Monica_in_Switzerland
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Posts posted by Monica_in_Switzerland
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17 hours ago, City Mouse said:
What about a rehabilitation specialist for people who are visually impaired. In the US, this is generally working with adults who are newly blinded/visually impaired and helping them lean how to navigate their world. This could range from independent living skills to job skills and/or using technology for the visually impaired. Since you already have experience in this area, you might have valuable personal experience to share with others. You could become an Orientation and Mobility specialist which envolved teaching travel skills to those with visual impairments. Many O&M professionals work in public schools (kind of like PT or OT in public schools) but many work with only adult clients.
This is a possibility. There is also a local school for the blind, which I *might* be wiling to violate my no-teaching rule for. 🙂
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18 minutes ago, katilac said:
Have you looked into respiratory therapist? If you're not easily disgusted, it might suit the research/synthesize information part, it's in healthcare, and it's not a desk job.
My cousin is a respiratory therapist. This is a good one to look into, I will ask him about visual requirements. Thank you
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3 minutes ago, lulalu said:
We have no access to a library in English. We live overseas. So I am limited to what I can get. 😭 I wish I had a library. It would save soooo much money.
I feel your pain! 😂
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You might be interested in Destination Imagination Instant Challenges. Destination Imagination is this whole complicated science competition, but they also have what they call "instant challenges" which are used as mini-projects to get groups working together, solving problems, communicating. http://www.cre8iowa.org/resources/instant-challenge-library/ You'll want to look at the task-based challenges probably.
They do have an actual book of challenges. Actually, I think they publish one book per year. But you can also find many for free just by googling "Instant Challenges". We have had a ton of fun with these over the years. Enough fun that I have used them as birthday party games on several occasions.
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3 minutes ago, PeterPan said:
I think you might want to *shadow* this field before choosing it. I haven't worked it, but having been on the receiving end I think they see a LOT of angst. So if you're sensitive and don't want to go home thinking about the woman who cried through her session because of the pain from her knee replacement, you might not want that, kwim? Pediatric seems like would be the same thing. Those people are coming in with baggage and sad stories, injuries, problems.
What about ultrasound tech? It's shorter and fits with your doula gig. You'd be a shoe in with your physics background, would skip some of the early physics courses.
Hold it, you have a visual impairment? I think honestly you're going to need to talk to a career counselor. PAY MONEY and go talk to a career counselor.
I can do emotional angst, what I don't want is actual workload following me home. But I do have a contact with a PT who I hope to shadow soon.
You're absolutely right I need to talk to a career counselor. Right now I'm trying to get together a list of options to talk to them about. Luckily the social network here is such that I can receive free (through disability insurance, essentially) counseling specific to my situation.
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5 minutes ago, katilac said:
Is the manual skill aspect a specific requirement, or is it more about not being a desk job?
Can you drive?
More that I don't want a desk job.
Can't drive.
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2 hours ago, Laura Corin said:
Sonographer? Would seeing the screen as you work be a problem?
Probably not. When I use a computer, I use a program to magnify a portion of the screen, probably not possible on a sonography machine.
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Just to clarify a bit, some other fields I've considered but ruled out due to eyes are:
- electrician
- machinist (like my dad)
I'm looking for that overlap between manual skill and knowledge. My strongest area of intelligence is probably my ability to research and synthesize information.
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10 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:
Are you sure you don’t want to do data analytics? You have the math for it and there are a ton of people in IT who are fully blind... 🙂
I won't completely rule out desk jobs, including IT, but I've done So. Much. STEM in my life I'm tired of it.
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@BeachGal I do thing working with the elderly may be a good option, as it's always in demand. It's not necessarily an option I feel super passionate about, but I know the need is there.
@katilac The competition here is not nearly as steep, we actually have a huge doctor/nurse shortage. If my eyes were perfect, I would much rather become a GP, even with the added years of schooling, and I feel pretty certain I'd be very good at it. PT is actually one of two medical fields that has slightly more applicants than places, but the weed-out test is a logic and general competence test, which I am not worried about scoring high on. The bigger concern is that I would be applying as a "dossier" candidate, rather than a straight-forward application, so my age will be a possible negative factor. This whole thread is actually prompted by the concern that I would not get into the program, and that I need to have more than one egg in my future-planning basket. 🤣
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12 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:
How low vision in just basic functioning—counting fingers? Just motion? Or just print disabled?
My vision is pretty good for being bad. I have central vision loss, which means I need aids to read typical print size. I have facial recognition issues because of this. I can see macro level things quite well, for example gait as you mentioned. I could not watch someone's eye movements from more than a step away.
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Since you're not aware of yourself falling, I'd be concerned you are losing consciousness. Have you done a seizure study?
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21 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:
The problem with ALvin Maker is likely finding a satisfying ending
I agree. It started out with a lot of promise, but it does feel like he's painted himself into a corner.
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Am I having a midlife crisis? Probably not quite. But looking toward a mid-life change. I am 38, and would love to be working at 45. This does not actually get all of my kids through 9th grade (end of Swiss obligatory schooling), but it gets them a fair way down the road and I'm getting comfortable with the idea that it's ok if the life of the last two doesn't look exactly like the life of the first two.
But here is my real question:
I am willing to go back to school with the goal of learning a trade type job. By that I mean I don't need another bachelor's degree in a more theoretical topic. My background is this:
Bachelor's in Physics, 1 year of grad school in Environmental Engineering (did not finish program)
1 year teaching math in private school
SAHM ever since. Certification as a doula with occasional clients, very short term contracts in the local school system as an exam expert in English and with the Swiss military as a scenario actor for skill training programs.
I have "low vision"- this eliminates some of my top career options, like midwifery, because I can't do IVs or stitches. I am able to compensate for low vision is almost every aspect of my life, but cannot drive or do very fine work quickly (I can do detailed fine motor, but need to bring in magnification tools)
I DO NOT WANT TO TEACH. Don't even suggest it! 😂
I am drawn to the medical field, and am most drawn towards Physical Therapy. It is a 3 year degree here.
I want a job that has both physical and mental aspects- not a desk job. I also want a job that stays at work, not the kind of thing where I'm going to be bringing a lot of angst and worry home due to unfinished tasks.
Besides physical therapy, which is my top contender right now, what else could I do that is actually in demand? I'm not married to medical, I just think I would do well in that domain. I do not want the additional work of starting or maintaining a business.
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3 minutes ago, RootAnn said:
^^^^ And me waiting for Orson Scott Card to finish his Women of Genesis series... which will likely be never.
He hasn't finished Alvin Maker either... argh!
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7 minutes ago, Lori D. said:
I don't have a saved list 😉 , but here's a quick compilation of possible ideas -- the ones with ** are good for 6th grade, or could be done together with 6th & 8th grade:
tough topics
** The Pushcart War (Merrill) -- humorous, but a good view of how wars start
Maniac Magee (Spinnelli) -- racism
Stargirl (Spinnelli) -- nonconformity
The Wave (Strasser) -- based on a true event; pressure to conform to the group
The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (Hentoff) -- censorship
Speak (Andersen) -- teen girl is r*ped; the aftermath, and how she eventually fights back; PREVIEW
Story of a Girl (Zarr) -- CHRISTIAN author; teen girl pressured into s*x, and the aftermath; PREVIEW
Go Ask Alice (Annonymous) -- written like a diary of a 1960s teen girl who falls into the drug culture; PREVIEW
sci-fi/speculative fiction with discussable topics
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury) -- temptation to "grow up fast" by magical means
The Giver (Lowry) -- euthanasia
** Echo (Ryan) -- fantastical; 3 powerful historical time periods; disfigured outcast; making your destiny the importance of family
** Tuck Everlasting (Babbit) -- fantastical; the temptation of everlasting life
** Below the Root (Snyder) -- fantasy; utopia -- at the cost of exiling dissenters
voices of others within the U.S.
** El Deafo (Bell) -- graphic novel; disability
** Wonder (Palacio) -- disability
The Outsiders (Hinton) -- youth gangs (grouped from poverty or ethnicity) in the 1950s/60s
The Chosen (Potok) -- set in late 1940s; 2 Jewish teens conflicted: follow their fathers' goals for them, or follow their own callings?
All American Boys (Reynolds and Kiely) -- racism; Black Lives Matter
Dear Martin (Stone) -- racism; Black Lives Matter
The Hate U Give (Thomas) -- racism; Black Lives Matter
The Crossover (Alexander) -- written in verse; black point of view; sports, sibling rivalry, teen struggles
Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson) -- written in verse; black point of view; memoir of her childhood
American-Born Chinese (Yang) -- graphic novel; Asian/American point of view
Esperanza Rising (Ryan) -- Latina point of view
To Be a Slave (Lester) -- actual interview excerpts from former black slaves in the 1800s U.S.
voices from other cultures
A Long Walk to Water (Park) -- part biography part fiction
I Am Malala (Yousafzai) -- autobiography
A Long Way Gone (Beah) -- autobiography -- child soldier in Sierra Leone; PREVIEW
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Kamkwanda) -- get the YA version
Persepolis (Satrapi) -- autobiography; graphic novel; PREVIEW; growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution
The Book Thief (Zusak) -- WW2 German home front; issues of war, fear, death, foster child
"Which Books Should I Squeeze in Before the End of 8th Grade?"
And this past post of mine in this thread ^^^, while totally not what you were asking for, is one I stumbled over and I remembered that you are in a somewhat similar position of having only another year with your oldest before he moves on to a traditional high school setting. So, perhaps something useful in there.
Thank you so much!!! I appreciate your long reply. I have several of these on my list for this year and next. I'm glad to see Dear Martin, as I haven't read it yet but have it assigned for Civil Rights because I stumbled across it. I'm looking forward to discovering several other of these titles. Great list!
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On 1/20/2021 at 6:16 PM, Lori D. said:
Different perspectives and contemporary issues were important to me, too, to include along with older classics as part of our literature studies. 😄 When your DS is a bit older, there are some contemporary YA books out there with a lot of meat for discussion, wrestling with contemporary issues or from different perspectives. I actually preferred to include those as part of our formal lit. studies rather than as pleasure reading, so we really could take time to explore and discuss. It sounds like that's your style, too. 😄
I'd love to see this list...
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Final thought: We'll skip Night this year. I will have ds read it next year. This topic is just too hard. Argh.
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14 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:
There is no way I would have my 8th graders read Night. The scene with them throwing and killing the babies would devastate my daughters for sure. Night gave me nightmares as an adult.
If you could manage a field trip, it would do more than any reading. I took my kids to the Holocaust Museum in Richmond, VA and even that left an indelible impression.
If I could censor that scene, and the one of the son strangling his father for a crust of bread in the train cattle car, those would be the two I would remove.
Unfortunately with covid, travel is out for probably another year or so, but it is something I would really like to do. I'd also like to visit the beaches in Normandy.
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I think the metaphor to porn is pretty apt. What I've been asking myself as I read is, "How does this compare to Steven King?" I went through a Steven King phase in college, and I'd definitely qualify him as violence porn, although it is my understanding that he is actually "light" in terms of horror, which is quite disturbing to me! Anyway, I would never touch SK books again, as you said Carol, I still have some images from his books stuck in my head. Night didn't feel like SK to me. It was more matter-of-fact and while it had scenes of horror, you don't feel the author relishing and indulging in gratuitous detail like you do with SK.
I think Lori is right in that, to a certain extent, innocence is protective, even when reading a book like Night. An 8th grader doesn't have enough life experience to truly put himself in another's shoes. When we read Between Shades of Grey, about the gulag labor camps, my 6th grade dd was completely riveted to the story and felt it very deeply, though not in a bad way IMO. My son thought it was a good book, but did not have that emotional connection. Night has a male protagonist, so we will see if that changes his connection in some way. I think we're going to try it, but I'll give him permission to stop if it is bothering him.
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7 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:
I have not read the sequel.
And yes, I do want the Holocaust to be horrible and shocking but there is a line between that and traumatizing. It’s up to you, but I think the horrors can be exposed quite well without traumatizing. YMMV and you know your own child for sure.
Exodus IS awfully long. It’s very good though. Almost spine quality in scope as well.
Yes, Exodus definitely looks like something I need to read for my own education!!!
I appreciate your perspective on this. Holocaust books are so hard to classify and quantify. I will continue to give it much thought. We found such an incredible book for the Russian Gulag, it was just the right amount of awful while still being hopeful. But I'm struggling to give a fictional Holocaust account to an 8th grader rather than a memoir. But memoirs are more raw and also more powerful, for obvious reasons.
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3 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:
I found Night horrendous as an adult. I am not sure that I would have been able to read it even remotely calmly as an 8th grader. It’s an important book but I dunno whether that is the age for it.
If he could manage “Exodus” I think that would be better. It’s got a lot of before and after as well as a lot of detail about the camps, and it is very historically accurate. IE more history overall, much more, and still the detail you want about the Holocaust.
While Exodus looks like a great read for me, it's over 600 pages, so I don't think we can squeeze it in.
I guess... I want the Holocaust to be horrible and shocking. I feel like I can't really wait much longer than 8th grade before exposing those horrors. I think my current 8th grader can handle it, but I do think it is a definite mandatory pre-read for parents to decide for themselves. Have you read the sequel: Dawn? I want to pre-read it for the Israel/Palestine chapter because it might be nice to stick with the same author for both stories.
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@Carol in Cal. The Moon is Down looks amazing. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It's moved to the top of my reading list!
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Is everyone tired of me talking about this yet?
This week I pre-read 3 Holocaust books-
Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Survivor's Club
Night by Wiesel
Of the three, I've chosen to do Night by Wiesel with my oldest (8th). It is slightly more brutal than survivor's club, but only half as long, so although Survivor's Club was a smidge gentler, Night was over quicker, but more powerful. Night is also written by Wiesel, a nobel peace prize winner. It is well-known and appears on many booklists. While Survivor's Club had some advantages over Night, in that it covered the post-war period for Jews, as well as several different types of concentration forms- ghettos, factor work slave camps, and finally death camps, it does not have quite the first-person authenticity of Night, as the author was 4-5 years old during the war, and the story was pieced together by his daughter, an investigative journalist. It is very well-done, but I think Night carries more weight.
Boy in the Striped Pajamas is useless as an intro to the Holocaust. You need to already know about the Holocaust to understand the book's dramatic irony. As literature, it is not bad, though the horrific (but not graphic) ending is predictable. We might still read it as an example of point-of-view and dramatic irony, but only after we have covered the Holocaust.
My younger (6th grader) will do Number the Stars.
For both, we are also reading:
The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler
Maus (this is a moving graphic novel, should be pre-read for appropriateness. Different animal species play out the roles of various groups, but this does not make it appropriate for younger children)
Two overview graphic novels:
Under the Shadow of the Swastika
Against the Rising Sun
For Pacific, i still need to pre-read Empire of the Sun and Code Talker.
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Triangles and 10 year old
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
I agree with this, and doing the same for quadrilaterals. I would suggest tearing the angles off though, or else highlight the angles before cutting up the shape, otherwise it's easy to get lost on which ones were the actual interior angles of the shape and which were formed when you cut/tore it apart! (personal experience talking...)