One more week

As the days pass, I can't believe Thailand is so close now. In one week and 4 hours, I will be boarding a plane to Tokyo, and then to Thailand. I wonder how the students will be, what they will think of me, if they will have a lot of questions or keep them to themselves. I wonder how my observations will go, if I'll be able to get all that I need for my research and how I will feel about the culture. I can't imagine right now, being completely immersed in the American lifestyle as I am. Preparation for the trip has proven to be tricky, but with 80% or so of everything done that needs to be done, I'm beginning to breathe again.

In the meantime, I teach. Earlier this week, I had another wonderful group that I will remember. I find that some groups simply don't stick in my head, as bad as that sounds, and there are some that I know that I will never forget. This was one of them. I only wish that I had a picture to post, but there are rules against things like that.

This past week I had a girl who will remain nameless that has Triple X syndrome. No one mentioned that before my teaching began, but it was obvious that something was different, and my first thought was Aspergers. Luckily her mother was there to help with tips for me and to ease the transition for her daughter. She mentioned it to me near the beginning and said that I probably had never heard of it, but listed some symptoms I should know about. Little did she know I took genetics in college and actually did know what it is, somewhat. All worked out very well that first day and the group seemed great overall.

At the end of the day, I had a chat with her mom after a very difficult 20 minutes of journaling. She explained that her daughter normally would have had three meltdowns in that time, but seems to do much better in a natural setting. I instantly was brought back to two books that I have been reading in my own quest to study how children do better in nature in general, and suggested for her to read Last Child in the Woods and The Geography of Childhood. Both books talk about natural settings putting children at ease who have attention deficit disorders. None specifically about Triple X, but still, worth the while. I was particularly brought back to a paragraph in the former book that discusses how one set of parents actually moved to the mountains for the betterment of their son.

It seemed like fate, because the book I ordered from Amazon came in the mail that night (Last Child). I couldn't resist simply giving that copy to her and getting my own again later. I wrote it out to the girl and made a comment about getting outside as much as possible, as encouragement to her to follow her mother's advice. I was greeted not long after with a huge hug from the girl. :)

Environmental education finds yet another way to make a positive impact on lives, and I find more ways to help people. It was a good week.