Ethnography and Vampires

Things were rocking along pretty well late yesterday afternoon, and I get an e-mail from Alesia's English teacher saying she had failed to turn in part of a project - even after being reminded. The project is to take photos of people and things around our house that relate to her "ethnography" as a Russian-born person, and mount them in a presentation with captions. I called the teacher, Ms. Z, who has been really sweet to Alesia this year, and was irritated to learn more.

Alesia had mentioned to me on Monday evening that she had a disposable camera and was "supposed to take photos of Russian stuff," but when I asked her when it was due, what exactly is is, etc. she just shrugged and said "I dunno." I had replied "Find out, and I will help you with it."

I told Ms. Z on the phone we would have a little "come to Jesus" meeting about it. This is the second teacher who has contacted me in less than a week to tell me about a project Alesia didn't turn in. I called and fussed at Alesia over the phone. I then had to go pick up Mike at soccer practice - they had practice this week to prep for a "consolation game" on Saturday.

I kept my temper by remembering that Alesia isn't a bad kid. She's a good kid and wants to do well in school. She is utterly distracted by the other kids, particularly boys. She doesn't deliberately set out to be a bad kid. She is very tender-hearted and doesn't like to see me or her Granny upset because of her. She just is naive and doesn't think about consequences to her actions.

Also, her faulty memory means I have to explain things over and over.

We had a talk last night right before bed. I showed her a sheet I prepared which breaks down monthly expenses for a single person sharing an apartment. I also explained about minimum wage, and how without a degree of some kind those are the noly jobs she will be able to get after high school. I showed, mathematically, how someone making minimum wage cannot really support themselves decently. I then pointed out that if she doesn't get her grades up, she won't be able to go to college or technical school, and she will have no choice but to work dead end minimum wage jobs. It was late and we were both tired, but she seemed to understand. We've talked about it before, but I wanted her to see a visualization of it, to see the grim mathematical numbers. I also showed her a short article about the fact that U.S. census data shows college grads make twice what people with only high school diplomas earn.

I also pointed out that when she finished high school, if she doesn't go to college or technical school, but decides to live at home, she will still have to pay me rent. I cannot tell her it will be a free ride because then she will have no motivation. In Russia, it's common for grown kids to live at home until they marry, and sometimes after that. So this idea of being independent is still culturally new to her.

I reiterated [for the 100th time] that I want to help her study for tests and complete projects, but she has to be responsible and ask me for help. I just pray she really internalizes the lesson. I have a feeling that taking Biology in summer school is going to be much more difficult than she realizes, and it may be an important wake-up call.

Alesia promised me she would do better next year. I will remind her of that promise in a few months.

We also talked a little bit this morning about the fact that unlike most kids in her ESL class, Alesia speaks English at home and she's being raised as an American, by Americans. We don't do much about Russian culture other than occasionally eating pilmeni, displaying souvenirs, and speaking a little Russian now and then. So her "ethnography" is more about being adopted, and melding cultures.

She still doesn't always tell people she is adopted. She started wearing my college ring, and several people had asked her about it, wondering why her mother would've gone to the University of Georgia - then she had to say her mother is American and she's adopted. I am sort of ambivalent about her telling people - a lot of times it's probably just not relevant. However, I want her to feel comfortable about it, not embarrassed.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Alesia is intrigued with vampires at the moment. I ordered the movie Interview With the Vampire from Netflix and we started watching it last night. Michael was very excited when I told him the movie we would see. However, he gets the word "vampire" confused with "umpire." After I explained the difference he was still looking puzzled - at least about the "umpire" word. So I need to sit down with him and watch a Braves game and explain how baseball works. I should've done it before but there never seems to be time.

Watching the movie got him amped up. Several times, he exclaimed with great excitement "I want to be a WAMPIRE!" I reminded him the word starts with a "v" not a "w" and I teased him and said "No way! But you can be an UMPIRE!" FInally he got tired of that and said "How about an umpire that sucks people's blood?!" I had to laugh.

Comments

[bronwyn]

dee, i strongly recommend a checklist for alesia. kids with fas need visual cues to help them remember important information. due to her memory issues, she will need alot of visual reminders. if you guys are using one, i would suggest maybe changing it to one that she will use. trust me, this method works!!

http://www.psychiatry.emory.edu/PROGRAMS/GADrug/Edfas.htm#instructions
(there are lots and lots of information online about visual cueing ---checklist, etc. )

[Judy]

Michael might enjoy knowing that vampire bats were named after the mythological (we hope) vampire people. I knew a professor who made vampires his life's work. According to him, the idea of vampires developed because people were buried in peat bogs. When the body gases would distort the body, those people would sometimes pop out of the porous earth and needed to be impaled with stakes in order to stay underground. Judy