Observation day 2

Today I volunteered at Avalon again; I taught 2 lessons.

The 10 AM Lesson: Mary, a mildly downs, heavily CD girl
This lesson almost turned my whole project around. Mary was, to put it nicely, difficult. We began by asking her to do her stretches, which she refused. We stopped Renny (her horse), and told her he wouldn't walk until she stretched. It didn't work. Finally, the instructor Sarah came over and said that the only stretches Mary will do are touching Renny's ears and tail. Fine. We did the stretches, and then began the rest of her lesson - most of which was just walking. We did do a little trotting, which she did well at, but in general, it was difficult to get her to follow directions and speak. Mary's biggest challenge is "using her words." Needless to say, at the end of the lesson I was worn out and relieved to be done. I asked Sarah (the instructor) what the deal was. Sarah said that she had talked with Mary's dad who said that Mary has begun to shut down. If you push her, she pushes back harder and it's like banging your head against the wall. On the plus side though, he said that she does better here, and is more willing to participate in Avalon than she is at home or at school. The horses do seem to help a little; albeit not as much as one would like.

The 12 pm: David, a blind, severely learning disabled boy
David was a blast compared to Mary. He sat on his horse (Fritz) and smiled and giggled straight through. With David, we're primarily working on balance, so we do a lot of trotting, circles, weaving, ect. He did his stretches when asked, and responded well to directions from "the right" or "the left." We also played catch for awhile (quite a challenge when blind! haha). Educationally, David is working on learning to read braille, so we worked on that a little bit too. (The letters on the wall that we use also have braille dots). We mostly worked on spelling his name, which he did pretty well at, although doesn't seem to understand what it is he's doing. His mom also volunteered during the lesson, which David seemed to enjoy. She said that Avalon has really helped with the braille thing. Apparently in school he just sits there and lacks complete interest. Doing in on horseback in short doses seems to have made a difference for him. In general though, most of David's lesson was just working on his balance and giggling. haha