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*
Thursday, 30 October 2008
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.
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