Vn95.1 Why the Project is Ending Now 9/18 & 27/77

9/18 Miriam has expressed her desire to do the same work as her class-
mates, her preference for doing the whatever ‘math’ they will do at
school to learning the kind of math we do together. I take this prefer-
ence as a strong commitment on her part to be one with her peers and
not as a rejection of the arithmetic we have done together. (My doing
so is justified by her initiating most of our math sessions and her
enjoying them.) Further, Miriam’s social needs begin to conflict with
our engagement at Logo. She likes to play with her friends; seeing
more of them now that school has begun, she will demand playing with
them more often. With her friends back from vacation and more readily
available for play, she will have less time available to play with me
at Logo.

For the time being at least, the focus of Miriam’s interests has
shifted out of the home toward the social world of her peers. I con-
sider this a natural change, my struggling against which could be bad
for Miriam and counterproductive for me. I believe Miriam will become
bored with school relatively quickly (perhaps by November or December)
and will rebound with a newer interest in our learning together at home
and Logo.

I discussed this situation tonight with the children. I further
explained my sense of exhaustion — that as much as Miriam has had
allergy problems since our return from vacation, I have also had them.
The antihistamines I have taken to suppress hay fever symptoms have
made me often drowsy and have undermined my ability to stay on top of
the data I have collected.

We three agreed that now is the time for the project to close. We
begin our final series of evaluations tomorrow.

9/27 When attempts to circumvent my allergy/medication based drowsiness
by changing medication failed, I arranged for skin tests to specify
precisely my allergies in the hope of controlling them some other way.
I respond, as Miriam does, to a broad range of substances: I am most
sensitive to house dust, mold, and cat dander; I am slightly less sensi-
tive to ragweed and various grass pollens; at a lower but still signifi-
cant level I am allergic to varieties of trees. This allergy profile
is the same as Miriam’s with minor variations (she is more sensitive to
oak, I to maple). It helps explain the common difficulties we have
experienced these last two months. (This has been an especially bad
year for ragweed.)

Relevance
These notes document the ways in which two factors — the children’s
return to school and allergic reactions — lead us into the final project
phase two weeks earlier than I had anticipated.

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