The Best of What Was There

C'mon!

How can you read when I want to go outside?

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The Stats Race: An Update

Imagine me and my stats syllabus, both running the 10,000 meters race. My stats syllabus has no worries. It has won this race every year for as long as anyone can remember. Me? I have a handicap. I don't like doing stats by rote. I want to actually *understand* what I'm doing.

For most of the first part of the semester, the syllabus had a commanding lead -- it had a great start and leapt ahead, while I came out of the blocks like there was glue on my shoes. I tried catching up through rote work but, as usual, my heart wasn't in it and the syllabus kept its lead. So I put my head down, stopped watching the syllabus and its easy gait, and concentrated on my own race.

I realized, working on my stats homework tonight, that I have made great strides and am steadily gaining on my syllabus. I've gotten close enough that I can actually see the logo on the back of its shoes (it says "die, sucker!").

But can I ever catch up and run side by side with the syllabus? I don't need to win. I just want a tie!

Cheating on Statistics

No, not really. I'm just cheating because Maria, at the blog Crooked Timbers, has so perfectly expressed every single thing I'm experiencing in my statistics class (my third, too -- just like her) that all I have to do is link to her post. Done!

Look! I Finally Posted It!

This post is for those people whom I told, "oh, I'll post that on my blog tonight." Those are the people who said, "yeah, right." :-)

• Yes, I did go to St.Louis and conduct an all-day SEMTAP workshop with the local music therapists and music therapy students. We had a productive day, sharing IEP and assessment issues and proposing strategies and solutions. The primary misconception among music therapists about doing assessments for related service continues to be that they should go beyond the administration of the assessment and become advocates for music therapy. Here's what I wrote to my e-mail list of music therapists afterwards:

One of the primary conclusions we talked about was this: as music therapists we can do our best work, focused on our clients, if we keep strict boundaries and refrain from taking sides.

We talked about getting a public school assessment request. Who should it come from? The special ed administrator. So, if a parent calls you about a public school assessment, even if that parent has been told to arrange it, you say you'll only talk to the special ed person in charge. If a teacher calls you? You need to talk to the administrator. If an advocate invites you to an IEP meeting? You need the administrator to call you. Rinse and repeat.

Or...we talked about presenting your assessment findings at an IEP meeting, for example and recognized that there are only two steps to it: presenting your assessment and giving your recommendations. Everything else is not up to you. If the committee wants to discuss it, you can provide your opinion, but if there is a decision that doesn't match your recommendations, you simply ask that your report be entered into the record -- and stop there. The parents may protest, may take it to the next level of dispute resolution; the administration may protest and start a long process of disagreement --- but none of it has to have an impact on you. You've done your work. You've presented your information. You're done. If you are called to testify at a hearing or in court? You present your assessment results and information. If need be, you attach AMTA documentation regarding music therapy as a related service, but that's it. Your only contribution will be to repeat what you found out during the assessment process.

This may sound to some folks like copping out. The parents and others have so many decisions to make, so many complicated issues -- shouldn't we help? The more years I do this, the more I think -- we help by doing *our* job right and then stepping back. We help by focusing on the clients.

• On the way back from the presentation, I was able to stop and see my friend Carrie and her husband, and their daughter, Madeleine. I met Carrie during the X-Files days and when I noted Madeleine's rather skeptical way of observing things, she said, "I know! I call her my 'MiniScully!'" Carrie's house is a 1910 three-story home on a block that backs up to the botanical gardens. Beautiful. They are doing renovations from the top down and it was inspiring to see what they've accomplished!
• I also had a chance to drive through Kansas City and see Heather and James. ("Heather and James!" cry the folks from SMU.) They live in a lovely little house near the UMKC campus that Heather has renovated in extraordinary fashion. The tile work on the backsplash in their kitchen rivals the best things you've ever seen on HGTV. James has his studio set up on the first floor and we even composed some music while I was there. Heather is going to try and do her internship at the nearby Children's Hospital.
• The doggie stayed at her new vet's office while I was away. I found the vet on recommendation from one of our MT faculty and liked the place immediately. Part of the charm was Emma, the boxer, who was sitting behind the front desk and greeting customers as they arrived. Mackenzie got along with everyone there and came home in good humor. She really does love it here, because of all the long walks and opportunities to run. We go to the dog park out by the reservoir regularly -- it's quite a ways off the road, so it's very safe without being fenced in. There's an open area with a picnic table and water, and there are paths mowed through the long grass nearby, where we usually walk about half a mile in and then turn around. There's also a path that apparently goes more than 2 miles to a waterfall and back out again, but we've only just explored the beginning of that.

Is that it? I think so!

Music Therapy Clinic

One of the nice things about being a GTA is that I'm supervising (and, for the first part of the semester, conducting) music therapy sessions with a wide variety of clients. I have oversight responsiblities for three advanced students who are out in the field with MT-BCs and I don't see their work or clients, but I also supervise 4 students who are earlier in their training. Three of our music therapy sessions take place in one of the two wonderful clinic spaces in the music therapy department and for the other, we go out into the community. My clients are a 17-year-old young man with autism, a 4-year-old girl with developmental disabilities, a group of adult women with mental retardation (from a group home nearby) and a group of seniors at an activity center downtown.

As you might imagine, the diversity in clients and needs leads to a diversity in music therapy practice. The young man with autism responds very well to improvisation, both with percussion instruments and on the piano. The 4-year-old clicks with a picture schedule, file folders strategies and all the other elements of song-based music therapy. The women from the group home are wonderful song writers and they have also been interested to learn more about music: i.e. the origin of the more unusual percussion instruments, and the way to read a chart for choir chimes. They are also learning to sign to some of their favorite songs. Finally, the seniors at the day center love to reminisce and we've been playing lots of "standards" (anything Frank Sinatra ever sang is perfect!), singing, writing new lyrics, and telling life stories.

Now that the middle part of the semester is arriving, I'm doing my best to back off and let my students do more -- but those of you who have been my students in the past know that it's difficult for me to do! Fortunately, all four of my students are doing good work and are both challenged and thrilled with their opportunities

Brains!! Brains!!

How much do I love my neurology class? Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I sit there and think, "this is why I came back to school," and "why does this class have to end after 80 minutes?"

I'm happy to realize that most of what I taught myself while I was doing clinical work and teaching is accurate. I learned the correct names for things and have a decent understanding of how everything works. Now I'm settling down and learning the details, clarifying some mysteries, and answering questions I've had for years. I'm having a blast.

The professor for this class is wonderful; he's that rare person who is an active, productive researcher and a terrific teacher. His explanations, slides, and off-the-cuff illustrations on the board in front of class are all crystal clear. Plus, he brings in brains! The first day he brought in the buckets and handed out the gloves, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I called my friend Wendy after class and just said, "Brains! Brains!"

There are 12 of us in the seminar -- it's a requirement for masters candidates in speech-language pathology, and 10 of the students are there for that reason. Two of us are doctoral candidates: me, and a woman who is focusing on speech and Parkinson's disease. All but one of the masters students are focused on doing well, but clearly uninspired, and I think I'm beginning to understand why.

When the masters students hear the material, it is new information and it is without much context. They're there to memorize and regurgitate so that when they see clients in the future to whom this information applies, they will have the requisite knowledge to do competent assessments and treatment. For me, on the other hand, almost every neurological process has a face and a name from the last 20 years of clinical work. We learn about the cingulate and I think of clients who retained automatic speech (and singing) while losing propositional speech and language. We learn about upper motor neurons and I see clients like this gentleman. In some ways, I may have more to process each day; I'm not just learning the facts, I'm integrating them with clients I've known and -- because music therapy is relatively "young" in this area -- conceptualizing the implications of the information on music therapy treatment. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Getting Around

The University of Kansas is beautiful. It is also All Hills, All The Time. My current nemesis is these stairs, which have at least one more flight of steps than you can see, and which lie between my music psychology research class and my statistics class. Every Tuesday and Thursday, after my research professor has run over into the ten minutes allotted for class transfers, I hightail it out of Murphy Hall (which sits low on the west side of campus), turn right, and go uphill across campus, to Fraser Hall, which -- as the link says -- "sits at the highest point" on the campus. I am fortunate that my statistic instructor is never on time, because neither am I. Gah. More than once, I have looked longingly at the motor scooters that a few students have and thought, "I'm sure I can find a few thousand dollars somewhere."

Our statistics professor usually finishes up a little early. On the way back to Murphy, I always take my time and enjoy the fact that I'm going downhill. Inevitably, I find myself crossing a campus road just up the hill from where a steam whistle on top of the power plant signals the end of classes for that hour. It's a KU tradition dating back over 100 years. It's also loud enough to send one's heart flying out of one's chest on a direct flight to Minnesota. I can hear it from my apartment, 3 miles away, when I'm home during class hours.

Despite the ache in my calves and the occasional loss of hearing, I love being here. Coming back to school at my age results in a deep appreciation for the opportunity to focus on almost nothing but learning. I'm lucky, and I know it.