills periodically so we always remember how hard it is for blind people to travel.

Some Thoughts

Lauren looked great on Thursday.  Her anxiety was so much lower.  Because she was successful, I felt like I was a good teacher.  As a result, I was much more relaxed.  I still struggle with saying exactly the right words in the right amounts, but I feel like I’m going to have it right one day.

Amber did amazingly as well.  I was so totally impressed.  She looked great and she and Billy work so well together.

You really can’t stop moving when you’re traveling. Because when you do, you stop getting tactile feedback.  It really does seem like reading braille.  If you stop and perseverate on one spot, then you stop getting new information to figure things out.  When I get stuck, I know I should probably move on, but I think I’m afraid I’ll lose my grip on the reality I have.  But, it seems like you’ve really got to construct the reality of the environment as it is presented to you instead of trying to make a single auditory and tactual “snapshot” of it fit into your conception of the environment.

Even though everything went so well, that spot on the south side of College between Duval and Bronough still gave me some trouble. The next time it’s my turn, I want to try to find the “feel” of that hill again.  It was very helpful to let the hill take me down the sidewalk.  There was some crazy proprioceptive feedback there that I don’t know how to describe.  I think it’d take some practice for that technique to be fail-proof though there is definitely potential.

The faster I walked, along my route the more natural it seemed, and I felt way more confident.  I didn’t feel like a bumbling idiot.  Walking more quickly really built my confidence.

Walking through the St. Patrick’s Day merriment was interesting.  I just tried to visualize our corner and look confident while I walked.  Once I got to the thickest crowd, though, I could not use the sounds I was hearing because they were so loud and coming from so many unpredictable locations.   So here, I really had to depend on the direction I’d determined and the feedback from the cane.  I was really totally dependent on tactual clues.  I couldn’t use the traffic sounds; I couldn’t even hear Macomb for all the other noise.  I was amazed it worked; it was all very jedi – feel the force, you know?  Is that what it’s like to be deaf-blind?  If so, we should have a bit of O&M practice doing that because it was almost surreal, traveling like that.

It was absolutely amazing to have a great lesson after several rough ones.  I was really beginning to think I wasn't very good at this, so I'm grateful to have demonstrated to myself otherwise!

Tuesday

Billy did wonderfully on Tuesday.  His performance was a real opportunity to notice how much power success has over a student’s performance.  Because Billy was successful at the beginning, I think he built a lot of confidence that carried over into the part of the route that he was nervous about.  Success really builds confidence.  Because even though Billy didn’t blow through that troublesome section, he did soooo much better than before, and he looked so much more confident and comfortable.  

Then, it was my turn, and at first, I was feeling great navigating the first leg of the trip.  I kept moving even though I wasn’t really sure what was going on.  But once I crossed over MLK, I got off my stride and turned around.  I stood there a long time, and now I’m thinking I waited too long.  I wanted to be very sure of my decisions before I moved, but I think I ended up getting frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out, so the frustration just kept building.

Through most of my lesson, I was in that disorienting mental state where you’re getting lots of input, but you can’t seem to organize it to fit any reality you know.  I couldn’t sort out the information and I was mad at myself.  There were a few times that I tried to “restart” myself by casting out everything and then moving forward, but I was so disoriented that I couldn’t seem to leave the frustration behind to make good choices.

So, by the end of several bumbling blocks, I was very frustrated, probably more frustrated than I’ve ever been in O&M.  It was a fairly quiet, slow burn, but it was definitely there.  Thing after thing just seemed to be in the way.  I could tell I was really reaching my limit when I made some short responses to prompts from Lauren and Mickey.  I think I was just frustrated for such a long time that it built up to be more than it should have been.  As Mickey pointed out, I did figure everything out eventually, so that helped my feelings some in the end, but I still couldn’t help but be disappointed I couldn’t complete the route faster or more efficiently.  I suppose, though, that if the end goal is for me to be a teacher, not a cane traveler, then I’m doing okay.  

3.3.11 Thursday before Spring Break

During class on Thursday, my head was definintey at the cane and not on the destination.  I was so concerned with staying in step, walking fast enough, and not falling that I really couldn't visualize the end destination.  I totally got caught up in the minutiae of the route.  So, I had those terrible halting steps that make you mess up.  I'd realize how crazy my gait was, stop walking, and try to stop walking like a fool, but then I'd take another step, run into something unexpected, and get nervous enough to resume the shuffling walk.



I still don't understand what happened on Duval, I don't know if it looked okay, and I just fooled everyone, but I don't know how to get from point A to point B.  Maybe Lauren just made a teaching choice to move forward so I wouldn't be frustrated or because of time, but I didn't master the area, for sure, and I don't think I could do it independently and reliability.  I don't even know how to describe how it made me feel.  It was almost like I couldn't express to Lauren how I didn't understand it because I was embarrassed that I didn't know and couldn't do it yet.  Because I should know it by now.  I've done the area 5 times!  So, in my embarrassment, I just let her move on.  It was a really odd, powerless feeling, and I'm not a fan.  I want to be sure that my students don't ever feel like that because I can see how it's such a block for learning.  It's silly, really, but I'm not sure how to get around it other than to press through.


I wonder if planning on going down the stairs at the Duval/College intersection would reduce some of my anxiety with the end of that leg.  As it is now, the stairs are a hazard to avoid dying on, but if they were part of the route, they might be less scary and more necessary since they'd just be part of the route and less a danger to avoid.  Because now, I want to avoid them, but I might miss them, and I get consumed with the fact that I might miss them and die.  But, if they were part of the route, I would be focused on finding them and thinking intelligently about navigating them instead of skirting around them in anxiety.


The area on College between Duval and Bronough threw me off again.  I wonder if part of the problem was the sound bouncing off the building.  It was so hard to isolate the direction of the traffic sounds.   I think I was too close to the building, and that somehow impacted the sound patterns.  But, I was afraid to move closer to the traffic because there is no curb there to provide a warning that traffic is coming.  I've seen Lauren wander into the road there a few times, so I could just see myself doing what she's done.


At the end of each leg and my route, my self-doubt was so high that I didn't trust the feedback others were giving me.  I was very disappointed in my performance, and though others were telling me I did okay, I didn't feel like that was true.  This sounds awful, but in the moment, I thought I was being placated (in that way that all teachers give positive spin to everything) because I was not doing well and didn't need to get too frustrated.  In the end, I was really just trying to fake competence because I was totally uncomfortable with my performance.


Next time, I've really got to leave this under confident version of me behind, because I think all my stumbling, unsure steps stem from the fact that I didn't want to do anything wrong, and of course, taking those weird steps made me do more things wrong.  I think next time, I've just got to make up my mind to be confident, and then I think things will fall into place better. 

Disaster Day

What a hot mess Lauren and I got ourselves into yesterday!  I’m still struggling to process what happened.  In fact, I sat down to blog yesterday, trying to get everything down before I forgot, but I couldn’t even write intelligently, I was still so flustered!

So, Lauren first, I guess.  I think stumbling at the beginning really threw her off.  I’m not sure if she was mad at herself or embarrassed, but tripping really colored her performance for the rest of the lesson.  Then, the errors kept building, and she was making mistakes because she’d already made mistakes, not because she didn’t know how to do what she was doing.  I don’t know how to help a student really “start over” when they’re so frustrated. 

It’s so hard to step back once they are good and lost.  So, I think I gave Lauren too much information and not enough time to think things through on her own.  I guess because I’d like to be guilty of giving her too much rather than not giving her some piece of information she needs.  So, until I really nail down exactly what she (or any student) needs, I’m going to want to err on the side of giving too much information, but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do.  I feel a lot of responsibility as her teacher for her problems yesterday.  I’m sure I could have done something differently that would have kept her from getting so frustrated.  It was definitely a teaching fail on my part.

So, I was totally doubting my teaching when it was time for me to be under blindfold, so I wonder if all that self-doubt and guilt didn’t impact my performance at the start of my route.  Like Lauren, I think that one thing in the beginning snowballed into a much bigger thing later in my lesson.  I totally did not understand any of what happened along the sidewalk on the east side of Duval.  Even though I did parts of it three times, I don’t understand how it all goes together.  I really want to go back and do it right!

I couldn’t maintain a straight line of travel at all.  There was so much crap in the way, and then, after I found those stairs, I was scared I’d miss the drop off and then go tumbling down.  I was really frustrated with myself that I couldn’t do something as simple as walk a straight line.  What Lauren was trying to tell me didn’t seem compatible with the reality I was encountering.  She’d explain something, I’d think I understood, and then I’d go to move, and I’d run into something that I didn’t understand would be there.  I almost wonder if it would be better to forgo the explanation and just let me try to figure it out on my own.  There were even times when I’d try to cast out what was going on and just move with the traffic, but at that point, my anxiety was up, so I wasn’t getting a good beat on the traffic. 

So, I FINALLY got through the space, recollected myself, and thought I had the route figured out, though I kept pingponging down between Duval and Bronough.  It was way harder than I thought it would be find the truncator bumps down the middle to follow, so I was just wandering around like a crazy person.    

Finally, I got it straightened out, and then I was working on walking faster.  So much faster that I missed the truncator bumps at Macomb.  I ‘m not sure why it took sooooo long for my distance awareness to kick in to realize that I’d walked out into the road.  Even when I stopped, I wasn’t sure I was in the road.  I just thought I’d maybe hit a driveway.  Maybe it was because I was just “off” walking down College, between MLK and Macomb, and I stopped and started so many times that I didn’t have a good “start” in my head to base the distance on.  But finally I realized something was wrong, and that something was of course, being in Macomb.  Then, when I got out of the road, I went up a slope (that I now know was a driveway), so I thought I’d walked straight across Macomb in the crosswalk to the west side. 

I was so, so frustrated that I’d done something as stupid as walking right into Macomb.  Before, I’d thought that you couldn’t really do that because you’d know for sure that all the traffic right in front of you made you unsafe.  Like, surely you’d know it if you walked into a street as busy as Macomb!  I think, though, that I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t bring together all the information.  Then, I couldn’t get my orientation down, and that just made me feel really silly and even more embarrassed.  It’s like all the cues suddenly weren’t localized.  I tried to feel for the sun, but it just felt like it was all around me.  The traffic felt similar.  It was just all around me in a swirl.  I felt very defeated by the end, like I just couldn’t do it right.  I was so incredibly lost and totally embarrassed because it’s just such a ridiculous mistake to make.

Traveling like that takes so much effort.  I was mentally and physically wiped after the lesson.  I was not ready to learn in AT class.  I expended so much mental energy that there really wasn’t anything left.  So here’s to better learning next time!