The Key to School Psychology

When I was going to graduate school, we were taught that our first experiences with a new school may be symbolic of the school culture and what we may expect throughout the year. It is also a key to how parents and kids may feel about coming into those four giant walls we call school.

By the way, if you are planning on being a school psychologist, you better get used to inserting yourself at brand new schools all the time. In 6 years, I have been deployed to over 25 different schools and assigned 12 schools as “my sites.” Sometimes, in any given day, I am doing a play-based assessment with play-do with a 2 year old in the morning, talking about drugs with a high school student at lunch, and in the afternoon having a meeting about a 5th grader with reading comprehension difficulties. The day I forget where I am and ask a 2 year old what types of drugs they’re doing is the day I need to retire.

Here is a sampling of some first days at new schools. I must say, my first impressions were usually right:

Haides Middle School: Door was bolted shut with giant padlock and I couldn’t get in. Did not feel welcome. I never did get a bathroom key in 4 years. Had to either go get key from secretary whenever I had to go, or go to neighboring coffee shop because the kids’ bathrooms violated every health code I could think of.

Haides Elementary School: Child throwing giant tantrum in main office because she found out she was retained. Someone pretending to be a parent goes through the whole school and steals all the laptops. That year, I saw many meltdowns. And I was unable to set down laptop for one year because I didn’t have a key to the resource room.

Middle School X: At staff meeting, introduce self as School Psychologist and room erupts in applause. Some expectations may have been a bit high at this school. Especially since I was there one day a week. This year, I have an intern and we end up having to share the one key to our office (located just outside of Beruit, by Portable 247). We texted all year, “Where R U? R U coming back to the office soon? Need 2 get in."

Haides High School: Graffiti on door entry. Can’t get anyone’s attention in main office to find out where the Principal is. Finally get attention, and am told that there is no office space for school psychologists, and be sure to move my car every hour to avoid getting a ticket.* I never got a key to my not-office and never put down my heavy bag of test kits for one year. My right arm was totally buff.

Middle School Y: Principal shows me my “office” and I see this:



If you can’t read it, it’s says, “B****.” I thought, “Oh no, this year is going to be full of fun surprises like this.” But then, my principal gave a wry smile and said point-blank, “Of course, that’s no reflection on you. Apparently the last psychologist was not a hit. I’ll get some 409.” I couldn’t help but laugh. I was just excited to have an office at all. Her reaction was so unflappable, I knew that she would be a calm Principal. Later on that day, she took pictures of all the staff, provided us lunch, and we shared our vision for the school. I knew she would listen and be supportive. And I was right.

And the other day, I got my very own key to my very own office. Sure, it’s Spring Break now, but my initial impressions were right. I’m one of them. When the secretary proudly presented the key, I bust into that song from Annie, “I Think I’m Gonna Learn to Like it Here.”**


*L’il suburban me was so ill prepared for urban parking issues. One hour parking? Street sweeping? What’s that? Seriously, I’m supposed to move my car 7 times a day?
**In my head.

Subliminal Messages

When I was in middle school, my friends and I came up with a way to express disdain in a secret fashion. When someone was bugging us, we’d spell really super quickly, “y.o.u.b.u.g.m.e.” to which the person would say, “what?” and we’d say, “nothing” smirk smirk. So very middle school. Something a grown woman would never do.

Unless she was pushed into a super annoying situation, that is.

I am selling a bed frame on Craigslist at the moment. This one woman haggled me for a good week over $20 and finally agreed to get the bed. She called that morning and asked for directions using the bus even though she was only 5 blocks away. After explaining this concept several times, I gave her walking directions that were seriously “Go up the street you are on for 5 blocks and there I am.”

She arrives about 45 minutes later. She has no visible impairments, so I’m not sure if she got lost or what. Anyway, she gets out a magnifying glass and starts inspecting the bed frame, finding every little scratch and commenting, “Oh, I do not like that” and “oh goodness gracious!” and “You did not mention all these defects.” *

What seemed like 10 minutes later, she decided she liked it enough and asked me where my car was so we could load it up. She assumed I wanted to deliver it to her house too! That is not standard Craigslist procedure. That is what new furniture companies do. I told her my car wasn’t big enough and she looked around my garage and asked if my neighbor’s car was big enough! At this point, I just wanted her to go away, so I told her she could probably rent a truck from y.o.u.b.u.g.m.e. Apparently, working with middle schoolers all day makes me regress into middle school sometimes. She looked at me puzzled, but not offended, and asked me to repeat it. I said, U-Haul the second time around, and she seemed like this was the most offensive suggestion ever.

It was clear this transaction was not going to happen, so I escorted her to the door. She politely asked what I did for a living as small talk or something and I told her I was a school psychologist. She said she was a school social worker. And THEN. And THEN! She said, with a smirk, “Oh, so you just test the kids, and then I have to treat them.”

In my head, I told her off that school psychologists are so much more than testers and this is a battle I fight every day to position myself as a person with more to offer than testing. Even if testing were the only thing I did, it is a valuable intervention because teachers, parents, and students themselves can finally understand learning strengths and weaknesses and how social-emotional factors play into student learning. Students have thanked me for finally explaining their disabilities in a way they can understand. I had a student the other day say, “Your testing made me feel smart for the first time.” Teachers appreciate my testing because it provides feedback for instruction, and parents thank me for taking the time to really get to understand their child.

I think assessment is a form of treatment because you have a powerful one on one interaction with a kid who 9 chances out of 10 thinks they’re stupid and you can show them in black and white all the ways they can learn and all of their true potential. Even better, the teachers and parents see the student in a new light and change their behavior to help the student learn and feel good about his or herself.

I said all that in my head. What I actually said to her was, “Goodbye.” If my experience has taught me anything, it is that you can’t reason with someone who is always asking for more and being critical of everything. Pick your battles. But if she looked closer at school psychologists like she fastidiously looked at my bed frame, she’d be able to understand we do so much more than testing.

*Fine. I lied to make the story better. She didn’t have a magnifying glass. But she did inspect that bed like it was her job to ensure all second-hand furniture had a fissure-free surface for Consumer Reports.

Kid – 1, Psychologist and Fancy Test Developers- 0

I give tests.

I give IQ tests, “Cognitive Tests” (aka IQ tests that are not banned in California), Auditory Processing Tests, Visual Processing Tests, Neuropsychological Tests, Executive Functioning Tests, Social-Emotional Tests, Behavioral Tests, Visual-Motor Tests, Memory Tests…and on and on. Every so often, there are some BAD items that I have to give as a part of the standardization of the tests. Some have dropped off in newer editions because they were dumb.*

Example: A jar of bees doubles every 30 minutes. How long will it take for a quarter-full jar to be full?

Every Child I Tested: Why the $%@& would you want a jar of bees to double? And is that even possible?

Me:I know, it’s dumb.

Example: What does “wicked” mean? (Correct Answer= Bad, evil)

Every Single Child I Tested: Like awesome or super good, like it’s “Wicked Awesome!”

I thought that they should be given credit for that because that’s how it’s used in their world. But no, I had to correct them and say, “Wicked means bad, or evil.”

Today, I tested a 13 year old African American girl who would not have any of my dumb items. In the end, she schooled me on how to talk. I present the item*

Dr. B: What does “fraudulent” mean?

Girl: I don’t know! Who talks like that?

Dr. B: Fraudulent means fake.

Girl: Like your fraudulent Coach purse?

Dr. B: Exactly.

Girl: Well that’s not fair, we don’t talk like that.

Dr. B: Sometimes we use words in academic work that we wouldn’t use with our friends. Maybe you can try using the word ‘fraudlent’ in a sentence today when you are doing your school work?

Girl: Hells No! I think you should use the word “Bootleg” with your friends today, because that’s a better word. Like, ‘That purse is bootleg’!

Dr. B: Can a person be bootleg or is it always an item?

Girl: No, a person can be bootleg. Like my teacher.

Dr. B: Ok. I get it now. Next item?

(Later, walking down the hall back to class)

Girl (to teacher): You’re fraudulent! (looks at me) There. I used it in a sentence.

I got served. Stupid test items.

*I am a rule follower. In the standardization manual it says that psychologists should take care to protect the integrity of the tests by not revealing questions. So I have included the ones that were taken off. I have changed another one. I’m not sure what would happen if I did publicize a test question. In my head, a PsychCorp SWAT team comes through the school’s back entrance saying, “Go! Go!” and busts down my janitor’s-closet-turned-office door and confiscate my school psychology credential. They might say, “M’am, put DOWN the WISC-IV kit and no one gets hurt.”

Response to My Own Intervention

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was going to try to infuse a Response to Intervention (RtI) model at my middle school. I was going to step back and look at the wiring of my school and its interventions to help students early on, instead of putting out electrical fires by responding once the student is doing so poorly s/he needs the school psychologist.

6:16 am: Awake by dog licking face. Remember that today is the day I will begin RtI at my middle school. Let the primary prevention begin!!!

8:00 am: Morning workout. Lug 8758947839 lbs of testing materials, files, and computer to District Office.

8:15 am: Score teacher and parent surveys from assessment on district computer because there are only two computers in whole district that have this software.

8:30 am: Drive to Random Elementary School, not assigned middle school, because was assigned extra testing case. Cute school on the inside, homeless man sleeping in bushes on outside. Find out that previously scheduled appointment is not going to work because there is a statewide writing test. Write note to special education teacher that I will be back in 2 days. Principal snorts, “Good luck getting a hold of her, we haven’t seen her in 2 weeks.”

8:45 am: Arrive at middle school with 8758947839 lb bags. Kid in hall says, “Dr. Bell! You look like a bag lady. But your pants match your eyes!” Ask receptionist for key to my office, which I am not allowed to have own copy of. Ask in Spanish in effort to immerse self in language. Accidentally called Ms. Key (la llave) Mr. Key (el llave) and am corrected. Go to office to find key doesn’t work. Locks have been re-keyed over weekend. Back to office, get new Ms. Key, and enter office.

9:15 am-11:30am: Test student who is one year overdue for his re-evaluation because he was inadvertently dropped from the special education log and has gone without services for 2 years.

11:30 am: So far, no RTI. Have forgotten all about it. Perhaps a meal will reenergize me. Have disgusting “hot pocket” I grabbed on the way out. Am reenergized.

11:36 am: Yeah, that’s right, lunch is always about 6 minutes. That’s because that hot pocket takes so long to microwave.

11:37am: Kid comes in to office to sign my “Positive Graffiti Wall” which is my own invention to channel tagging into art. Next to “I luv skool!” she writes: “Maria is a stupid ass tonta bitch who is afraid to fight me and snitches on me to the principal and her mommy!”

11:38-12:20: Discussion about what is positive ensues. Kid decides that crossing off “ass” will suffice. More discussion ensues. Giant black mark on Positive Graffiti wall, literally and figuratively.

12:20-1:00pm: Counseling session with student who is always getting in fights. Play basketball because small office freaks him out. Why did I wear heals today? And not even those Easy Spirit ones in which one could actually play basketball because I’ve seen the commercial.

1:00-2:15pm: Finish testing student. He tells me on a scale of 1-10, my testing is a “4.” School is a “1” and the only thing that is a “10” is girls and football. C'mon, wouldn't you rather use your abstract nonverbal reasoning skills to solve a figural matrix than see a cute girl? No? Ah well, at least testing is done.

2:15-3:00pm: Counseling session with boy who has no friends “except God.” Get schooled by him on Mancala, an African board game. I just don’t get how that game works. Seems like every kid has different rules.

3:00-3:15pm: Make 3 phone calls to various district staff about absent teacher at Random Elementary School.

3:15-3:20pm: Quiet reflection on how I could conceivably call my counseling sessions an “intervention” that one could respond to. But how is it “research-based”?

3:20pm: THUD!!! BANG!!! $%*#* (expletives) outside of office. Counselee #1 and amigas have placed boy in recycling bin. Bin has tipped over and boy is laughing, so I assume there’s no physical damage. Discussion about school behavior ensues.

3:30-4:30pm: Student Success Team (SST) meeting. Surely this is RtI! Except it’s all in Spanish and I obtain 62% of the information and can share 13% of my thoughts. Llave didn’t come up once, so I couldn’t show off my acquisition of appropriate gendered article. I think the interventions were: student will do homework, teacher will check if he has written it down for the day, mom will check in with teacher, student will read 30 minutes a night, and will remove his hat in class. Maybe I should go in and get a baseline of hat-wearing, chart it, and graph it with a trend line for next SST.

4:30pm: Drive back to district office to pick up test kit from another psychologist because there are only 6 of this kind for 45 psychologists.

5:00pm: Return home to dog, licking face. Sigh.

Professional Gang Costume

I grew up in white, middle class suburbia. I was completely ill equipped to understand the gang culture in the school district I began working in as a school psychologist. The closest I got to experiencing anything gang related growing up was when I saw West Side Story, Breakin’, and Breakin’ Two: Electric Boogaloo. Turns out, there is very little dancing about in perfect random synchronicity involved in the real world of urban education. The Crips and Bloods do not have a dance-off, in which they all learn a little something about how similar they are via passion for dance.

Back my tale of ignorance.

My first day as an intern school psychologist, I had my most respectable-looking outfit on. I wore this responsible red sweater and crisp gray trouser pants with red kitten heels that said, “I am not 23 and have no idea what I’m doing, I am accomplished, professional woman with many many urban education skills.” Turns out, the red sweater and shoes actually said, “I claim the Norteño gang” but how should I have known that? The Norteños could have been that great new boy band for all I knew.

Years later, I have successfully expunged all red and blue outfits from my closet. But what else have I learned? When I first started out in a school with heavy gang activity, I was armed only with idealism and a Master Plan for Saving the Children that I had written in my dissertation on resilience of low-income adolescents.* But as I strode up the steps on my first day to the main entrance of my assigned middle school in my professional gang-banger costume, it was clear that I didn’t get it.

The last 6 years, I have learned some things about gangs. Bit by bit, I listen to the stories of my students and piece together a narrative of the dynamics that are so foreign to me. Each child has a story to tell. I worked with one such middle school girl who explained to me that she was picked on all through elementary school and got fed up and sought out the gang for protection. One boy couldn’t focus on the assessment I was doing with him, and it turned out he was trying to get out of a gang and his life was in danger. Some kids asked me if they could transfer to a school that had more of their gang there because they were at a rival gang’s school and were outnumbered. I have counseled kids who have lost family members to gang violence, lost some students to gang violence, and been at schools during drive-bys.

I have also learned that I don’t know a lot of things about gangs. The problems these students carry are so complex. The kids understand the dynamics though, if you are open to hearing their stories. One of the only things I can do sometimes is empathize with the student about how hard of a situation they are in. It is a very powerless situation to be in as a mental health professional. What I do know is that no matter what the student’s situation, the 3 C’s of Resilience are what guide me in developing interventions. These 3 C’s have been shown to be positive developmental assets for students in the face of adversity:

1) Caring: The student has a positive caring and responsive adult in his/her life

2) Competence: The student feels competent in at least one area (doesn’t have to be academic)

3) Confidence: The student feels that they have some control over their lives and feel confident he/she can achieve their goals

If I can facilitate any of these three Cs for students involved or interested in gangs, I’m doing my job. But honestly, sometimes I wish I could dance away the gang problems, possibly in manner of Kevin Bacon dancing away his fury in a warehouse in the drama that I always thought was a comedy, Footloose.

*Read and thoroughly enjoyed by ones of fives of people.

Optimism

A few weeks ago, I packed up my work bag, my coffee mug, and my lunch for the day, and headed outside to get in my not-car. It had been stolen. I turned around, went inside, dropped off all my stuff (except of course I was still clutching my coffee mug. I was going to need it), and I called the police. They arrived by the time I had finished my coffee and called in to work that I would be excruciatingly late.

As I took the bus, then a train, then a bus, then walked to work, I had a lot of time to reflect on my possible reactions. At this point, the pessimist in me could have thrown a fit, cursed the world, and shook my tiny fist of fury at the injustice. The optimist in me could have declared that it was time to get a new car anyway. I stood at the precipice of making a choice as to how this would play out.

Luckily, I had just read an article on optimism that inspired me. It said basically that more than any other major personality trait, optimism is a matter of practice. So I thought I would work on the cognitive habit of developing an optimistic mind-set, like the article said to do. It stated that the key to increasing optimism was to understand that it’s not just “positive thinking” alone, but also engagement and persistence toward one’s goals and paying attention to good fortune. What luck! My car was stolen! I thought of several positive things:

1) I am saving the world from the perils of greenhouse gasses today.
2) I was not IN the car when it was stolen.
3) They may find my car.
4) If not, then I get to go shopping, and who doesn’t like shopping?

Turns out, they did find my car the next day, stripped of all parts. But the cop must have also read the article, because he was glad to report the good news that my car was “not burned!” Goodie! It was hard to be optimistic about a not-burned, but totally stripped car returning to my possession.

But as the article said, I should persist in my goal, which was really to obtain a vehicle to drive to work, and focus on the good fortune that someone did not burn my car*. The next day, I went to go see Oscar** and he looked so sad! All of his lights were popped out so he looked blind. There wasn’t much car left. Then they told me that he would be totaled. I was sad for like 45 minutes and then I got a newer car I had been lusting after the next day. And it has an iPod hookup, so I’ve been listening to Spanish Podcasts all week. So really, don’t you think the thieves did me a favor? After all, I will probably be bilingual because of them.

Or maybe I’m just trying to be optimistic because now I have a car payment.

*Am I the only one who didn’t know this was common practice?
**What? Like you don’t name your car. Mine was Oscar deLa Honda and apparently a very popular year for thievery.