Wow.  Restart.  I felt the need to write today, and how it actually clicked in so many ways to write about teaching, kids, worries about them and general thoughts.  So much has happened.

Short list:

• Started a Montessori school.  Super successful.  Super happy, and I absolutely love my faculty.  One hell of a lot of work that I don't regret, except sometimes a bit on the weekends but I'm working on managing that.
• Blog template got screwed up/ hacked.  Eventually, I'll fix that.  I had to reset it to a default.
• I started the school.  Part of my dreams.  It works.  I get tired.  I'm in high demand.
• Hit with a cyber- attack.  Super fun.  MRA's decided that I hated men and went after the school.
• My husband is now the CEO of his own startup which is flying along at super speed and doing very well.  A year and a half ago he was fired from a company with the potential of what 8 million when the stock vested after 4 years?  I think so.  Better all around.
• My own kids.  Never mind them.  17 and 20.

OK.  I'm back to thinking about kids.  I have always wanted to write, and periodically I do.  Somehow, somewhere.  I think that I'll write a novel when I want to retire.  Right now, and right here, writing about Montessori and education with bits of personal in it.  I like random.  I like random everywhere - with kids, in life, and in writing.

I've been thinking about a child.  Let's call her Ellie.  She's going to do her kindergarten year at my school, and I'm glad.  I like her parents.  Good people.  She's got some strange learning styles.  I started to wonder if she has language processing issues / disorder.  Have you ever looked that up?  Weird damn nonsense and generally quite useless.  Strange that it is completely under "auditory processing disorders."  Have you ever wondered why adults don't wonder around admitting that they have "x'?

Anyway, after two different conversations I realized a key insight.  Her actual skills are phenomenally weak for a 5 year old, but they are extremely difficult to detect and evaluate because she is adept at copying and she is functionally not cognitively flexible.  It is only when you put her in a situation where she can't copy someone and "pretend or memorize" that you can literally see how much she's struggling.

I felt like a puzzle formed before my eyes.  Now I need to work on my teaching strategies.