Welcome back to the weekly installment of Teaching Tips Tuesday (T3)! This is a weekly post in which readers get the chance to share their wealth of information about what works for them in the classroom, or at home in teaching their kids. Instructions on how to post something are here.
So here's my tip of the week. I look forward to seeing what you all have to share too!
What to Post on the Walls of Your Classroom
I went to UC Berkeley for graduate school. One would assume that most UC Berkeley students have a working knowledge of social rules. But I was always amused that in the bathrooms in the Education building, they had clear signs posted that read:
Please Flush the Toilet When You Are Finished
Really? You have to post that? Does that mean that at sometime in the past, there was a problem in which groups of people in the decision-making chain decided that yes, they had to go make up little signs to tell students who already passed a rigorous admissions process that they weren't smart enough to follow basic social rules? It appears so.
So with that in mind, I suppose that classroom teachers need to post the rules that we all assume kids know already. When I enter classrooms, I usually scan the walls, just out of curiosity. In some classrooms, there are clearly posted rules that are referred to when violations happen. In some classrooms, it looks like Barney and his gang threw up a rainbow everywhere and I get dizzy looking around. And in some classrooms, there are barren walls. I'm of the opinion that a classroom needs basic rules posted. Hey, if we Berkeley grads can't even figure out how to use a toilet, how can we except middle school kids to know the school rules?
I recommend posting no more than 3 positively stated rules. I think it's easier to tell kids what what we expect them to do, rather than the long list of what we don't like (No Gum! No Interrupting! No Getting Out of Your Seat Without Permission! No! No! No!). Imagine you went to the teacher's lounge and it said, "No complaining! No venting! No smelly dishes that could offend other's olfactory senses!" Wouldn't really make you want to hang out there.
If you post these three basic rules, I think you will be able to put all the little behaviors you don't want under them.
1) Be Safe
2) Be Respectful
3) Be Responsible
I usually have the kids think of examples. It is hard to think of the positive behavior you want instead of what you want, but you can ask the kids what is the opposite. So if they say, "Don't cuss at people" you can direct them to "Use respectful language" or "Disagree without being disagreeable." Sometimes I even use their own language they generate, because it sticks better, as in, "Don't be a hater!" Then, when a kid curses out another kid, you can simple point to the rule as a warning. If they continue, then you can proceed with your regular sequence of discipline events (which is worth another 47 posts, so chime in your tip for effective discipline!)
Lastly, since teachers are starting anew this January, it's a good time to review the rules, consequences, and rewards. You might also consider picking the rule that was broken the most last semester and set up a positive group contingency, which is basically rewarding small groups for following the rule. It can be as simple as having each table with a jar and you plop in a paperclip or marble or something every time you observe them being responsible (I see table 3 is working on their first paragraph, which is very responsible). Some teachers give table points on the board when they see cooperation. Whatever system you like is fine, just be explicit at first about what you are rewarding. Also, remember that public teacher attention isn't always rewarding for older students, so having it in a group with a decent reward that the class really likes is essential (free time always works).
Go forth and post! And remember to flush!
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Sensory-Integration Disorders
When I first started my clinical practice at a Children's Hospital, I got referrals left and right to assess children for "Sensory Integration" disorders. The classic referral was from parents who were concerned that their 2 year old was clumsy (aren't they all kind of clumsy?) or didn't like tags touching them (who does?). I thought maybe I missed that day in graduate school, because at the time, I had never heard of such a disorder. Sure, I had heard of children with Autism and ADHD who had sensory issues, but not a "Sensory Integration Disorder," per se. All I knew was that when I brought it up to other professionals, it was met with an eye roll 9 chances out of 10. Over the years, I have heard the term less and less, but for those wondering what the heck it is, and if it's even a real disorder, check out this posting on Quack Watch. I'd love to hear what others think on this issue.
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Teaching Tips Tuesday: Take One
Right, so this is an experiment to see if I am SO 21st century and am able to pull off this "Mr. Linky" automated link situation. The basic idea of Teacher Tip Tuesday is to have you all post tips that work in the classroom or at home when teaching kids. The full guidelines and how to work this newfangled linky thing are here.
So what is my first tip? Well, since it's Holiday Break, I thought I'd be lazy and post a few of my old favorites from 2008. What? It's vacation! Plus, who doesn't love a "Best of 2008" list? Further, recycling is so hot right now.
1. How to make studying (more) fun using fly swatters or dingers
2.Using hip hop to teach multiplication
3.Why punishment doesn't always work in the classroom
4.How to be optimistic even when your car is stolen
5.My arranged marriage to Barney (aka What is play therapy?)
6.Checklist for new teachers
7.Dealing with teasing
8.Obama's impact on urban education
9.How to run an anger management group and not accidently form a gang
10. Forget about deadlines! There's still time for teachers to write a story for "The Teachable Moment" book and get some extra cash
So what is my first tip? Well, since it's Holiday Break, I thought I'd be lazy and post a few of my old favorites from 2008. What? It's vacation! Plus, who doesn't love a "Best of 2008" list? Further, recycling is so hot right now.
1. How to make studying (more) fun using fly swatters or dingers
2.Using hip hop to teach multiplication
3.Why punishment doesn't always work in the classroom
4.How to be optimistic even when your car is stolen
5.My arranged marriage to Barney (aka What is play therapy?)
6.Checklist for new teachers
7.Dealing with teasing
8.Obama's impact on urban education
9.How to run an anger management group and not accidently form a gang
10. Forget about deadlines! There's still time for teachers to write a story for "The Teachable Moment" book and get some extra cash
Teaching Tips Tuesdays!
I'm trying out a new idea of having you, my talented readers, share tips with other educators, psychologists, and parents about ways you've had success in teaching kids. It can be as little as a new way to teach multiplication facts, what to do in the last 10 minutes of class, how you motivate your kid to study, or as complex as teaching social skills to kids with disabilities. The idea is for you to provide a tidbit of information to try out with kids to enhance learning or make our jobs as educators just a bit easier.
Mmm. I'm intrigued. Tell me more about Teaching Tips Tuesday (T3)
1. T3 is a "blog carnival" in which you all post, on Tuesdays, a little tip you've learned in working with children that has made your life easier. You post a link back here to my T3 post, and enter your link in the "Mr. Linky" form at the bottom of my post (Mr. Linky is an automated link service. No html fanciness required).
2. You do not have to ask me first before you participate in T3. Just jump right in. Remember, this is a family show. Inappropriate links will be deleted.
3. Please only leave a link if you have written a T3 post on your blog. Please mention T3 in your post, and link back to the master list on my blog for the Tuesday you are posting. I'll just delete "empty" links, or trickery links to something non-educator related.
4. Link to your T3 post, NOT to the front page of your blog. This makes browsing so much easier for everyone, especially when people browse around in the archives.
5. Please DO NOT host your own T3 "Mr. Linky" at your site. I'd like to keep Notes from the School Psychologist as the homepage for Teaching-Tips-Tuesday, for simplicity's sake.
6. I will try to answer your e-mail questions, but be aware that I am new to this too, and may not be clever enough to answer properly! First try the "Help" section in your blogging software ("How do I upload images?" or "How do I link back to you from my page?").
7. When you enter your link on Mr. Linky, it may say "delete link" next to your name. If you click on that, it will let you delete what you just posted. No one else can see it though, so don't worry about it unless you want to delete it.
8. Enter a 3-4 word description of your post, in parentheses, after you put your name. Be descriptive, be specific, and BE BRIEF.
For example, where the Mr. Linky box says "Your Name", you might put:
Rebecca (Making Studying Fun)
-OR-
Sam (Helping Shy Kids Participate)
-OR-
Malik (Teaching Phonics with Rhyming Games)
This will make it easy for others to browse through the tips. PLEASE KEEP YOUR PARENTHETICAL TITLE TO A MAXIMUM OF 4-5 WORDS. Mr. Linky freaks out sometimes when the "Your Name" portion gets too long, and it can mess up the alignment of the whole deal, making it harder to read.
9. I'll put my T3 post up no later than noon (pacific time) each Tuesday.
10. I reserve the right to delete any links that are inappropriate. This is a family show, people!
Okay, wish me luck. I'm going to try to post my first Teaching Tip Tuesday shortly...
Mmm. I'm intrigued. Tell me more about Teaching Tips Tuesday (T3)
1. T3 is a "blog carnival" in which you all post, on Tuesdays, a little tip you've learned in working with children that has made your life easier. You post a link back here to my T3 post, and enter your link in the "Mr. Linky" form at the bottom of my post (Mr. Linky is an automated link service. No html fanciness required).
2. You do not have to ask me first before you participate in T3. Just jump right in. Remember, this is a family show. Inappropriate links will be deleted.
3. Please only leave a link if you have written a T3 post on your blog. Please mention T3 in your post, and link back to the master list on my blog for the Tuesday you are posting. I'll just delete "empty" links, or trickery links to something non-educator related.
4. Link to your T3 post, NOT to the front page of your blog. This makes browsing so much easier for everyone, especially when people browse around in the archives.
5. Please DO NOT host your own T3 "Mr. Linky" at your site. I'd like to keep Notes from the School Psychologist as the homepage for Teaching-Tips-Tuesday, for simplicity's sake.
6. I will try to answer your e-mail questions, but be aware that I am new to this too, and may not be clever enough to answer properly! First try the "Help" section in your blogging software ("How do I upload images?" or "How do I link back to you from my page?").
7. When you enter your link on Mr. Linky, it may say "delete link" next to your name. If you click on that, it will let you delete what you just posted. No one else can see it though, so don't worry about it unless you want to delete it.
8. Enter a 3-4 word description of your post, in parentheses, after you put your name. Be descriptive, be specific, and BE BRIEF.
For example, where the Mr. Linky box says "Your Name", you might put:
Rebecca (Making Studying Fun)
-OR-
Sam (Helping Shy Kids Participate)
-OR-
Malik (Teaching Phonics with Rhyming Games)
This will make it easy for others to browse through the tips. PLEASE KEEP YOUR PARENTHETICAL TITLE TO A MAXIMUM OF 4-5 WORDS. Mr. Linky freaks out sometimes when the "Your Name" portion gets too long, and it can mess up the alignment of the whole deal, making it harder to read.
9. I'll put my T3 post up no later than noon (pacific time) each Tuesday.
10. I reserve the right to delete any links that are inappropriate. This is a family show, people!
Okay, wish me luck. I'm going to try to post my first Teaching Tip Tuesday shortly...
Saturday, 20 December 2008
Why I Am Going to the Inauguration
It's no secret that I embrace our new president for the role he can play in providing hope to urban youth. I recently wrote about why I am going to DC for the inauguration for a piece on NPR's California Report. Skip ahead to 18:00 (or about halfway on the toolbar) on the streaming audio to hear why I am flying across the country to stand in a giant crowd, in what should be a balmy 20 degrees in January, to see a speck from afar that will be our new president.
Click here to hear The California Report's series on why people (and yours truly) are going to the inauguration.
Be sure to skip PAST the yiddish singers (unfortunately, not a skill in my repertoire yet) to 18:00.
Click here to hear The California Report's series on why people (and yours truly) are going to the inauguration.
Be sure to skip PAST the yiddish singers (unfortunately, not a skill in my repertoire yet) to 18:00.
Friday, 19 December 2008
Role Models
I love bad movies. I find them to be so relaxing because I know exactly what will happen in the end. Once you get the “boy-meets girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl back” formula, you can just relax and watch the predictable nonsense ensue. I always turn to my movie-goer friend during romantic comedies and sarcastically ask, “I wonder if they will end up together in the end?!” Or in any teen movie, “I wonder if the moral of the story will be to ‘be yourself!’”
Well this past week, I dragged my fiancé to “Role Models” starring Paul Rudd. It’s a classic tale of buffoonery in which two loser guys are court-ordered to volunteer in a mentoring program. I convinced him that I needed to go for work purposes. You know, I need to know about role models and such. I have to say, as a purveyor of fine bad movies, this one gets my Best Of 2008 vote. I actually laughed out loud on multiple occasions; I’m ashamed to say. In one such scene, the two loser “adults” begin smacking each other in the car and then two seconds later, their two kids they’re supposed to be role models for start smacking each other around for no reason.
Now it’s common knowledge that kids learn by observing and model the behaviors of those around them. But how important are “role models” anyway? Does it really make that big of a difference? I am thinking specifically of my young African American students who now have an African American President-elect. How big of a difference can Obama really make?
The research on social learning (learning by observing others) would say that the higher status the role model, the more kids will try to emulate them. That is the reason that advertisers use Michael Jordan to sell absolutely everything, including underwear, and not Michael Jenkins, your neighbor.* So will Obama’s high status job get kids interested in politics or someday running for office? Maybe, maybe not, but it will certainly give more options in role models to emulate, and that is a good thing.
*Plus, “Be like Jenkins!” is just not catchy.
Well this past week, I dragged my fiancé to “Role Models” starring Paul Rudd. It’s a classic tale of buffoonery in which two loser guys are court-ordered to volunteer in a mentoring program. I convinced him that I needed to go for work purposes. You know, I need to know about role models and such. I have to say, as a purveyor of fine bad movies, this one gets my Best Of 2008 vote. I actually laughed out loud on multiple occasions; I’m ashamed to say. In one such scene, the two loser “adults” begin smacking each other in the car and then two seconds later, their two kids they’re supposed to be role models for start smacking each other around for no reason.
Now it’s common knowledge that kids learn by observing and model the behaviors of those around them. But how important are “role models” anyway? Does it really make that big of a difference? I am thinking specifically of my young African American students who now have an African American President-elect. How big of a difference can Obama really make?
The research on social learning (learning by observing others) would say that the higher status the role model, the more kids will try to emulate them. That is the reason that advertisers use Michael Jordan to sell absolutely everything, including underwear, and not Michael Jenkins, your neighbor.* So will Obama’s high status job get kids interested in politics or someday running for office? Maybe, maybe not, but it will certainly give more options in role models to emulate, and that is a good thing.
*Plus, “Be like Jenkins!” is just not catchy.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!
You know what is lacking in urban schools sometimes? Happy people. Now I recently discovered that happiness is contagious and I would really like some people at work to get infected with a serious case.
I entered one of my schools to find that someone had gotten all festive on me and put up holiday lights, a Christmas tree (I know, I know, separation of church and state), and even a whole family of moving-light-up-reindeer. The reindeer were all awkwardly grazing on fluffy white "snow" made of quilting batting that had some extra sparkle in it for good measure. There was a sweet little tree with fake packages under it and everything. Despite the clear Christmas bias over other holidays, I thought that it was nice for someone to try to spruce (get it?) up the foyer for the holidays, and I commented on it to a co-worker.
Me: Wow! This place is all festive!
CW: Festive. At this school? Ha. (Snorts)
Me: Um, I was referring not to the school in general, but to all the lights and the cute animatronic rein…
CW: (Walks away before I can finish)
Me: (to self, quietly) Reindeer.
Sheesh! There’s only a week left until break! ‘Tis the season? No? Okay fine, I’ll go hang out with happy people then. Please excuse me while I look for the reindeer lover and thank him or her for making me happy today.
I entered one of my schools to find that someone had gotten all festive on me and put up holiday lights, a Christmas tree (I know, I know, separation of church and state), and even a whole family of moving-light-up-reindeer. The reindeer were all awkwardly grazing on fluffy white "snow" made of quilting batting that had some extra sparkle in it for good measure. There was a sweet little tree with fake packages under it and everything. Despite the clear Christmas bias over other holidays, I thought that it was nice for someone to try to spruce (get it?) up the foyer for the holidays, and I commented on it to a co-worker.
Me: Wow! This place is all festive!
CW: Festive. At this school? Ha. (Snorts)
Me: Um, I was referring not to the school in general, but to all the lights and the cute animatronic rein…
CW: (Walks away before I can finish)
Me: (to self, quietly) Reindeer.
Sheesh! There’s only a week left until break! ‘Tis the season? No? Okay fine, I’ll go hang out with happy people then. Please excuse me while I look for the reindeer lover and thank him or her for making me happy today.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Works for Me Wednesday: Making Studying Fun
Hi Moms from "Rocks in My Dryer!" I have just discovered your "Works for Me" links and I hope you'll enjoy a few tips from a school psychologist on how to make studying for a test with your child more fun. These two links are geared for teachers, but are easily adapted to homework sessions at home.
SWATTERS!
DINGERS!
For everyone else, go on and enjoy them a second time. New Study Skill Tip on the way for Friday's post. Stay tuned!
SWATTERS!
DINGERS!
For everyone else, go on and enjoy them a second time. New Study Skill Tip on the way for Friday's post. Stay tuned!
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Obama on Climate Control
My fiancé and I have a tradition of watching Meet The Press every Sunday to catch up on the state of our nation.* It is mandatory that I have at least one cup of coffee in hand prior to activating the TiVo. The TiVo is necessary for when we want to pause to jump in on the commentary, because we take our MTP very seriously and do not want to miss anything. We do fast forward through haters and Negative Neds/Nancys, through lately I like to hear what they have to say, so I can throw pillow and whatnot at the tele. It really jump-starts my Sunday.
Today, Obama was on, and I told fiancé that he better at least say one thing about Education to give me some hope.** After 55 minutes of his plans to save the world economy, fix our global climate crisis, and end all wars, (all perfectly reasonable goals), I nearly spilled my coffee when he also said he would make it a priority to rebuild our schools. Now this wasn’t metaphorical rebuilding, but actual rebuilding the schools to be more energy efficient, etc. On the heels of a discussion on Ms. Mimi’s blog about the ludicrous “The heat is either on or off” policy of most urban schools, I was delighted.
Presently, my school has opted for the “The heat is off” policy, which in December is not the best choice, even in California. Northern California is not the California of the sunny post card, by the way. Then again, some of my colleagues in snowy areas are in short sleeve shirts, sweltering in December, so I’m not sure which is worse. I will tell you that I feel like I’m lying to kids when I say that my office is a space where they can come to relax when it feels not unlike the arctic tundra. “Yes, it a degree back here, but doesn’t it make you feel warm inside to talk to me? No? Okay.”
Now, I am a problem-solver. I got a space heater the other day and was so excited that I was going to be able to feel my fingers as I typed, but alas, I was foiled again by 1940s building plans, because there is no electrical outlet in my office. The nearest outlet is at least an extension cord or two away. The good news is, no one will be able to sneak up on me in my office, what with my new trip-wire in place.
Fourty-four days and counting…c’mon Obama, don’t let us down.
*Oh how we miss Tim Russert. In case anyone was wondering, we approve of David Gregory as a replacement. I realize no one was wondering. I just wanted to put it out there.
**Hope. So hot right now.
Today, Obama was on, and I told fiancé that he better at least say one thing about Education to give me some hope.** After 55 minutes of his plans to save the world economy, fix our global climate crisis, and end all wars, (all perfectly reasonable goals), I nearly spilled my coffee when he also said he would make it a priority to rebuild our schools. Now this wasn’t metaphorical rebuilding, but actual rebuilding the schools to be more energy efficient, etc. On the heels of a discussion on Ms. Mimi’s blog about the ludicrous “The heat is either on or off” policy of most urban schools, I was delighted.
Presently, my school has opted for the “The heat is off” policy, which in December is not the best choice, even in California. Northern California is not the California of the sunny post card, by the way. Then again, some of my colleagues in snowy areas are in short sleeve shirts, sweltering in December, so I’m not sure which is worse. I will tell you that I feel like I’m lying to kids when I say that my office is a space where they can come to relax when it feels not unlike the arctic tundra. “Yes, it a degree back here, but doesn’t it make you feel warm inside to talk to me? No? Okay.”
Now, I am a problem-solver. I got a space heater the other day and was so excited that I was going to be able to feel my fingers as I typed, but alas, I was foiled again by 1940s building plans, because there is no electrical outlet in my office. The nearest outlet is at least an extension cord or two away. The good news is, no one will be able to sneak up on me in my office, what with my new trip-wire in place.
Fourty-four days and counting…c’mon Obama, don’t let us down.
*Oh how we miss Tim Russert. In case anyone was wondering, we approve of David Gregory as a replacement. I realize no one was wondering. I just wanted to put it out there.
**Hope. So hot right now.
Saturday, 6 December 2008
OJ is Going to Jail
You are thinking: “How is OJ Simpson’s latest pending incarceration possibly related to educational psychology?”
WELL. This is a full-service blog, people!
As I picked up my morning paper today, I saw that OJ was going to jail for 9 years and I smiled, not because I particularly enjoy when ex-athletes get incarcerated, but because I have a fond memory of an autistic child I worked with who could not stop talking about OJ Simpson. It was one of his “things.” As many readers know, one of the characteristics that can be present in children with Autism is both restricted interests* and echolalia (repetition of words or phrases). This particular boy was into OJ. Now this was 2 full years after OJ’s acquittal, and he always repeated, in the same voice tone, “OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!” As in:
Me: Hi, how are you today?
Him: OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
Me: Honey, OJ isn’t going to jail. They let him go.
Him: OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
Me: OJ is not going to jail.
Him: I want juice.
*ten seconds elapse*
Him (screaming and running up and down the stairs ): OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail! OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail! OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
I can’t help but wonder this morning if that kid feels totally vindicated today.
*Be careful before you self-diagnose your 8-year-old child or nephew as “Autistic” because he is really into trains, Bakugan Battle Toys, biking or PS2. Those are normal restricted interests. We’re talking about RESTRICTED interests that are waaaay beyond the scope and intensity of normal fads and hobbies.
WELL. This is a full-service blog, people!
As I picked up my morning paper today, I saw that OJ was going to jail for 9 years and I smiled, not because I particularly enjoy when ex-athletes get incarcerated, but because I have a fond memory of an autistic child I worked with who could not stop talking about OJ Simpson. It was one of his “things.” As many readers know, one of the characteristics that can be present in children with Autism is both restricted interests* and echolalia (repetition of words or phrases). This particular boy was into OJ. Now this was 2 full years after OJ’s acquittal, and he always repeated, in the same voice tone, “OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!” As in:
Me: Hi, how are you today?
Him: OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
Me: Honey, OJ isn’t going to jail. They let him go.
Him: OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
Me: OJ is not going to jail.
Him: I want juice.
*ten seconds elapse*
Him (screaming and running up and down the stairs ): OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail! OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail! OJ’s going to jaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
I can’t help but wonder this morning if that kid feels totally vindicated today.
*Be careful before you self-diagnose your 8-year-old child or nephew as “Autistic” because he is really into trains, Bakugan Battle Toys, biking or PS2. Those are normal restricted interests. We’re talking about RESTRICTED interests that are waaaay beyond the scope and intensity of normal fads and hobbies.
Friday, 5 December 2008
Study Skill O’ The Week: Dingers!
Back in the 20th century, when I was in high school, I had this social studies teacher who would give away all the test answers the day before the test in a game called “Dingers.” We would line up in two groups and when it was your turn, you sat face to face with a classmate, game-show style, and in between you was one of those Dinger things that you ring for service. He would read out the question and whoever got their hand practically punctured by the other person’s hand slapping on top of yours slapping on top of the Dinger got to answer the question and earn points for the team. There was no delicate plucking of the bell, as pictured. Years later, I realized he wasn’t giving away the answers, he was teaching us how to study for the test. Curses! Tricked into learning again! So with full props to my 10th grade social studies teacher, here is the game, modified for the 21st Century.
1) Obtain a Staples “That Was Easy!” button. In today’s litigious world, one wants to avoid the “How did my son puncture his hand again?” conversation. The button is nice and soft, and has the added bonus of saying, “That Was Easy!” every time you push it.*
2) Line people up, Family Feud style, with half the class in a line and half the class in another. The two people in the front of the line sit down at a table, place their thumbs under the table and 4 fingers on the table to have an equal start.
3) Teacher reads out a question and whoever hits the “That Was Easy!” button gets to guess. If the person gets it right, they get 2 points: one point for getting it right, and one point for being correct that it was indeed “Easy.” If the person gets it wrong, the other team automatically gets 1 point because the other team misjudged the difficulty of the question.**
4) At this point, the other team can accept the 1 point and walk away, or choose to “steal” for an additional point by hitting the “Easy” button and getting it correct. If they get it wrong, they walk away with zero points.
5) Please expect a classroom full of students screaming, “It’s easy! It’s easy! Do it! Dude!” when there is a stealing opportunity. So if you are opposed to that, set up a ground rule in the beginning that teams lose points if someone yells out. I think the yelling out is kind of fun for them, but everyone has their own tolerance for noise.
6) Also, if you have a particularly aggressive student who you feel cannot handle the controlled slapping of button, put him/her in charge of keeping points on the whiteboard or reading the questions with you.
7) If your test questions are better in written form (say, like doing a math problem) then you can have two baby whiteboards and dry erase markers at the Dingers station and they can work out the problem on their individual boards, then hit the Easy button.
8) Try it out, and let me know if “That was Easy!”
*So annoying after a while. Kids of all ages love it though. Also, I do not endorse any particular office supply store. But if Staples wants to throw me a kick-back, feel free!
** This is in place so that our more impulsive friends (read: ADHD, those with Executive Functioning deficits) can evaluate the difficulty of task first, which is an important study skill. We’ve all seen the kid who rushes through something, thinking it’s easy, and does it all wrong. This is a good inhibition (“stop and think”) practice for test taking.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
My Kingdom for a Printer
I’ve been following the saga of Mrs. Mimi, and her battle for basic needs in her school, such as a parking spot, in My Kingdom for a Parking Space. While hers takes the cake for wackness in education, I have to report that it’s pathetic that I can’t get a working printer in the public school on the cusp of 2009, especially when my job entails writing lengthy reports on whether or not kids have learning disabilities, Autism, ADHD, Emotional Disabilities, etc. etc. Not to toot my own horn, but I think it’s important for parents and schools to have a written copy of such things.
I wont go into boring detail, but on Tuesday, I almost lost it, in manner of the movie Office Space in which the guy freaks out because the printer keeps saying “PC Letter Load” and he ends up smashing the thing with a bat in a field after work. Since I have a nonviolent temperament, I will use an “I message” instead. *
Printer, I feel frustrated when things that should take 5 minutes, like printing a report, takes days because I have a laptop with no Internet or printer connector so I can’t print at school.** I feel sad that I have to drive 10 miles away to use the one printer that we have for the 40 psychologists. I feel angry when the printer wasn’t working, then it was, but then there was no white paper. I need A WORKING PRINTER.
The funny part of this story is that I used Twitter to voice my frustration, writing, “All I want for Christmas is a working printer in my school” and this morning, I received a notice that Riso Printers, Inc. was now following me on Twitter. Stay tuned, Riso.
*For those of you who don't hang around the yoots, educators are big fans of the "I Message" in which you tell someone how you are feeling and what you need. Some of my little ones don't quite get the concept yet, and say, "I hate you." We're working on it.
**Don't say flashdrive. I forgot it that day.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Giving Thanks
Judge each day not by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant…
[anonymous]
As I’m trying to collect stories about The Teachable Moment*, I have noticed a trend. First, the teachers I know say, “What a great idea!” and then, “Um, I don’t have any teachable moments.” “Sure you do!” I exclaim, and then they say, “I’ll think about it,” morph into the teacher-version of Eeyeore, trudge away, possibly racking their brains for a time when they made a huge difference in a kid’s life. So maybe “The Teachable Moment” sounds a bit too Hollywood, like all, “Carpe Diem! Stand on your chair and salute me in the name of literacy!” I am just looking for stories in which teachers connect with students, and teachers know they made a difference.
Turns out, that’s hard to come by, especially for new teachers. Most of my stories have been from veteran teachers who had a kid come back 20 years later and thank them. TWENTY YEARS?!? We have to wait twenty years for positive feedback? No wonder there’s a teacher shortage! That is some delayed gratification. One teacher put it to me this way: “Some days I feel like I’m pouring all my energy into sand.” I said, hopefully, “Maybe you’re pouring it into soil, and you have to wait for it to grow?” I was sort of trying to convince myself, I think.
With these new ideas rattling around in my head, I spent some of this Thanksgiving thinking of when I had given thanks to my teachers. Sheepishly, I admit, I have only explicitly thanked one of them. Shame on me! So, after my pumpkin pie-fest, I scoured Facebook, People Finders, Google, etc, for my favorite teacher from 2nd grade, Ms. Laurie Baumunk, so I could thank her.**
Ms. Baumunk was probably all of age 21 when she taught 8 year old me, fresh from Australia with a funny little accent and all. I think back to the most memorable times, and have few moments when I can think of things she taught me explicitly, but my memories are mostly an an amorphous feeling of love--Love for learning, love for my school, love for my classmates. As my blog title states, I. Loved. School. I love everything down to the the little zippers on my Kangaroo shoes that could hold my lunch ticket. I loved sorting my work into little folders. I loved writing. I loved it all.
But most of all, I loved being around Ms. Baumunk. She was warm and kind, and in my memory, angelic and softspoken. She made me want to be a teacher. I’m sure she had her bad days, and state standards and curriculum to follow, but I don’t remember any of that. I only have the visceral appreciation of her kindness. The one thing that does stand out was probably not in a state standard you could measure, but I remember her taking us all to the National Western Stock Show, which for non-Midwesterners, is like a rodeo and a place to view (or buy?) livestock. We had our own little mock-Stock Show in the class in which my drawing of a pig roped in 3rd place. Oh how I wish that were a state standard for that lesson:
Standard 27.2. Students will understand that the world’s premier livestock will be at the Denver Coliseum this weekend! Yeeeeee Haw!
I digress. What I remember about the show was that I bought a little Rabbit’s Foot and then cried on the bus home when I found out they had to kill the rabbit to get it’s foot. Ms. Baumunk comforted me and I survived my first “circle of life” discussion. I’m certain that they didn’t teach that in preservice teaching classes, and I’m certain Ms. Baumunk has no idea that I still remember her kindness decades later.
So for those teachers who don’t think they have any teachable moments, think back on your own teachers who made a difference for you in some small way, and think again.
*It’s not too late! Email me at studentsgrow@gmail.com for details on how to submit a story. It’s paid!
**I didn’t find her. I can only hope she googles her name someday and finds this. I’ll try to help it along in case I spelled her name wrong: Laurie Baumunk, Lori Baumunk, Laurie Baumonk, Lori Baumonk! Google, don’t fail me now.
[anonymous]
As I’m trying to collect stories about The Teachable Moment*, I have noticed a trend. First, the teachers I know say, “What a great idea!” and then, “Um, I don’t have any teachable moments.” “Sure you do!” I exclaim, and then they say, “I’ll think about it,” morph into the teacher-version of Eeyeore, trudge away, possibly racking their brains for a time when they made a huge difference in a kid’s life. So maybe “The Teachable Moment” sounds a bit too Hollywood, like all, “Carpe Diem! Stand on your chair and salute me in the name of literacy!” I am just looking for stories in which teachers connect with students, and teachers know they made a difference.
Turns out, that’s hard to come by, especially for new teachers. Most of my stories have been from veteran teachers who had a kid come back 20 years later and thank them. TWENTY YEARS?!? We have to wait twenty years for positive feedback? No wonder there’s a teacher shortage! That is some delayed gratification. One teacher put it to me this way: “Some days I feel like I’m pouring all my energy into sand.” I said, hopefully, “Maybe you’re pouring it into soil, and you have to wait for it to grow?” I was sort of trying to convince myself, I think.
With these new ideas rattling around in my head, I spent some of this Thanksgiving thinking of when I had given thanks to my teachers. Sheepishly, I admit, I have only explicitly thanked one of them. Shame on me! So, after my pumpkin pie-fest, I scoured Facebook, People Finders, Google, etc, for my favorite teacher from 2nd grade, Ms. Laurie Baumunk, so I could thank her.**
Ms. Baumunk was probably all of age 21 when she taught 8 year old me, fresh from Australia with a funny little accent and all. I think back to the most memorable times, and have few moments when I can think of things she taught me explicitly, but my memories are mostly an an amorphous feeling of love--Love for learning, love for my school, love for my classmates. As my blog title states, I. Loved. School. I love everything down to the the little zippers on my Kangaroo shoes that could hold my lunch ticket. I loved sorting my work into little folders. I loved writing. I loved it all.
But most of all, I loved being around Ms. Baumunk. She was warm and kind, and in my memory, angelic and softspoken. She made me want to be a teacher. I’m sure she had her bad days, and state standards and curriculum to follow, but I don’t remember any of that. I only have the visceral appreciation of her kindness. The one thing that does stand out was probably not in a state standard you could measure, but I remember her taking us all to the National Western Stock Show, which for non-Midwesterners, is like a rodeo and a place to view (or buy?) livestock. We had our own little mock-Stock Show in the class in which my drawing of a pig roped in 3rd place. Oh how I wish that were a state standard for that lesson:
Standard 27.2. Students will understand that the world’s premier livestock will be at the Denver Coliseum this weekend! Yeeeeee Haw!
I digress. What I remember about the show was that I bought a little Rabbit’s Foot and then cried on the bus home when I found out they had to kill the rabbit to get it’s foot. Ms. Baumunk comforted me and I survived my first “circle of life” discussion. I’m certain that they didn’t teach that in preservice teaching classes, and I’m certain Ms. Baumunk has no idea that I still remember her kindness decades later.
So for those teachers who don’t think they have any teachable moments, think back on your own teachers who made a difference for you in some small way, and think again.
*It’s not too late! Email me at studentsgrow@gmail.com for details on how to submit a story. It’s paid!
**I didn’t find her. I can only hope she googles her name someday and finds this. I’ll try to help it along in case I spelled her name wrong: Laurie Baumunk, Lori Baumunk, Laurie Baumonk, Lori Baumonk! Google, don’t fail me now.
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Study Skill O’ the Week: Swatters!
“If it’s not fun, they won’t learn!” – 5th grade teacher, Inner City Elementary
I overheard this teacher say this the other day, and I must say, her classroom does seem to be pretty fun. Whenever I go in there, the kids are smiling and on-task. Almost every day in her class is a total Learning Party. Wheeeeee!* I don’t know how she does it, working in the inner city, and every day she is so excited about teaching. I wonder if this teacher wakes up on Monday, jolts out of bed, claps her hands together, and exclaims, “TGIM!”
Anyway, with full credit to this teacher, I want to share a technique she uses to help her students memorize facts. I incorporate this in my study skill coaching repertoire, because it really is more fun than traditional “Drill and Kill” techniques with flashcards. It’s called “Swatters” and I thought I’d pass it on as a way to make memorization fun. Do let me know how it goes.
1) Obtain two fly swatters.
2) Explain to the class that they are not to be used for swatting flies. Very important, as I forgot to do this once and had to go buy a new swatter because I was too grossed out to use it again. Bleeh. Fly Guts.
3) Have the students put the answers to certain memorization questions on flash cards. I have used vocabulary words, possible test questions, and math facts. Place the answers on the blackboard in a random array.
4) Have the class line up in two parallel lines, facing the board, with about 6-10 feet in between the board and the first two kids. I’d put a masking tape line there as a start line so you avoid the “He’s cheating!” conversation.
5) Explain the rules. If anyone swats a fly or a classmate, they are disqualified. If anyone pushes anyone, they are disqualified. Whoever hits the flashcard first wins—in the event that both kids hit the correct card, this is determined by whose swatter is on the bottom.
6) Teacher calls out the question, such as “When was the constitution signed?” or “What’s 2 X 5?” and the first two in the rows run up to the board and swat the correct answer. The team with the swatter on the correct card gets a point, and the two return to the back of the line.
7) Proceed until you, or the kids, are bored, or you run out of questions. I have found that even the most ADHD kids ever want to do this game for like 45 minutes, only because they finally get to use that energy.
*Baffling, I know. I want what she has for breakfast.
I overheard this teacher say this the other day, and I must say, her classroom does seem to be pretty fun. Whenever I go in there, the kids are smiling and on-task. Almost every day in her class is a total Learning Party. Wheeeeee!* I don’t know how she does it, working in the inner city, and every day she is so excited about teaching. I wonder if this teacher wakes up on Monday, jolts out of bed, claps her hands together, and exclaims, “TGIM!”
Anyway, with full credit to this teacher, I want to share a technique she uses to help her students memorize facts. I incorporate this in my study skill coaching repertoire, because it really is more fun than traditional “Drill and Kill” techniques with flashcards. It’s called “Swatters” and I thought I’d pass it on as a way to make memorization fun. Do let me know how it goes.
1) Obtain two fly swatters.
2) Explain to the class that they are not to be used for swatting flies. Very important, as I forgot to do this once and had to go buy a new swatter because I was too grossed out to use it again. Bleeh. Fly Guts.
3) Have the students put the answers to certain memorization questions on flash cards. I have used vocabulary words, possible test questions, and math facts. Place the answers on the blackboard in a random array.
4) Have the class line up in two parallel lines, facing the board, with about 6-10 feet in between the board and the first two kids. I’d put a masking tape line there as a start line so you avoid the “He’s cheating!” conversation.
5) Explain the rules. If anyone swats a fly or a classmate, they are disqualified. If anyone pushes anyone, they are disqualified. Whoever hits the flashcard first wins—in the event that both kids hit the correct card, this is determined by whose swatter is on the bottom.
6) Teacher calls out the question, such as “When was the constitution signed?” or “What’s 2 X 5?” and the first two in the rows run up to the board and swat the correct answer. The team with the swatter on the correct card gets a point, and the two return to the back of the line.
7) Proceed until you, or the kids, are bored, or you run out of questions. I have found that even the most ADHD kids ever want to do this game for like 45 minutes, only because they finally get to use that energy.
*Baffling, I know. I want what she has for breakfast.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Hug Your School Psychologist Today
If you can locate your school psychologist today, as s/he probably has several school from which s/he flits back and forth, do take a moment to recognize that it's...
NATIONAL SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST AWARENESS WEEK!!!
*party blowers go off, a few balloons fall from ceiling*
Just like last year, I totally spaced it out until today, Friday. I even had a reminder this year from Tracy, a reader who sent me virtual flowers.
On the heels of week in which I had Tuesday off and missed a whole day of seeing kids, I had an "advocate" at a meeting try to argue with me about whether or not I should be using the term "Dyslexia" or "Learning Disability," misquoting the Educational Code in a rage,* tried to test a kid three times and he was absent, and all around derailment of plans, I really appreciated my V-flowers.
Now I realize this is BAD PR for School Psychology Awareness week to describe all the derailment, so go on and read a warm fuzzy post. There are days in which it's all worth it. I promise.
The Little Engine that Could
*They're the same thing, different lexicon. Simmer down, lady.
NATIONAL SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST AWARENESS WEEK!!!
*party blowers go off, a few balloons fall from ceiling*
Just like last year, I totally spaced it out until today, Friday. I even had a reminder this year from Tracy, a reader who sent me virtual flowers.
On the heels of week in which I had Tuesday off and missed a whole day of seeing kids, I had an "advocate" at a meeting try to argue with me about whether or not I should be using the term "Dyslexia" or "Learning Disability," misquoting the Educational Code in a rage,* tried to test a kid three times and he was absent, and all around derailment of plans, I really appreciated my V-flowers.
Now I realize this is BAD PR for School Psychology Awareness week to describe all the derailment, so go on and read a warm fuzzy post. There are days in which it's all worth it. I promise.
The Little Engine that Could
*They're the same thing, different lexicon. Simmer down, lady.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Sign of the Times: Obama in Education
As I walked to my school in the heart of the inner city the day after the election, I saw a sign that the day before, had GUNZ tagged on it, and it had been painted over to read OBAMA! Today, I saw a billboard that had previously been completely defaced with graffiti, covered over with posters of Obama, with “Change” written in three different languages. I don’t even have to explain the symbolism.
Recently, I did a post about how the gang graffiti at my school has been replaced by support for Obama. A spirited discussion ensued. My take was that I was excited that my students were getting involved in the political process, and I saw the hope they had for their future expand in a way I'd never seen before. In a town where there has already been over 100 murders this year, seeing any movement toward a positive change was, to me, encouraging.
Others fixated on the fact that there was graffiti, and assumed that because my students were excited for Obama, there was a pro-Obama lesson plan distributed to all teachers. Of all the messages in my post, I found it so shocking that the theme pulled out of my posting was “Graffiti is bad and gone unchecked, turns kids into juvenile delinquents!” If anyone has actually read my blog, they would know that I try to turn graffiti into positive art, and disdain the graffiti in my school so much that I made my boys group paint over it as their group project. The point I was making is that despite the manner in which they expressed their excitement, they were expressing excitement about a positive change.
The day after the election, one of my young counselees, a 10-year old African American boy who has told me he doesn’t think he’ll live past age 18 because of the violence in his community, came bounding in my office with a huge grin on his face. He said, “Dr. Bell! Dr. Bell! Do you know who won the election?” I played dumb and said, “No, tell me!” At that point he stuck his ears out with his hands and said, “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message!” He burst into giggles, something I had never seen before. Then, he earnestly asked, “Do you think I could be Barack Obama someday?” For a kid who has been so depressed he doesn’t think he needs to do homework because he’s just going to get shot and killed, it was so moving to see him have hope.
Whether or not you endorsed McCain or Obama, and whether or not Obama comes through on all his promises or not, it is a hard argument to make that our children of color do not benefit from having a high status role model like Obama. He has already changed the collective unconscious of our students, and inspired engagement in learning and participating in civics. I encourage everyone to watch this little boy talk about Obama and tell me that’s not powerful.
Recently, I did a post about how the gang graffiti at my school has been replaced by support for Obama. A spirited discussion ensued. My take was that I was excited that my students were getting involved in the political process, and I saw the hope they had for their future expand in a way I'd never seen before. In a town where there has already been over 100 murders this year, seeing any movement toward a positive change was, to me, encouraging.
Others fixated on the fact that there was graffiti, and assumed that because my students were excited for Obama, there was a pro-Obama lesson plan distributed to all teachers. Of all the messages in my post, I found it so shocking that the theme pulled out of my posting was “Graffiti is bad and gone unchecked, turns kids into juvenile delinquents!” If anyone has actually read my blog, they would know that I try to turn graffiti into positive art, and disdain the graffiti in my school so much that I made my boys group paint over it as their group project. The point I was making is that despite the manner in which they expressed their excitement, they were expressing excitement about a positive change.
The day after the election, one of my young counselees, a 10-year old African American boy who has told me he doesn’t think he’ll live past age 18 because of the violence in his community, came bounding in my office with a huge grin on his face. He said, “Dr. Bell! Dr. Bell! Do you know who won the election?” I played dumb and said, “No, tell me!” At that point he stuck his ears out with his hands and said, “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message!” He burst into giggles, something I had never seen before. Then, he earnestly asked, “Do you think I could be Barack Obama someday?” For a kid who has been so depressed he doesn’t think he needs to do homework because he’s just going to get shot and killed, it was so moving to see him have hope.
Whether or not you endorsed McCain or Obama, and whether or not Obama comes through on all his promises or not, it is a hard argument to make that our children of color do not benefit from having a high status role model like Obama. He has already changed the collective unconscious of our students, and inspired engagement in learning and participating in civics. I encourage everyone to watch this little boy talk about Obama and tell me that’s not powerful.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
I Believe You Have My Stapler.
You know that scene in Office Space in which Milton, the mumbling guy who has to move his desk all the time, has to move again, and all he has to hold on to is a red stapler? That stapler is HIS and it’s all he has. He has no dignity, but he’s got his stapler. And he’s gonna cling to it.
Unlike Milton, I am so blessed to have an actual 3X6 foot office WITH A DOOR at my public middle school. I am not being sarcastic, for once. Space is a commodity at schools, and private space is unheard of. As many of you know, it took me over 8 months to get an actual key to this office, due to bureaucratic nonsense.* Prior to that, I had to lug my bags into the main office, get a key, lug my bags into the office, run the key back to the office, pray all day that no one came in to take my stuff from an unlocked office, then get the key at the end of the day to lock up again. So you can imagine my territorial reaction to the following note, placed upon my desk last week:
Hi. This is Judy and I am the new speech pathologist. I need you to clean out one of your file drawers for my files and I will need to get your key to share.
Oh no she di’nt! Who does she think she is? I earned that key! I earned that drawer! That’s MY stapler! She will have to pry that key out of my tiny, angry, shaking fist of fury on the day I leave this job! *deep breath* I’m okay now. I am not opposed to sharing. I will behave. I just resent the tone of the note. Maybe she comes from a school where it is normal to have an office and a key, no problems. So I cleaned out a drawer for her, like a good coworker.
But she’s not getting my key. She will have to earn it, just like I did. I am officially Miltina.
*I do not yet have a key to the building to get into said office, so every morning I get to hunt down a janitor whilst holding five million bags of stuff, wielding large coffee about. Someday I will have paid my dues long enough to earn that key…*wistfully stares into future*
Unlike Milton, I am so blessed to have an actual 3X6 foot office WITH A DOOR at my public middle school. I am not being sarcastic, for once. Space is a commodity at schools, and private space is unheard of. As many of you know, it took me over 8 months to get an actual key to this office, due to bureaucratic nonsense.* Prior to that, I had to lug my bags into the main office, get a key, lug my bags into the office, run the key back to the office, pray all day that no one came in to take my stuff from an unlocked office, then get the key at the end of the day to lock up again. So you can imagine my territorial reaction to the following note, placed upon my desk last week:
Hi. This is Judy and I am the new speech pathologist. I need you to clean out one of your file drawers for my files and I will need to get your key to share.
Oh no she di’nt! Who does she think she is? I earned that key! I earned that drawer! That’s MY stapler! She will have to pry that key out of my tiny, angry, shaking fist of fury on the day I leave this job! *deep breath* I’m okay now. I am not opposed to sharing. I will behave. I just resent the tone of the note. Maybe she comes from a school where it is normal to have an office and a key, no problems. So I cleaned out a drawer for her, like a good coworker.
But she’s not getting my key. She will have to earn it, just like I did. I am officially Miltina.
*I do not yet have a key to the building to get into said office, so every morning I get to hunt down a janitor whilst holding five million bags of stuff, wielding large coffee about. Someday I will have paid my dues long enough to earn that key…*wistfully stares into future*
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Obama Wuz Here
Every morning, I am greeted at my office by graffiti. I am blessed that the dead rat and ant party has moved elsewhere, but it’s always a little discouraging to be greeted with “F*** Haters!” every morning. I do not like haters, but it looks like I exclaim this every day on my wall for all to see. I do not claim “Da Mob” either, just fo’ the record. Graffiti happens in any middle school, sure, but this particular colorful display has been an unsolved mystery and on the “emergency maintenance list” since last year. Apparently, pre-teens claiming gangs does not constitute an emergency.
Today I saw some new graffiti:
Vote for Obama!
I have seen election politics trickle down* into the classrooms like I’ve never seen before. In a science experiment on growing seeds under different conditions, the 6th graders named one soil “Obama Soil” (sun and water) and one “McCain Soil” (dark and water). I’m not making this up. The teacher did not appoint these names, the kids did. I will withhold my political commentary, but will note that the Obama soil was flourishing, and the McCain soil was withered and dying. *Ahem*
In a 3rd grade elementary classroom, the teacher was talking about making good choices and making bad choices, and how some people use their power for being leaders and some use power for making bad choices. Discussion ensued about when the kids had made good choices to be leaders. A little boy then raised his hand and said, “George Bush makes bad choices!” Another piped in: “He uses his power for making bad choices!” Finally, a little girl raises her hand and earnestly asks, “Can you tell me how people voted for him TWICE? I just don’t get it.” Here, here, sister.
In my 6th grade Girls’ Talent Group today, we played the “String Game” in which one person says something they like, and then tosses the string to another person, until we see a nice web of how we’re all connected, even if we don’t all like exactly the same things. After we all giggled following “Who likes Antonio?!?” one girl said, “Who likes Obama?” and they all squealed, “Me!” and jumped up and down.
No matter your political leanings, you have to admit, it is fascinating to see even our little ones get involved. I wonder where they got these messages from. Teachers? Parents? TV? Bootleg Obama shirts that I see on every street corner, peddling Hope? I just think it is wonderful for my young African American kids to feel that they too could be President someday. I just hope they’d use their power for making good choices.
*Not to be confused with trickle down economics. Our schools are still holding out for that trickle down effect to pay for graffiti abatement and better salaries…
Today I saw some new graffiti:
Vote for Obama!
I have seen election politics trickle down* into the classrooms like I’ve never seen before. In a science experiment on growing seeds under different conditions, the 6th graders named one soil “Obama Soil” (sun and water) and one “McCain Soil” (dark and water). I’m not making this up. The teacher did not appoint these names, the kids did. I will withhold my political commentary, but will note that the Obama soil was flourishing, and the McCain soil was withered and dying. *Ahem*
In a 3rd grade elementary classroom, the teacher was talking about making good choices and making bad choices, and how some people use their power for being leaders and some use power for making bad choices. Discussion ensued about when the kids had made good choices to be leaders. A little boy then raised his hand and said, “George Bush makes bad choices!” Another piped in: “He uses his power for making bad choices!” Finally, a little girl raises her hand and earnestly asks, “Can you tell me how people voted for him TWICE? I just don’t get it.” Here, here, sister.
In my 6th grade Girls’ Talent Group today, we played the “String Game” in which one person says something they like, and then tosses the string to another person, until we see a nice web of how we’re all connected, even if we don’t all like exactly the same things. After we all giggled following “Who likes Antonio?!?” one girl said, “Who likes Obama?” and they all squealed, “Me!” and jumped up and down.
No matter your political leanings, you have to admit, it is fascinating to see even our little ones get involved. I wonder where they got these messages from. Teachers? Parents? TV? Bootleg Obama shirts that I see on every street corner, peddling Hope? I just think it is wonderful for my young African American kids to feel that they too could be President someday. I just hope they’d use their power for making good choices.
*Not to be confused with trickle down economics. Our schools are still holding out for that trickle down effect to pay for graffiti abatement and better salaries…
Monday, 27 October 2008
The Worst Party Ever
I have written before about how when I do group counseling, I always make it about building positive traits rather than having students join the Anger Management Gang or the Oppositional Club. So instead of working on our ANGER or RULE FOLLOWING (fun!) we work on planning a group project together, and then when someone gets angry or breaks a rule, we solve the problem right then and there. As I’m recruiting for my “Girls’ Talent Group” this year, I thought back to my group of 6th grade girls from last year, who accidentally planned the worst party ever as their project. I have never seen such sad little faces when after 10 weeks of procrastinating planning, avoiding delegating tasks to each other, and arguing about what they should do, they ended up planning nothing.
I tried everything to get them to plan. I even made them trace their feet and think of what “steps” they needed to take to plan a party. They like the tracing of feet, but then their tasks were “Whatever” and “Whatever needs to be done.” Despite my efforts to help them bring it all together, they really thought the party would plan itself. The day of the party, there we were, sitting alone in a classroom. Worse yet, the Boys’ Talent Group had just had a kickin’ party complete with movie and pizza and hot sauce.* The real lesson began when we processed why the party didn’t come together.
“We played around too much.”
“We didn’t listen.”
“We got lazy.”
“This is the worse party ever and it’s all our fault!”**
Why did these girls fail to follow through? Was the task beyond their skills? The boys were the same age and they pulled together a party (albeit last minute). The answer may lie in these particular students’ personalities, or even their level of Executive Functioning skills (the ability to plan, organize, and prioritize). Developing these skills is the hallmark of adolescence, and it is not an easy process. It is hard, if not impossible, to speed up frontal lobe development, and often, adults function as kids’ frontal lobes for a while, as we teach them how to do adult tasks like thinking through consequences and planning accordingly. What seems so obvious to us has to be taught.
So how can teachers help their students with these important Executive Functioning skills?
1) First, understand that “Executive Functioning” is actually a number of skills, not just one skill a student has or does not have. Some of the skills that middle and high school students are working on are: paying attention for longer periods of time, starting tasks on their own, controlling impulses and emotions, planning, strengthening their short-term memory, and inhibiting responses(do THIS, not THAT).
2) Remember that it takes over TWO DECADES for executive functioning skills to develop. We should not expect students to have these skills or be able to apply them on a consistent basis. Sometimes, Executive Functioning skills are thought of as the Mini Executive of a company in the brain who makes all the decisions, like a CEO. Now think about whether or not you would put a 12 year old in charge of a company?*** Even under optimal conditions (like my group where I scaffolded every single step) these skills take YEARS to develop.
3) Think of executive skills as being on a continuum. A student can be poor at sustaining attention, good at initiating tasks, or just okay at planning a long-term project.
4) Be explicit when you teach an “Executive Functioning Skill,” and don’t teach too many skills at once. Pick one to focus on, such as task initiation, and say why you are teaching it: “We are working on how to start a task you don’t know how to do, because there will be times when you have to solve problems on your own.”
5) Think of middle school and young high school students as “Zen.” They are in the moment. That is normal. When you were 13, were you thinking of your 10 year plan? No. You were thinking about how cute Jason was in English class that day. Or at least I was.
6) Include the students in planning and give them an active role in decision making. So if your class is working on a class-wide project, have the students come up with roles, tasks, and deadlines. Make everything visual. It’s better if the kids make it visual. Even though it flopped, I still liked the “Steps” activity.
7) Utilize visual checklists. So if your students are having problems remembering what homework to do and what materials they need, make a checklist together that you go over at the end of the class and have them check off when they have written down the assignment, checked their backpack for any books they need, placed the homework in the appropriate folder, put the folder in the backpack, etc etc. It sounds so basic, doesn’t it? For some kids, it really isn’t, and they need to be reminded how to do it. This is where all teachers go to heaven for their patience.
8) Make a Classwork Planning Sheet, in which the students write down the assignment, the materials they need, make a prediction about how long it will take to complete the assignment, identify what they need in order to stay focused on the task, note when they plan to start and when they actually started and finished, then evaluate how they did and note what they could have done differently the next time. All these steps will eventually go “underground” in their frontal lobes, but for many adolescents, they must be explicit.
9) Remember that our role in teaching executive functioning skills is to be the instructor and safety net. We must resist the urge to be the helicopter, hovering over and rescuing the kids before their plans fall through. Processing why the girls’ party was so lame was a far more valuable learning experience than if I had planned the whole thing when they failed to do so. What would they have learned? That when they don’t follow through, it doesn’t matter because someone will do it for you.
10) Make sure that you think of teaching executive functioning skills as a circle of Planning, Executing, and Evaluating. If I had stopped without the evaluation part, the girls wouldn’t have learned what didn’t work.
*I know. Gross. They planned it, and I obliged. I then witnessed the fun middle school boy game of “Who can make their pizza unbearably hot and eat it anyway!”
**It really was. I couldn’t bear it after 30 minutes of our Pity Party, and bust out some leftover snacks from the boys’ party, and we went outside to play a little bit. It softened the tough lesson, I know, but I do think that some celebration is important when a group ends.
***Besides if you are a 12 year old who gets turned into Tom Hanks and you are put in charge of a toy company. Then, it’s okay.
I tried everything to get them to plan. I even made them trace their feet and think of what “steps” they needed to take to plan a party. They like the tracing of feet, but then their tasks were “Whatever” and “Whatever needs to be done.” Despite my efforts to help them bring it all together, they really thought the party would plan itself. The day of the party, there we were, sitting alone in a classroom. Worse yet, the Boys’ Talent Group had just had a kickin’ party complete with movie and pizza and hot sauce.* The real lesson began when we processed why the party didn’t come together.
“We played around too much.”
“We didn’t listen.”
“We got lazy.”
“This is the worse party ever and it’s all our fault!”**
Why did these girls fail to follow through? Was the task beyond their skills? The boys were the same age and they pulled together a party (albeit last minute). The answer may lie in these particular students’ personalities, or even their level of Executive Functioning skills (the ability to plan, organize, and prioritize). Developing these skills is the hallmark of adolescence, and it is not an easy process. It is hard, if not impossible, to speed up frontal lobe development, and often, adults function as kids’ frontal lobes for a while, as we teach them how to do adult tasks like thinking through consequences and planning accordingly. What seems so obvious to us has to be taught.
So how can teachers help their students with these important Executive Functioning skills?
1) First, understand that “Executive Functioning” is actually a number of skills, not just one skill a student has or does not have. Some of the skills that middle and high school students are working on are: paying attention for longer periods of time, starting tasks on their own, controlling impulses and emotions, planning, strengthening their short-term memory, and inhibiting responses(do THIS, not THAT).
2) Remember that it takes over TWO DECADES for executive functioning skills to develop. We should not expect students to have these skills or be able to apply them on a consistent basis. Sometimes, Executive Functioning skills are thought of as the Mini Executive of a company in the brain who makes all the decisions, like a CEO. Now think about whether or not you would put a 12 year old in charge of a company?*** Even under optimal conditions (like my group where I scaffolded every single step) these skills take YEARS to develop.
3) Think of executive skills as being on a continuum. A student can be poor at sustaining attention, good at initiating tasks, or just okay at planning a long-term project.
4) Be explicit when you teach an “Executive Functioning Skill,” and don’t teach too many skills at once. Pick one to focus on, such as task initiation, and say why you are teaching it: “We are working on how to start a task you don’t know how to do, because there will be times when you have to solve problems on your own.”
5) Think of middle school and young high school students as “Zen.” They are in the moment. That is normal. When you were 13, were you thinking of your 10 year plan? No. You were thinking about how cute Jason was in English class that day. Or at least I was.
6) Include the students in planning and give them an active role in decision making. So if your class is working on a class-wide project, have the students come up with roles, tasks, and deadlines. Make everything visual. It’s better if the kids make it visual. Even though it flopped, I still liked the “Steps” activity.
7) Utilize visual checklists. So if your students are having problems remembering what homework to do and what materials they need, make a checklist together that you go over at the end of the class and have them check off when they have written down the assignment, checked their backpack for any books they need, placed the homework in the appropriate folder, put the folder in the backpack, etc etc. It sounds so basic, doesn’t it? For some kids, it really isn’t, and they need to be reminded how to do it. This is where all teachers go to heaven for their patience.
8) Make a Classwork Planning Sheet, in which the students write down the assignment, the materials they need, make a prediction about how long it will take to complete the assignment, identify what they need in order to stay focused on the task, note when they plan to start and when they actually started and finished, then evaluate how they did and note what they could have done differently the next time. All these steps will eventually go “underground” in their frontal lobes, but for many adolescents, they must be explicit.
9) Remember that our role in teaching executive functioning skills is to be the instructor and safety net. We must resist the urge to be the helicopter, hovering over and rescuing the kids before their plans fall through. Processing why the girls’ party was so lame was a far more valuable learning experience than if I had planned the whole thing when they failed to do so. What would they have learned? That when they don’t follow through, it doesn’t matter because someone will do it for you.
10) Make sure that you think of teaching executive functioning skills as a circle of Planning, Executing, and Evaluating. If I had stopped without the evaluation part, the girls wouldn’t have learned what didn’t work.
*I know. Gross. They planned it, and I obliged. I then witnessed the fun middle school boy game of “Who can make their pizza unbearably hot and eat it anyway!”
**It really was. I couldn’t bear it after 30 minutes of our Pity Party, and bust out some leftover snacks from the boys’ party, and we went outside to play a little bit. It softened the tough lesson, I know, but I do think that some celebration is important when a group ends.
***Besides if you are a 12 year old who gets turned into Tom Hanks and you are put in charge of a toy company. Then, it’s okay.
Saturday, 25 October 2008
No One Should Ever See Themselves in High Definition TV
Why? Why the extreme close-up of my 15 seconds of fame??? Here's the clip of my take on the new study about some positive aspects of video games.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Welcome to Developmentally Inappropriate University!
In my other life, when I am not wrestling with issues in urban education, I also work in private practice at a number of private schools. As I’ve said before, every day is a compare/contrast essay in my head. Each day is a new chapter, with new “Wait, what???” moments.
I thought I had heard it all, until I came across a family of a 3-year-old girl, who told me she was a Sophomore.
Me: Wait, what???
Family: Our child is a sophomore at Pre-College.*
Me: Is that a Pre-school?
Family: Yes, she is in her second year there, so she is a sophomore.
Me: (writing down, trying not to judge) Okay then, your 3-year-old is getting ready for her Junior year of Pre-College, got it.
Really? Have we gotten to the point where we are now preparing our 3-year-olds for college already? What’s her major, Fingerpaint Arts? Will she have a minor in Theories of Dollies? I can’t help but wonder if this “College Starts in Utero!” phenomenon is damaging our kids. I see it frequently in the kids I test who are *gasp* average and their schools are pushing inappropriately difficult curriculum on them, so they appear to be failures.
California is notorious for their “Standards Based Curriculum” being shoved into every classroom, and I have to say it can be disheartening for kids to not “meet the standard,” even when the standard is too high for their normal brain development. In California, we like to raise the bar of expectations, and then not give the kids any tools to reach it. Jump, kid! Jump higher than your gross-motor skills allow! Thanks, No Child Left Behind!
Excuse me, while I get down from my soapbox again. Right. So what can we as educators and parents do about it? What do we do when an average kid is doing average and meant to feel “behind”? As a school psychologist, I normalize wanting the best for the student. I share what developmental milestones are typical for that age group, and assuage fears of being behind. I use curriculum-based and standardized testing data to show that 50th percentile is not the same as 50%. If your child scores at the 50th percentile, s/he did better than half of the students who took the test, and that is average. And average is okay. I just hope Pre-College understands that, so my little one doesn’t become a drop-out at age 4.
*Almost the exact name. I don’t like to mock people outright, so I changed it slightly. Still the same “Wait, what???” reaction would come from the real name, I promise.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Writing Opportunity for Educators!
Hello fellow bloggers and blog-readers. I am so excited to share this writing opportunity with you all! I think that the one thing that has been the greatest part about blogging has been hearing what you all have to say about kids and education, and learning from each other. Also, our field can be somewhat isolating, so it is always good to hear about PRACTICAL things others are doing. So for all you aspiring writers, I encourage you to submit something!
***
Call for Stories--Kaplan Publishing
Kaplan Publishing is launching a new series of nonfiction books that share the stories behind the issues, experiences and relationships teachers encounter on the job.
Entertaining and educational, inspirational and practical, each book will feature 20-25 true stories written by teachers throughout K-12 at all stages of their career about their day to day lives.
We are now accepting stories for the first three books in the series on the following topics:
The Teachable Moment: The moment when you reach one of your students and the light goes on in their eyes.
Stress in the Classroom: Those moments when you're at the end of your rope or facing one of the frustrations every teacher feels in their career. These stories would be not just a place to vent, but also a place to pass on how you cope with stress at work.
Diversity in the Classroom: Not just issues of color or religion, but of financial circumstances and any cultural difference that are sometimes difficult moments to teach.
Below are some guidelines from the publisher:
In order to be considered for publication you need to:
1. email teachers.voices@gmail.com
2. Submit a specific, focused topic
3. Upon approval of the topic, you'll be instructed on how to submit your story--4-5 pages at approximately 350 words per page.
The best submissions we have received have been the ones that are focused on a single event or single theme, and are written like a story, as opposed to an essay. This is your story; we want it to be interesting and inspiring.....like fiction but TRUE and about you. There will be a honorarium paid for any story chosen to appear in the series.
***
Submission of ideas is due by December 31st, so go forth and submit! Share your wealth of knowledge! Tell 'em the School Psychologist sent you.
***
Call for Stories--Kaplan Publishing
Kaplan Publishing is launching a new series of nonfiction books that share the stories behind the issues, experiences and relationships teachers encounter on the job.
Entertaining and educational, inspirational and practical, each book will feature 20-25 true stories written by teachers throughout K-12 at all stages of their career about their day to day lives.
We are now accepting stories for the first three books in the series on the following topics:
The Teachable Moment: The moment when you reach one of your students and the light goes on in their eyes.
Stress in the Classroom: Those moments when you're at the end of your rope or facing one of the frustrations every teacher feels in their career. These stories would be not just a place to vent, but also a place to pass on how you cope with stress at work.
Diversity in the Classroom: Not just issues of color or religion, but of financial circumstances and any cultural difference that are sometimes difficult moments to teach.
Below are some guidelines from the publisher:
In order to be considered for publication you need to:
1. email teachers.voices@gmail.com
2. Submit a specific, focused topic
3. Upon approval of the topic, you'll be instructed on how to submit your story--4-5 pages at approximately 350 words per page.
The best submissions we have received have been the ones that are focused on a single event or single theme, and are written like a story, as opposed to an essay. This is your story; we want it to be interesting and inspiring.....like fiction but TRUE and about you. There will be a honorarium paid for any story chosen to appear in the series.
***
Submission of ideas is due by December 31st, so go forth and submit! Share your wealth of knowledge! Tell 'em the School Psychologist sent you.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
My Words Taste Yucky
Don't you hate it when you have to eat your words? Today was one of those days. I had to take my own advice and I hated it.
As usually happens, an administrator plopped a kid in my office and wanted me to see why he was fighting so much lately. He is a 7th grade boy and had just gotten into a fight in the middle of class. The kid tells me that it's because he's being teased. I know this kid from last year, and he is, in fact, a teaser as well. So I could easily imagine how words were exchanged, words escalated to yelling, and then (since words are the gateway drug to fighting), kids started shoving each other. This was, in essence, what happened.
Oh clever Ph.D.! I will utilize you today to change this child! I made the kid do a "Responsibility Pie" to see how much of the conflict he owned and how much the other kid owned. He started out with 99% other kid's fault, 1% his, but we talked about it more and he ended up giving himself a fair slice of pie, about 25%. We talked about teasing. I gave him permission to use foul language if needed, to tell me what the kids were calling him. To my surprise, the trigger for this "tough kid" to fight was that the kids called him Nemo. Yes, as in the fish. I asked him if when they called him that, did he grow gills, hop in the sink, and start eating fish food? He laughed and said, "No" and we talked about how "Just because someone calls you something, it doesn't make you that." I was pretty proud of my shrewd counseling skills at this point. Since I was on a roll, we brainstormed other ways to react to teasing (e.g. ignoring in the same way you ignore rude MySpace people because then they tend to stop, making a bully-deflecting joke, etc etc.). And I sent my kid on his merry way, with the statement, "Try out some of these things today and let me know if any of them work!"
I think you know where this story is going. I left my office for my next kiddo and I overhear one of my counselee's say %#$%ing bleeeeeepidy bleeeeeep $%^$%^$% to a group of his 8th grade friends.* Out of instinct, I broke my cardinal rule of not reprimanding 8th grade boys in a group. If anyone has tried this, it is a lose-lose situation because the kid is far more invested in looking cool than listening to whatever you just said. The following is a painful transcript of me getting teased by a group of 8th grade boys:
My kid: %#$%ing bleeeeeepidy bleeeeeep $%^$%^$%
Me: I need you to use respectful language in school
My kid: (to my surprise) Okay, sorry.
Random 8th grade boy: $%^& you, dumbass bitch! (laughter erupts)
Me: That is not appropriate language for school. (turns and walks away)
Random 8th grade boy of unknown location: Puta!
Me: (whipping around) That is not appropriate. I know Spanish! (turns and walks away)
Croud of 8th grade boys: Puta! Puta! Puta!
Me:
Yeah, that's right. I ignored them. And it sucked. But I knew that no matter how long I stayed in that interaction, I would not win that one. I couldn't find the kid who said it, and they were really enjoying seeing me whip around and be horrified at their disrespect.
10 minutes later, I thought of all kinds of bully-deflating remarks. *sigh*
*I always have this internal battle with myself about when to ignore and when to intervene. In general, if the language is garden variety cursing, I let it go. If it's sexist, racist, or homophobic, I intervene. It was one of the latter.
As usually happens, an administrator plopped a kid in my office and wanted me to see why he was fighting so much lately. He is a 7th grade boy and had just gotten into a fight in the middle of class. The kid tells me that it's because he's being teased. I know this kid from last year, and he is, in fact, a teaser as well. So I could easily imagine how words were exchanged, words escalated to yelling, and then (since words are the gateway drug to fighting), kids started shoving each other. This was, in essence, what happened.
Oh clever Ph.D.! I will utilize you today to change this child! I made the kid do a "Responsibility Pie" to see how much of the conflict he owned and how much the other kid owned. He started out with 99% other kid's fault, 1% his, but we talked about it more and he ended up giving himself a fair slice of pie, about 25%. We talked about teasing. I gave him permission to use foul language if needed, to tell me what the kids were calling him. To my surprise, the trigger for this "tough kid" to fight was that the kids called him Nemo. Yes, as in the fish. I asked him if when they called him that, did he grow gills, hop in the sink, and start eating fish food? He laughed and said, "No" and we talked about how "Just because someone calls you something, it doesn't make you that." I was pretty proud of my shrewd counseling skills at this point. Since I was on a roll, we brainstormed other ways to react to teasing (e.g. ignoring in the same way you ignore rude MySpace people because then they tend to stop, making a bully-deflecting joke, etc etc.). And I sent my kid on his merry way, with the statement, "Try out some of these things today and let me know if any of them work!"
I think you know where this story is going. I left my office for my next kiddo and I overhear one of my counselee's say %#$%ing bleeeeeepidy bleeeeeep $%^$%^$% to a group of his 8th grade friends.* Out of instinct, I broke my cardinal rule of not reprimanding 8th grade boys in a group. If anyone has tried this, it is a lose-lose situation because the kid is far more invested in looking cool than listening to whatever you just said. The following is a painful transcript of me getting teased by a group of 8th grade boys:
My kid: %#$%ing bleeeeeepidy bleeeeeep $%^$%^$%
Me: I need you to use respectful language in school
My kid: (to my surprise) Okay, sorry.
Random 8th grade boy: $%^& you, dumbass bitch! (laughter erupts)
Me: That is not appropriate language for school. (turns and walks away)
Random 8th grade boy of unknown location: Puta!
Me: (whipping around) That is not appropriate. I know Spanish! (turns and walks away)
Croud of 8th grade boys: Puta! Puta! Puta!
Me:
Yeah, that's right. I ignored them. And it sucked. But I knew that no matter how long I stayed in that interaction, I would not win that one. I couldn't find the kid who said it, and they were really enjoying seeing me whip around and be horrified at their disrespect.
10 minutes later, I thought of all kinds of bully-deflating remarks. *sigh*
*I always have this internal battle with myself about when to ignore and when to intervene. In general, if the language is garden variety cursing, I let it go. If it's sexist, racist, or homophobic, I intervene. It was one of the latter.
Saturday, 4 October 2008
Happy Blogaversary to Me!
One year ago, I embarked on the journey of writing Notes from the School Psychologist. I had stories galore about working in large urban school districts that I thought others might want to know, learn about, or just laugh with me as I try to remain sane in a world where I have heard, “This is a lawsuit waiting to happen” far more often than “is the student learning?”
Other psychologists looked horrified when I said I blog about my experiences at work. They asked me if I worried about what I posted. Some wondered how I kept confidentiality.* Some said they would be afraid of revealing too much (as psychologists, this is our training—don’t reveal anything about yourself because it’s not about you). This fear was amplified because I routinely had parents in private practice say, “I’d like to research you on the Internet before I proceed.”** And here I am, on the Internet, with all my views, biases, and thoughts about children, exposed.
So when I first wrote for this blog, it was mostly content. Facts. Research. Information. Few people could write nasty comments about that. I was protected.
As I read other’s blogs though, the nasty-comment postings were the most interesting because it got people talking. And yet, I wasn’t ready for that. On the few occasions I posted my opinion or took on an issue, I then looked at site-meter for validation that people still liked my blog. I told no one I knew personally of my blog, for fear it would be judged, or worse yet, I’d get fired for exposing some of the injustices in my job. Writing anonymously would have been so much easier.***
But as I reflect on my writing this year, I have to say, my favorite posts, and the ones people gravitate to, are the ones when I let people know I have actual feelings. I am not psych-bot! I get worried about my children I don’t have, get angry at being fired from a job I don’t have, get discouraged when all hell breaks lose, and sometimes even throw up in my mouth a little bit at the thought of 25 more years of working in the trenches of public school. I also laugh daily when I see the kids I work with challenge me, and hope I’ve made my ones of tens of loyal readers laugh too.
*I never mention names, change identifying information, and refer to people as Frau Psychologist, or schools as Haides Middle School, for example.
**Thankfully, I turned down “When Psychologists Go Wild!”
***And so much juicier. SO. MUCH. JUICIER.
Other psychologists looked horrified when I said I blog about my experiences at work. They asked me if I worried about what I posted. Some wondered how I kept confidentiality.* Some said they would be afraid of revealing too much (as psychologists, this is our training—don’t reveal anything about yourself because it’s not about you). This fear was amplified because I routinely had parents in private practice say, “I’d like to research you on the Internet before I proceed.”** And here I am, on the Internet, with all my views, biases, and thoughts about children, exposed.
So when I first wrote for this blog, it was mostly content. Facts. Research. Information. Few people could write nasty comments about that. I was protected.
As I read other’s blogs though, the nasty-comment postings were the most interesting because it got people talking. And yet, I wasn’t ready for that. On the few occasions I posted my opinion or took on an issue, I then looked at site-meter for validation that people still liked my blog. I told no one I knew personally of my blog, for fear it would be judged, or worse yet, I’d get fired for exposing some of the injustices in my job. Writing anonymously would have been so much easier.***
But as I reflect on my writing this year, I have to say, my favorite posts, and the ones people gravitate to, are the ones when I let people know I have actual feelings. I am not psych-bot! I get worried about my children I don’t have, get angry at being fired from a job I don’t have, get discouraged when all hell breaks lose, and sometimes even throw up in my mouth a little bit at the thought of 25 more years of working in the trenches of public school. I also laugh daily when I see the kids I work with challenge me, and hope I’ve made my ones of tens of loyal readers laugh too.
*I never mention names, change identifying information, and refer to people as Frau Psychologist, or schools as Haides Middle School, for example.
**Thankfully, I turned down “When Psychologists Go Wild!”
***And so much juicier. SO. MUCH. JUICIER.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Frau Psychologist!
Every school district has THAT psychologist. THAT psychologist who everyone is hoping will just retire already. Everyone is just waiting a few more years for that incompetent person to leave. The mere mention of THAT psychologist’s name strikes fear and disgust in people’s hearts. The other day, a colleague said the name of an incompetent employee we know and I reflexively repeated her name in a low voice, with one squinty, suspicious eye. She laughed at my Pavlovian response to her name, as it is well known this person should not be around children, let alone be responsible for any portion of a child's mental health.
My visceral negative reaction to this person's name is not unlike the scene in Young Frankenstein in which every time they say Frau Blucher’s name, the horses whinny up in fear. My colleague and I had a good time whinnying that day.
Do watch the whole clip. The last 5 seconds are the best.
I have had to work with this Frau Psychologist (Niiiiiiihiiiii!)* before. She is presently still employed in an unnamed district and is approaching her 6, maybe 7,000th year as a “school psychologist.” I put that in quotations, because she does not resemble what I think of as a school psychologist. Some of her infractions include:
1) Writing incoherent reports that use 3 different kids’ names in them and read like this: Derek’s scores indicate that Franklin is in the above average range with below average skills. Casey showed poor reading skills, along with excellent reading comprehension. Results indicate that . No, I didn’t forget to finish typing, that was her conclusion.
2) Not having a basic understanding that a kid can be behind in reading or math and it is not due to a disability. A teenager she tested had just came from Mexico two weeks prior to testing, did poorly on reading in a language he didn’t know, and she concluded he was learning disabled and he went in special education.
3) Incessant noisy gum chewing. Ok, that doesn’t make you a bad school psychologist, but it sure is annoying *smak* to *smak* listen *smak* to *smak* that *smak* in *smak* between *smak* *smak* *smak* words.
4) Frau Psychologist (Niiiiiihiiiii!)* also angers easily and is toxic in every meeting. Once, when asked to contribute money to the social fund for a psychologist who was ill and in the hospital, she argued that she shouldn’t have to because no one got her anything when she was sick last year. Nice empathy.
5) As you can imagine, any psychologist who followed in her footsteps had a boatload of unethical, incompetent assessments to re-do. When a child was due for re-testing, I would cautiously open up the file, say a silent prayer she didn’t do the last testing, and then of course, have to re-do it entirely and tell the parents that we were just kidding about that learning disability.
How can it be that such incompetent people continue to shame our profession? Does this happen in other professions? Are there Frau Accountants, Frau Teachers and Herr Human Resource Guy? How are these people not fired???
All I know is I came across a Frau Psychologist* report the other day and inadvertently whinnied out loud and reared my arms up in manner of horse, and then had a lot of explaining to do to my co-workers around me. Maybe soon I will be the crazy psychologist people hope they don’t have to deal with. Then, it will be officially time to retire.
*Niiiiiiihiiiiii! Horse whinnying sound.
My visceral negative reaction to this person's name is not unlike the scene in Young Frankenstein in which every time they say Frau Blucher’s name, the horses whinny up in fear. My colleague and I had a good time whinnying that day.
Do watch the whole clip. The last 5 seconds are the best.
I have had to work with this Frau Psychologist (Niiiiiiihiiiii!)* before. She is presently still employed in an unnamed district and is approaching her 6, maybe 7,000th year as a “school psychologist.” I put that in quotations, because she does not resemble what I think of as a school psychologist. Some of her infractions include:
1) Writing incoherent reports that use 3 different kids’ names in them and read like this: Derek’s scores indicate that Franklin is in the above average range with below average skills. Casey showed poor reading skills, along with excellent reading comprehension. Results indicate that . No, I didn’t forget to finish typing, that was her conclusion.
2) Not having a basic understanding that a kid can be behind in reading or math and it is not due to a disability. A teenager she tested had just came from Mexico two weeks prior to testing, did poorly on reading in a language he didn’t know, and she concluded he was learning disabled and he went in special education.
3) Incessant noisy gum chewing. Ok, that doesn’t make you a bad school psychologist, but it sure is annoying *smak* to *smak* listen *smak* to *smak* that *smak* in *smak* between *smak* *smak* *smak* words.
4) Frau Psychologist (Niiiiiihiiiii!)* also angers easily and is toxic in every meeting. Once, when asked to contribute money to the social fund for a psychologist who was ill and in the hospital, she argued that she shouldn’t have to because no one got her anything when she was sick last year. Nice empathy.
5) As you can imagine, any psychologist who followed in her footsteps had a boatload of unethical, incompetent assessments to re-do. When a child was due for re-testing, I would cautiously open up the file, say a silent prayer she didn’t do the last testing, and then of course, have to re-do it entirely and tell the parents that we were just kidding about that learning disability.
How can it be that such incompetent people continue to shame our profession? Does this happen in other professions? Are there Frau Accountants, Frau Teachers and Herr Human Resource Guy? How are these people not fired???
All I know is I came across a Frau Psychologist* report the other day and inadvertently whinnied out loud and reared my arms up in manner of horse, and then had a lot of explaining to do to my co-workers around me. Maybe soon I will be the crazy psychologist people hope they don’t have to deal with. Then, it will be officially time to retire.
*Niiiiiiihiiiiii! Horse whinnying sound.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Tune in, Bay Area Night Owls, for a NFTSP Sound Bite!
For those of you in the San Francisco area, I was interviewed for NBC News, and the piece is allegedly airing tonight, Monday the 22nd at 11pm, on KNTV Bay Area Channel 11. I was interviewed about a new study on the potential positive sides of video games.* They wanted an Educational Psychologist's take on the study, so here you go.
While the popular media tends to portray this as, “Video Games are Good!” the main point of the new study is that there's a lot of diversity in the kinds of games teens play and that paying attention to the qualities of their experiences while playing games is important. It contends that we need to move beyond the games-are-good/games-are-bad arguments and think about how kids are spending their time when playing video games rather just whether and how much they're playing.
One interesting finding was that some video game play is providing opportunities to think about social issues and develop civic skills (leading groups, helping others, making decisions about how a city is run) and this appears to be related to real-life civic and political activity.
Another interesting fact is that NBC likely found me through this posting on a horrible date in which I was made to play Grand Theft Auto.
*I hope my hair was professional, but not Palin. Discuss.
While the popular media tends to portray this as, “Video Games are Good!” the main point of the new study is that there's a lot of diversity in the kinds of games teens play and that paying attention to the qualities of their experiences while playing games is important. It contends that we need to move beyond the games-are-good/games-are-bad arguments and think about how kids are spending their time when playing video games rather just whether and how much they're playing.
One interesting finding was that some video game play is providing opportunities to think about social issues and develop civic skills (leading groups, helping others, making decisions about how a city is run) and this appears to be related to real-life civic and political activity.
Another interesting fact is that NBC likely found me through this posting on a horrible date in which I was made to play Grand Theft Auto.
*I hope my hair was professional, but not Palin. Discuss.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
The One in Which My Lunch is Interrupted by a Faux Knife Fight
The teacher’s lounge can be a scary place to be. I have been assigned as the school psychologist in no less than 10 different schools in the past few years and have seen my fair share of teacher’s lounges. Each one has it’s own culture. Sometimes, I judge a school by the collegiality of the Teacher’s Lounge. There was Peace Elementary School* which sported a Teacher’s Lounge/Book Room/Ant Farm that I avoided like the plague because every time I went there I got the inappropriate disclosure from the teachers. I’m a psychologist, not your psychologist so I’d rather not hear about how you are cheating on your husband while I eat my sandwich. Also: not interested in your porn addiction.
Then, there was Haides Middle School’s Teacher’s Lounge.* One could not really call it a “Teacher’s Lounge” as it was more of a classroom with microwave and a copy machine. No one ever sat down in there except me. I was all eager “let’s consult!” newbie who quickly learned that some lounges are toxic to the soul. This room should have had a dark, rainy cloud over it in manner of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. It wasn’t a lounge, but really just a scowly-teacher waystation, filled with inappropriate judgments about the kids. I never went in there again after I asked a teacher how the Jones twins were doing and the teacher said, “Jim is a crack-head nitwit, but not as big of a crack-head nitwit as his twin.” Lovely.
But I have digressed from the knife fight. It’s coming, I promise.
The Teachers Lounge I was in the other day is a nice attempt at fostering joint-lunch consumption. However, I have never seen anyone in there but me. Some teachers fly by to grab something out of the fridge, say hi, and quickly dart back to their rooms. So I eat alone. In order to entertain myself, I spy on the children at recess through the window. It is quite a show. The fun game I play every day as I sit down to eat, is “Let’s hop right back up from my meal, poke my head out the window and break up a play fight.” I intervene early in the chain of behavior because play fighting is the gateway drug to real fighting. But today I really wanted to eat my lunch warm. I watched the beginnings of a play fight as I ate my salmon, fashioning myself as an ethnographer of tweens:
12:08pm. Subjects engage in hierarchy-establishing pseudo-aggression to establish dominance. Note smiling while pushing.
And then, out comes the knife. Crap. I should have intervened earlier. To my credit, I could tell that it was a giant fake knife, so instead of panicking, I mentally noted the backpack from which it came and the students who touched it. I have been through grad school and know that eyewitness testimony is flawed and I didn’t want to make a mistake. Most school districts have a zero-tolerance approach to fake or real weapons. I went outside and opened my hand for them to give it to me. They played dumb for a second until I told them I was in the Teacher’s Lounge and saw everything. They tried to pass one over on “La Blanca”** by talking in Spanish to each other about their lie. HA! I know what “mochilla” means! Gotcha!
And the moral of my story is: Eat in your own classroom or office. No, wait, sorry, it’s to intervene early in the chain of behavior and have more supervision in “hot spots” like the one near the Teacher’s Lounge.
*Totally a pseudonym.
**Kids who don’t know me have actually called me this. The White.
Then, there was Haides Middle School’s Teacher’s Lounge.* One could not really call it a “Teacher’s Lounge” as it was more of a classroom with microwave and a copy machine. No one ever sat down in there except me. I was all eager “let’s consult!” newbie who quickly learned that some lounges are toxic to the soul. This room should have had a dark, rainy cloud over it in manner of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. It wasn’t a lounge, but really just a scowly-teacher waystation, filled with inappropriate judgments about the kids. I never went in there again after I asked a teacher how the Jones twins were doing and the teacher said, “Jim is a crack-head nitwit, but not as big of a crack-head nitwit as his twin.” Lovely.
But I have digressed from the knife fight. It’s coming, I promise.
The Teachers Lounge I was in the other day is a nice attempt at fostering joint-lunch consumption. However, I have never seen anyone in there but me. Some teachers fly by to grab something out of the fridge, say hi, and quickly dart back to their rooms. So I eat alone. In order to entertain myself, I spy on the children at recess through the window. It is quite a show. The fun game I play every day as I sit down to eat, is “Let’s hop right back up from my meal, poke my head out the window and break up a play fight.” I intervene early in the chain of behavior because play fighting is the gateway drug to real fighting. But today I really wanted to eat my lunch warm. I watched the beginnings of a play fight as I ate my salmon, fashioning myself as an ethnographer of tweens:
12:08pm. Subjects engage in hierarchy-establishing pseudo-aggression to establish dominance. Note smiling while pushing.
And then, out comes the knife. Crap. I should have intervened earlier. To my credit, I could tell that it was a giant fake knife, so instead of panicking, I mentally noted the backpack from which it came and the students who touched it. I have been through grad school and know that eyewitness testimony is flawed and I didn’t want to make a mistake. Most school districts have a zero-tolerance approach to fake or real weapons. I went outside and opened my hand for them to give it to me. They played dumb for a second until I told them I was in the Teacher’s Lounge and saw everything. They tried to pass one over on “La Blanca”** by talking in Spanish to each other about their lie. HA! I know what “mochilla” means! Gotcha!
And the moral of my story is: Eat in your own classroom or office. No, wait, sorry, it’s to intervene early in the chain of behavior and have more supervision in “hot spots” like the one near the Teacher’s Lounge.
*Totally a pseudonym.
**Kids who don’t know me have actually called me this. The White.
Friday, 12 September 2008
I Have a Whole Bag of Worry with my Name on It
“Worry is like a rocking chair—it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere” –Dorothy Galyean
I had dinner with some graduate school classmates from UC Berkeley the other day, and after two minutes of social pleasantries, we of course launched into our favorite topic: The Public School System. We are all school psychologists. Some of us work in fancy schmancy districts where the district has to employ detectives to make sure kids really live in the district boundaries, and some work in districts like mine where finding a working copier is a real treat.
We got to talking about our own kids—some just entering preschool, some about to graduate from high school—and my own children I don’t have yet, but have great names already picked out.* I admitted that I am pre-worrying about sending my future children to public schools and have tremendous guilt about being a public school employee who may not be able to walk the walk when it comes to my own kids. Ideologically, I want them to go to public school. But I admit, I worry about the gamble. The mid-ground has been that my fiancée and I are already calculated our next move to coincide with living in a “good” public school district.
But what is a “good” public school district, anyway?
I’m glad you asked. I want my kids to have caring and competent teachers, a safe environment, a positive school climate, diversity of staff and student body, be developmentally appropriate (no shoving inappropriate standards-based curriculum on my kids, thank you very much), have opportunities for parent involvement, but not support the intrusive parenting culture (where all things are monitored, including every move the teacher makes and children’s consumption of glucose), high standards, but not too high that the average kid feels dumb, learning goals over performance goals, and within walking distance to my house. Oh, and that house needs to be under a million dollars in California, because c’mon, I’m a public servant.
After my diatribe about the type of school I want to send my not-children to, I sighed, and wondered if my pre-emptive worry is jumping the gun a bit.
Then, I worried that my pre-worry traits will make me become one of those hyper-involved helicopter moms who will swoop in on all educational matters.
Sigh. If you need me, I’ll just be here in my rocking chair for the next 4-18 years. Anyone care to join me?
*This is such a difficult task for an educator, because we’ve heard every name there is, and have our own associations. I have worked with some hell-on-wheels kids who have ruined perfectly good potential baby names.
I had dinner with some graduate school classmates from UC Berkeley the other day, and after two minutes of social pleasantries, we of course launched into our favorite topic: The Public School System. We are all school psychologists. Some of us work in fancy schmancy districts where the district has to employ detectives to make sure kids really live in the district boundaries, and some work in districts like mine where finding a working copier is a real treat.
We got to talking about our own kids—some just entering preschool, some about to graduate from high school—and my own children I don’t have yet, but have great names already picked out.* I admitted that I am pre-worrying about sending my future children to public schools and have tremendous guilt about being a public school employee who may not be able to walk the walk when it comes to my own kids. Ideologically, I want them to go to public school. But I admit, I worry about the gamble. The mid-ground has been that my fiancée and I are already calculated our next move to coincide with living in a “good” public school district.
But what is a “good” public school district, anyway?
I’m glad you asked. I want my kids to have caring and competent teachers, a safe environment, a positive school climate, diversity of staff and student body, be developmentally appropriate (no shoving inappropriate standards-based curriculum on my kids, thank you very much), have opportunities for parent involvement, but not support the intrusive parenting culture (where all things are monitored, including every move the teacher makes and children’s consumption of glucose), high standards, but not too high that the average kid feels dumb, learning goals over performance goals, and within walking distance to my house. Oh, and that house needs to be under a million dollars in California, because c’mon, I’m a public servant.
After my diatribe about the type of school I want to send my not-children to, I sighed, and wondered if my pre-emptive worry is jumping the gun a bit.
Then, I worried that my pre-worry traits will make me become one of those hyper-involved helicopter moms who will swoop in on all educational matters.
Sigh. If you need me, I’ll just be here in my rocking chair for the next 4-18 years. Anyone care to join me?
*This is such a difficult task for an educator, because we’ve heard every name there is, and have our own associations. I have worked with some hell-on-wheels kids who have ruined perfectly good potential baby names.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Special Education: The Department of Redundancy Department
This is the post in which I realize that crazy has become normal. Since I’ve been immersed in crazy for 7 years, I didn't even realize what I was saying today was crazy until I said it to a new staff member. I actually found myself in the following conversation:
New Administrator: Can we make a referral for mental health services for a student who may be a student special education? I think the student needs some counseling.
Me: Sure, I just have to fill out the paperwork. First, I will send out a notice of intention to assess the student, distribute the paperwork to document the prior interventions, then once that’s signed by the parent, I can then send out the actual assessment plan to the parent, which they will need to return, then we can start the assessment. Then, 60 days later, if the student qualifies, we can initiate another referral for mental health, in which I document the same information on a new form, then mental health will send out an assessment plan to do essentially the same assessment I just did, then the parent will return that and they will do the assessment, and in 60 days, we will have a meeting to see if we can get the student mental health services.
New Administrator: (stunned silence)
Me: I know, it’s dumb. Let me just get permission to check in on the kid this week.
This is the problem with my job in the public schools. It takes over 120 days to get something easy done. Over the years, I’ve learned that the biggest gift I can give to those I work with, especially the parents, (many of which do not know the process, are rightfully intimidated by the process, don’t speak English, and did not obtain special education law degrees) is to streamline the redundancy for them. If I can cut out a dumb step legally, I’ll do it. Sometimes though, I’m bound to the redundant dumbness.
And I’m bound to the redundant dumbness too.
New Administrator: Can we make a referral for mental health services for a student who may be a student special education? I think the student needs some counseling.
Me: Sure, I just have to fill out the paperwork. First, I will send out a notice of intention to assess the student, distribute the paperwork to document the prior interventions, then once that’s signed by the parent, I can then send out the actual assessment plan to the parent, which they will need to return, then we can start the assessment. Then, 60 days later, if the student qualifies, we can initiate another referral for mental health, in which I document the same information on a new form, then mental health will send out an assessment plan to do essentially the same assessment I just did, then the parent will return that and they will do the assessment, and in 60 days, we will have a meeting to see if we can get the student mental health services.
New Administrator: (stunned silence)
Me: I know, it’s dumb. Let me just get permission to check in on the kid this week.
This is the problem with my job in the public schools. It takes over 120 days to get something easy done. Over the years, I’ve learned that the biggest gift I can give to those I work with, especially the parents, (many of which do not know the process, are rightfully intimidated by the process, don’t speak English, and did not obtain special education law degrees) is to streamline the redundancy for them. If I can cut out a dumb step legally, I’ll do it. Sometimes though, I’m bound to the redundant dumbness.
And I’m bound to the redundant dumbness too.
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Pay Attention!
I recently got in a fender bender in my car, which I could blame on my dog for being so cute in the back seat, but really, it was all my fault. I was distracted by said dog, and just rolled right into the lady in front of me. She was really nice, but she kept saying, “Why did you do that?” and “Why weren’t you paying attention?” I kept apologizing, but after the 10th time she asked my why I wasn't paying attention, I whined, “I ran into you because it was an accident! That is why it is called an accident and not an on-purpose!”
In general, I have excellent focus. If you reviewed my school records, it would not say what I see over and over as a school psychologist reviewing records: “Rebecca has potential when she pays attention.”* But this week, I guess I was literally driven to distraction. I felt bad enough for hitting this woman, and then even worse when she kept blaming me for my lack of focus. Not. Helpful.
I couldn’t help but think of my students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) who are constantly being told they need to pay attention. I wonder if that is also not helpful. I wonder if there is a cumulative effect of discouragement when every time someone says your name it is to tell you to pay attention, focus, or get “on task.” There are certainly times when all students need reminders, but if you have ADD, I bet you get them all the time. I will make a point this week to use my springing social skills* in the classroom by ascending upon children who are focused this week, and praise them.
*Preschool teachers did note that, “Rebecca would like others to think she is shy, but she really likes to socialize.” What does that mean? I spring my extroversion on unsuspecting peers? I have this image of shy 5 year old me hiding behind the bookshelf in the reading corner and then jumping out at a small group of kids screaming, “HA! Play with me!”
In general, I have excellent focus. If you reviewed my school records, it would not say what I see over and over as a school psychologist reviewing records: “Rebecca has potential when she pays attention.”* But this week, I guess I was literally driven to distraction. I felt bad enough for hitting this woman, and then even worse when she kept blaming me for my lack of focus. Not. Helpful.
I couldn’t help but think of my students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) who are constantly being told they need to pay attention. I wonder if that is also not helpful. I wonder if there is a cumulative effect of discouragement when every time someone says your name it is to tell you to pay attention, focus, or get “on task.” There are certainly times when all students need reminders, but if you have ADD, I bet you get them all the time. I will make a point this week to use my springing social skills* in the classroom by ascending upon children who are focused this week, and praise them.
*Preschool teachers did note that, “Rebecca would like others to think she is shy, but she really likes to socialize.” What does that mean? I spring my extroversion on unsuspecting peers? I have this image of shy 5 year old me hiding behind the bookshelf in the reading corner and then jumping out at a small group of kids screaming, “HA! Play with me!”
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
The First Two Days Back In Public School: By The Numbers
Number of Icebreakers: 7,000
Number of Schools Assigned to Me: 3
Number of Days in Working Public School Per Week: 3
Ratio of School Psychologist (Me!) to Students: 1:350
Number of Dead Rodents Discovered at School: 1
Number of Janitors Available to Help Clean Up Dead Rodent: 0
Number of Times I Gagged Trying to Dispose of Carcass: 47*
Number of 7th Graders Who Are Now Taller Than Me: 35
Number of Crying Children Sent to My Office: 2
Number of Times I Couldn’t Communicate Effectively in Spanish: Cinco
Number of Times I Could: Cinco
Number of Students Asking to be in The Talent Group Again: All of Them
Ratio of School Psychologist to Ants in Office: 1:350
Number of Ants Squished: 50
Number of Kids that Make it All Worth It: Infinite
*48. Just gagged again thinking about it.
Number of Schools Assigned to Me: 3
Number of Days in Working Public School Per Week: 3
Ratio of School Psychologist (Me!) to Students: 1:350
Number of Dead Rodents Discovered at School: 1
Number of Janitors Available to Help Clean Up Dead Rodent: 0
Number of Times I Gagged Trying to Dispose of Carcass: 47*
Number of 7th Graders Who Are Now Taller Than Me: 35
Number of Crying Children Sent to My Office: 2
Number of Times I Couldn’t Communicate Effectively in Spanish: Cinco
Number of Times I Could: Cinco
Number of Students Asking to be in The Talent Group Again: All of Them
Ratio of School Psychologist to Ants in Office: 1:350
Number of Ants Squished: 50
Number of Kids that Make it All Worth It: Infinite
*48. Just gagged again thinking about it.
Thursday, 21 August 2008
The Snap Cup
If there’s one thing educators love even more than reflection, it’s ice breakers. The first week back is full of "getting to know you activities" and clever ways to personalize otherwise mundane policy reviews, cleverly disguised as “Professional Development.” I have participated in 6, maybe 7,000 ice breakers in my day. I can’t stand them, mostly because I have had two traumatic ice-breaker experiences:
1) In college, some freaks from the Psi Chi Honors’ Society* had us all share our “favorite scab or scar” and how we got it. It was a disgusting over-sharing situation.
2) In another ice-breaking trauma, in a conference, I was asked to go first and say something unique about me. I went for my standard reply of “I own a greyhound dog.” (group: murmer… murmer…they’re fast…murmer…racing dogs…murmer). Then, one by one, people shared the most heart-wrenching facts about what makes them unique (e.g. I have cancer, I escaped communist Cambodia), making me sound guarded and shallow. I almost changed my answer to “What’s unique about me is that I have appropriate boundaries when sharing to a group of strangers.”
In any event, every agenda this week has right on top “Ice-Breaker!” and I curse myself for showing up on time. Today, we had an ice-breaker in which we were all to write things that we appreciated about each other and put them in an envelope for the person to read at the end of the day. I thought this activity would be the equivalent of the “Snap Cup” from Legally Blonde 2**, in which Elle Woods tries to cheer up the nerds in her Washington legal office with a cup filled with saccharine affirmations from her coworkers. I thought at any moment we would all join hands and sing the Snap Cup song:
It’s Snap Cup time; it’s Snap Cup time, Gather ye round, Friends and foes together, United and bound, Pass it to your neighbor, Instead of blowing up, And we’ll find harmony and love in the- *snap * SNAP CUP!!
At the end of the day, I grabbed my envelope, and once I got to my car, read the positive affirmations that my co-workers put in my envelope. I have to admit, I got a little choked up. They were so sweet and genuine. A few teachers wrote what they appreciated about me from last year and a few wrote about tiny things I had done in the week that they thought were great.
Much to my chagrin, the ice is (somewhat) broken on my feelings on ice-breakers.
*Of which I was a member (nerd alert!), until said icebreaker incident
**What? Like you didn’t secretly want to see it.
1) In college, some freaks from the Psi Chi Honors’ Society* had us all share our “favorite scab or scar” and how we got it. It was a disgusting over-sharing situation.
2) In another ice-breaking trauma, in a conference, I was asked to go first and say something unique about me. I went for my standard reply of “I own a greyhound dog.” (group: murmer… murmer…they’re fast…murmer…racing dogs…murmer). Then, one by one, people shared the most heart-wrenching facts about what makes them unique (e.g. I have cancer, I escaped communist Cambodia), making me sound guarded and shallow. I almost changed my answer to “What’s unique about me is that I have appropriate boundaries when sharing to a group of strangers.”
In any event, every agenda this week has right on top “Ice-Breaker!” and I curse myself for showing up on time. Today, we had an ice-breaker in which we were all to write things that we appreciated about each other and put them in an envelope for the person to read at the end of the day. I thought this activity would be the equivalent of the “Snap Cup” from Legally Blonde 2**, in which Elle Woods tries to cheer up the nerds in her Washington legal office with a cup filled with saccharine affirmations from her coworkers. I thought at any moment we would all join hands and sing the Snap Cup song:
It’s Snap Cup time; it’s Snap Cup time, Gather ye round, Friends and foes together, United and bound, Pass it to your neighbor, Instead of blowing up, And we’ll find harmony and love in the- *snap * SNAP CUP!!
At the end of the day, I grabbed my envelope, and once I got to my car, read the positive affirmations that my co-workers put in my envelope. I have to admit, I got a little choked up. They were so sweet and genuine. A few teachers wrote what they appreciated about me from last year and a few wrote about tiny things I had done in the week that they thought were great.
Much to my chagrin, the ice is (somewhat) broken on my feelings on ice-breakers.
*Of which I was a member (nerd alert!), until said icebreaker incident
**What? Like you didn’t secretly want to see it.
Monday, 18 August 2008
Checklist for New Teachers
Class List? Check.
Office Max trip? Check.
New lunchbox? Check.
Systematic Classroom Management Plan designed to set the stage for the whole year? Um…..
I have been in the urban public school world long enough to see bright-eyed new teachers quit by Halloween. I have handed out Kleenex during consultations like nobody’s business. I have great respect for teachers, especially since I have not ever been a teacher, nor have I had to manage a class. I get the kids one-on-one or in a small group for a short period of time. The one-on-one setting is a beautiful setting to learn a child’s potential, and form a positive relationship with a student. It is the best part about being a school psychologist. Teachers often do not have the luxury of such a relationship in a classroom of 30 kids.
I am no expert in classroom management, but I know what I’ve seen work. Here are some gems for general and special education alike. The bias is towards a large, urban classroom, but the general principles apply to all kids. A fantastic teacher/friend of mine composed this list for helping teachers with difficult classrooms, which I have added to, based on my observations:
1) Call each student’s parent/guardian at the start of the year and introduce yourself. Make frequent positive calls in the first few weeks. Sure, that sounds like a lot of work, but if the first few calls are positive, then the first discipline call will be a lot easier.
2) Post the rules in several places. Keep them simple. Try three: Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible, then have the students give real examples, in the positive direction (e.g. Use nice language, keep hands and feet to yourself, ask for help when you are having a hard time, eat only in the cafeteria). It’s better to write what you expect (use nice language) instead of what you don’t expect (no cussing). It’s easier to redirect the child in the moment.
3) Create a point system that combines academic and behavioral expectations that is broken into short intervals. The interval length (15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, math time, morning) will depend on the age and the class composition. In general, during the first few weeks, the more frequent, the better. Then it can fade to longer intervals or intermittently (e.g. set a timer for random intervals and when it dings, those on task get a reward). The students should have some role in tallying their daily and weekly points so they are bought-in. They should be able to see their success. Also, the positive behavior plan helps teachers from falling in to the trap of the Scarlet P.
4) Inappropriate language is the antecedent to many more disruptive behaviors. They say alcohol is the gateway drug; inappropriate language is the gateway for more disruptive behaviors. To start, if a student cusses in class, give everyone else a point for using nice language. The second the student who just cussed says something appropriate, give him/her a point.
5) Pick your battles. While unchecked behaviors can become big behaviors, the savvy teacher needs to know what to let go and what to crack down on. In general, when the motive behind the behavior is manipulation, crack down immediately. If not, then use your discretion. For example, it might be acceptable to ignore the tardiness of a student who lives across town, but not acceptable to ignore a negative comment toward a peer that starts a chain reaction of arguing that disrupts the class.
6) Read the children’s cumulative folders. Gold. Mines. The files can give you much insight into the patterns of behavior and learning that are already established. You can also see what interventions have already been done.
7) If you start out strict, you can ease up as the year goes on. If you start loose, it is much harder to get stricter.
8) The academic work must be at a level the children can do. This seems basic, but it is worth highlighting. If the work is too easy, they lose interest. If it is too hard, they might act out (better to look bad than dumb!). Find the optimal level of challenge. If students feel successful, it will eliminate a lot of behavioral problems.
9) Consult! Consult! Consult! If you have one child who is your nemesis, consult with your school psychologist and have her/him come observe the dynamic in the classroom and work with you and the student.
10) Have a life. Work on your own coping skills and schedule fun. I know teachers who give up everything to be the best teacher on the planet. That is noble until you are burned out. Ask for help when you are stressed out. Remember to put your oxygen mask on before helping others!
Office Max trip? Check.
New lunchbox? Check.
Systematic Classroom Management Plan designed to set the stage for the whole year? Um…..
I have been in the urban public school world long enough to see bright-eyed new teachers quit by Halloween. I have handed out Kleenex during consultations like nobody’s business. I have great respect for teachers, especially since I have not ever been a teacher, nor have I had to manage a class. I get the kids one-on-one or in a small group for a short period of time. The one-on-one setting is a beautiful setting to learn a child’s potential, and form a positive relationship with a student. It is the best part about being a school psychologist. Teachers often do not have the luxury of such a relationship in a classroom of 30 kids.
I am no expert in classroom management, but I know what I’ve seen work. Here are some gems for general and special education alike. The bias is towards a large, urban classroom, but the general principles apply to all kids. A fantastic teacher/friend of mine composed this list for helping teachers with difficult classrooms, which I have added to, based on my observations:
1) Call each student’s parent/guardian at the start of the year and introduce yourself. Make frequent positive calls in the first few weeks. Sure, that sounds like a lot of work, but if the first few calls are positive, then the first discipline call will be a lot easier.
2) Post the rules in several places. Keep them simple. Try three: Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible, then have the students give real examples, in the positive direction (e.g. Use nice language, keep hands and feet to yourself, ask for help when you are having a hard time, eat only in the cafeteria). It’s better to write what you expect (use nice language) instead of what you don’t expect (no cussing). It’s easier to redirect the child in the moment.
3) Create a point system that combines academic and behavioral expectations that is broken into short intervals. The interval length (15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, math time, morning) will depend on the age and the class composition. In general, during the first few weeks, the more frequent, the better. Then it can fade to longer intervals or intermittently (e.g. set a timer for random intervals and when it dings, those on task get a reward). The students should have some role in tallying their daily and weekly points so they are bought-in. They should be able to see their success. Also, the positive behavior plan helps teachers from falling in to the trap of the Scarlet P.
4) Inappropriate language is the antecedent to many more disruptive behaviors. They say alcohol is the gateway drug; inappropriate language is the gateway for more disruptive behaviors. To start, if a student cusses in class, give everyone else a point for using nice language. The second the student who just cussed says something appropriate, give him/her a point.
5) Pick your battles. While unchecked behaviors can become big behaviors, the savvy teacher needs to know what to let go and what to crack down on. In general, when the motive behind the behavior is manipulation, crack down immediately. If not, then use your discretion. For example, it might be acceptable to ignore the tardiness of a student who lives across town, but not acceptable to ignore a negative comment toward a peer that starts a chain reaction of arguing that disrupts the class.
6) Read the children’s cumulative folders. Gold. Mines. The files can give you much insight into the patterns of behavior and learning that are already established. You can also see what interventions have already been done.
7) If you start out strict, you can ease up as the year goes on. If you start loose, it is much harder to get stricter.
8) The academic work must be at a level the children can do. This seems basic, but it is worth highlighting. If the work is too easy, they lose interest. If it is too hard, they might act out (better to look bad than dumb!). Find the optimal level of challenge. If students feel successful, it will eliminate a lot of behavioral problems.
9) Consult! Consult! Consult! If you have one child who is your nemesis, consult with your school psychologist and have her/him come observe the dynamic in the classroom and work with you and the student.
10) Have a life. Work on your own coping skills and schedule fun. I know teachers who give up everything to be the best teacher on the planet. That is noble until you are burned out. Ask for help when you are stressed out. Remember to put your oxygen mask on before helping others!
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Back to School- Right on Target
I have so many mixed emotions about returning to the school district next week. On the one hand, I will have to give up my “Lady of Leisure who Lunches” status, which is sad, because I’m SO good at it. No more “to do” lists that include “Wait for Mail Delivery” and “Obtain Cappuccino.” No more 4 hour hikes with dogs in the middle of the day. No more time to plan important wedding details: Pool Blue? Bluebird Blue? Tiffany Blue?
And yet, I always feel a fluttering excitement about going back to school, that usually begins the first time I see Target put out that delicious display of sharp pencils, perfect untouched rainbow crayons (with glitter), plasticy-smelling lunchboxes, and the holy grail of B2S shopping, a sea of new outfits! Excuse me, I just need a moment. Ahhhh.
As my tagline suggests, I have always LOVED school, so the B2S shopping experience always reminds me of those glory days of returning to school to see my friends, fresh calendar/organizer in hand, perfectly pointy pencils with untainted eraser, multi-colored pens and highlighters, ready to learn. But learning and making friends always came easy to me*, so of course I loved school. Many of the students I work with dread the return of school, and in some cases take drastic measures to avoid returning at all.
So, what can parents do to help their kids with a smooth back to school transition?
Here are some tips from the National Association of School Psychologists. They are aimed mostly at younger students, but some can be adapted to upper grades.
Before School Starts
1) Mark your calendar with important dates. Make copies of all your child’s health and emergency information for reference. Discuss any concerns you have over your child’s emotional, physical, or psychological development with your pediatrician. Your child will benefit if you can identify and begin addressing a potential issue before school starts. Schools appreciate the efforts of parents to remedy problems as soon as they are recognized.
2) Buy school supplies early. Try to fill the backpacks a week or two before school starts.
3) Reestablish the bedtime and mealtime routines at least one week before school starts. Prepare your child for this change by talking with your child about the benefits of school routines in terms of not becoming overtired or overwhelmed by school work and activities. Include pre-bedtime reading and household chores if these were suspended during the summer.
4) Turn off the TV. Encourage your child to play quiet games, do puzzles, color, or read as early morning activities instead of tv. This will help ease your child into the learning process and school routine. If possible, maintain this practice throughout the school year.
5) Visit school with your child in advance if your child is young or in a new school.
6) Designate a clear place to do homework.
Overcoming School Anxiety
1) Let your child know you care. If your child is anxious about school, send personal notes in the lunch box or book bag. Reinforce the ability to cope. Children absorb their parent’s anxiety, so model optimism and confidence for your child. Let your child know that it is natural to be a little nervous any time you start something new but that your child will be just fine once he or she becomes familiar with classmates, the teacher, and school routine.
2) Do not over react. If the first few days are a little rough, try not to over react. Young children in particular may experience separation anxiety or shyness initially, but teachers are trained to help them adjust. If you drop them off, try not to linger. Reassure them. Remain calm and positive.
3) Acknowledge anxiety over a bad experience the previous year (e.g. bullying, difficulty with academics or making friends). Contact the school to confirm that the problem has been or will be addressed. Reassure your child that you and the school are working together to prevent further issues. Reinforce your child’s ability to cope. Give your child a few strategies to manage a difficult situation on his own. Maintain open lines of communication with the school.
4) Arrange play dates or get-togethers with some of your child’s classmates before school starts and during the first weeks of school to help your child reestablish positive social relationships with peers.
5) If problems arise, you may want to contact the school to set up an appointment to meet with your child’s teacher and school psychologist. They may be able to offer support or suggest other resources. While children can display a variety of behaviors, it is generally wise not to over-interpret those behaviors. More often than not, time and a few intervention strategies will remedy the problem.
*Notable exception: Chemistry. Bleech. I hated it because I wasn’t good at it. I didn’t understand why anyone would care if an equation was balanced. I also didn’t like my teacher, for reasons beyond the obvious lack of deodorant situation. Shouldn't he be concerned about his pH balance if he was soooo smart? Fortunately, Mr. Sweaty also believed in group test grades (what?) so I compensated by weaseling myself into a group with the future valedictorian.
This technique was also key to getting through the Tennis portion of PE. I started dating the state tennis champ and opted for being on a doubles team. Here was every game: Him: I got this ball! (whack) Me: ok! Him: I got this one too! (whack) Me: (filing nails) You got that one too? Great.
And yet, I always feel a fluttering excitement about going back to school, that usually begins the first time I see Target put out that delicious display of sharp pencils, perfect untouched rainbow crayons (with glitter), plasticy-smelling lunchboxes, and the holy grail of B2S shopping, a sea of new outfits! Excuse me, I just need a moment. Ahhhh.
As my tagline suggests, I have always LOVED school, so the B2S shopping experience always reminds me of those glory days of returning to school to see my friends, fresh calendar/organizer in hand, perfectly pointy pencils with untainted eraser, multi-colored pens and highlighters, ready to learn. But learning and making friends always came easy to me*, so of course I loved school. Many of the students I work with dread the return of school, and in some cases take drastic measures to avoid returning at all.
So, what can parents do to help their kids with a smooth back to school transition?
Here are some tips from the National Association of School Psychologists. They are aimed mostly at younger students, but some can be adapted to upper grades.
Before School Starts
1) Mark your calendar with important dates. Make copies of all your child’s health and emergency information for reference. Discuss any concerns you have over your child’s emotional, physical, or psychological development with your pediatrician. Your child will benefit if you can identify and begin addressing a potential issue before school starts. Schools appreciate the efforts of parents to remedy problems as soon as they are recognized.
2) Buy school supplies early. Try to fill the backpacks a week or two before school starts.
3) Reestablish the bedtime and mealtime routines at least one week before school starts. Prepare your child for this change by talking with your child about the benefits of school routines in terms of not becoming overtired or overwhelmed by school work and activities. Include pre-bedtime reading and household chores if these were suspended during the summer.
4) Turn off the TV. Encourage your child to play quiet games, do puzzles, color, or read as early morning activities instead of tv. This will help ease your child into the learning process and school routine. If possible, maintain this practice throughout the school year.
5) Visit school with your child in advance if your child is young or in a new school.
6) Designate a clear place to do homework.
Overcoming School Anxiety
1) Let your child know you care. If your child is anxious about school, send personal notes in the lunch box or book bag. Reinforce the ability to cope. Children absorb their parent’s anxiety, so model optimism and confidence for your child. Let your child know that it is natural to be a little nervous any time you start something new but that your child will be just fine once he or she becomes familiar with classmates, the teacher, and school routine.
2) Do not over react. If the first few days are a little rough, try not to over react. Young children in particular may experience separation anxiety or shyness initially, but teachers are trained to help them adjust. If you drop them off, try not to linger. Reassure them. Remain calm and positive.
3) Acknowledge anxiety over a bad experience the previous year (e.g. bullying, difficulty with academics or making friends). Contact the school to confirm that the problem has been or will be addressed. Reassure your child that you and the school are working together to prevent further issues. Reinforce your child’s ability to cope. Give your child a few strategies to manage a difficult situation on his own. Maintain open lines of communication with the school.
4) Arrange play dates or get-togethers with some of your child’s classmates before school starts and during the first weeks of school to help your child reestablish positive social relationships with peers.
5) If problems arise, you may want to contact the school to set up an appointment to meet with your child’s teacher and school psychologist. They may be able to offer support or suggest other resources. While children can display a variety of behaviors, it is generally wise not to over-interpret those behaviors. More often than not, time and a few intervention strategies will remedy the problem.
*Notable exception: Chemistry. Bleech. I hated it because I wasn’t good at it. I didn’t understand why anyone would care if an equation was balanced. I also didn’t like my teacher, for reasons beyond the obvious lack of deodorant situation. Shouldn't he be concerned about his pH balance if he was soooo smart? Fortunately, Mr. Sweaty also believed in group test grades (what?) so I compensated by weaseling myself into a group with the future valedictorian.
This technique was also key to getting through the Tennis portion of PE. I started dating the state tennis champ and opted for being on a doubles team. Here was every game: Him: I got this ball! (whack) Me: ok! Him: I got this one too! (whack) Me: (filing nails) You got that one too? Great.
Monday, 28 July 2008
The Wackness in Education
I love independent films. I went to one last night called “The Wackness” about a drug dealer kid in NYC in 1994, who falls in love for the first time and finds himself and whatnot.
My favorite scene was when he and love interest are having a deep talk and she says, “You know what’s wrong with you? I always see the dope-ness in life and you always see the wackness.”
1994-lingo aside, it was an interesting way to describe pessimism and optimism. Readers who have been with me a while know that I like to focus on the positive and even try to be optimistic when my car is stolen, but not burned. But there are certainly times when enough “wackness” in the bureaucracy of public schools gets to you. This is one of those times, in which one must vent a little. May I present to you:
An Open Letter to “The System”
Dear Public Education System,
I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with your bureaucratic ways. I am not working in your System this summer, and yet you still plague me. As an aside, are you, “The System,” a close relative of “The Man?” Do you meet on a bi-annual basis and discuss ways to keep people down? Is there a secret password to get into this meeting, or is there some sort of top-secret retinal scan situation?
I am writing because I have been receiving endless letters highlighting your dysfunction all summer and with each one, I think, “Aha! That’s where the money for public education goes!”
First, I have been receiving letters from a school district I haven’t worked for in several years, threatening to suspend me if I don’t get my “I’m free of Tuberculosis” paperwork in. You have threatened on 3 occasions to put these letters “in my file” and suspend me. You do that, System. You suspend me from that job I left years ago. By the way, my new district only lost my TB paperwork once. Take that!
Second, I haven’t been paid for my work from April and it is now almost August. Thankfully, as a civil servant, my paycheck from February more than covers living in the Bay Area for 5 months (cough cough). Each day, I hope for that check, and today, I was so excited to see a letter with your name on it in my mailbox! Alas, it was not my wages, but rather a giant, important packet about the System’s position on Northern Ireland. I promptly returned my signature that I will indeed abide by the MacBride Principles in the event that I do business with Northern Ireland. You know, for all those cross-continent business dealings I do working in the local public school.
Third, my sick days are still inaccurate from a year ago. I really don’t know how I can take .047 sick days anyway. Could you please move the decimal point sometime this millennium? Please refer to the 47589475983473 prior communications on fixing this simple error that could ruin my life when I want to take maternity leave someday. Oh! And by the way, thanks for considering motherhood an illness.
Lastly, I want to thank you. I don’t want to be a Negative Nancy all the time, now do I? I want to thank you, The System, for improving my angry letter writing skills (the final draft of this letter will have some angry looking font, like maybe Ariel Bold Italic). I also want to thank you for the Bureaucratic OCD I have developed in documenting everything in triplicate. One thing You have taught me is that if it isn’t in writing, it didn’t happen. And finally, thanks so much for giving me a way to fill my summer vacation hours!
Yours Truly,
Rebecca
P.S. Someone once said to me that sarcasm is rooted in anger. What? Me? Sarcastic? Never. I love everything about public education.
My favorite scene was when he and love interest are having a deep talk and she says, “You know what’s wrong with you? I always see the dope-ness in life and you always see the wackness.”
1994-lingo aside, it was an interesting way to describe pessimism and optimism. Readers who have been with me a while know that I like to focus on the positive and even try to be optimistic when my car is stolen, but not burned. But there are certainly times when enough “wackness” in the bureaucracy of public schools gets to you. This is one of those times, in which one must vent a little. May I present to you:
An Open Letter to “The System”
Dear Public Education System,
I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with your bureaucratic ways. I am not working in your System this summer, and yet you still plague me. As an aside, are you, “The System,” a close relative of “The Man?” Do you meet on a bi-annual basis and discuss ways to keep people down? Is there a secret password to get into this meeting, or is there some sort of top-secret retinal scan situation?
I am writing because I have been receiving endless letters highlighting your dysfunction all summer and with each one, I think, “Aha! That’s where the money for public education goes!”
First, I have been receiving letters from a school district I haven’t worked for in several years, threatening to suspend me if I don’t get my “I’m free of Tuberculosis” paperwork in. You have threatened on 3 occasions to put these letters “in my file” and suspend me. You do that, System. You suspend me from that job I left years ago. By the way, my new district only lost my TB paperwork once. Take that!
Second, I haven’t been paid for my work from April and it is now almost August. Thankfully, as a civil servant, my paycheck from February more than covers living in the Bay Area for 5 months (cough cough). Each day, I hope for that check, and today, I was so excited to see a letter with your name on it in my mailbox! Alas, it was not my wages, but rather a giant, important packet about the System’s position on Northern Ireland. I promptly returned my signature that I will indeed abide by the MacBride Principles in the event that I do business with Northern Ireland. You know, for all those cross-continent business dealings I do working in the local public school.
Third, my sick days are still inaccurate from a year ago. I really don’t know how I can take .047 sick days anyway. Could you please move the decimal point sometime this millennium? Please refer to the 47589475983473 prior communications on fixing this simple error that could ruin my life when I want to take maternity leave someday. Oh! And by the way, thanks for considering motherhood an illness.
Lastly, I want to thank you. I don’t want to be a Negative Nancy all the time, now do I? I want to thank you, The System, for improving my angry letter writing skills (the final draft of this letter will have some angry looking font, like maybe Ariel Bold Italic). I also want to thank you for the Bureaucratic OCD I have developed in documenting everything in triplicate. One thing You have taught me is that if it isn’t in writing, it didn’t happen. And finally, thanks so much for giving me a way to fill my summer vacation hours!
Yours Truly,
Rebecca
P.S. Someone once said to me that sarcasm is rooted in anger. What? Me? Sarcastic? Never. I love everything about public education.
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