The Softer Side of Sears.

After last week’s delightfully sad post on telling a parent her daughter has mental retardation, I think we (I) need a more lighthearted post today. You know, exploring the softer side of Sears or whatever. I should warn: This post will not interest 12% of readers.*

I am going to talk about the world of school psychology fashion. It’s a topic that I feel I need to address. Why? Let me tell you a little story. And by “little” I mean really long story.

When I was an intern school psychologist in San Francisco, I was all of 23 years old. I was living in a house with 5 roommates and 5 different closets to "shop" from. It was a fantabulous time and I had a fantabulous wardrobe. Now, we have already established that I accidentally used to dress like a gangsta at school. I made many mistakes that first year. But I never told you all about my very first evaluation. It was surreal on many, many levels.

My supervisor from UC Berkeley came to my school to meet up with me and my intern supervisor to evaluate my performance on 8 hojillion criteria. We all crammed into my little janitor’s closet and began with the checklist. Gets along with colleages? Check. Knowledgeable about assessment and counseling? Check. Good boundaries? Check minus.** Able to deal with a crisis? And I kid you not, at that exact moment, the Principal got on the loud speaker and said, “This IS a lock down. Initiate lock down procedures.” This was our 8th or 9th lockdown that semester (bomb threats, primarily) , so mid sentence I said, “Excuse me ladies” and put up the “Green Light” sign meaning no one was injured in this room and asked everyone to move away from the window. Then said, “carry on.”***

My supervisor from Berkeley was a little rattled, I think, but we got back to the checklist. Professional? Check minus. Wait, WHAT? I was totally professional! Did they not just see my calm in the storm performance? What was that about? My intern supervisor, who was fabulous and totally spot on, cautiously said, “Um, sometimes your pants are a bit too tight for a middle school.”

Mort. ti. fied.

I look down at my pants and they were not THAT tight. I don’t want to give the impression that I dressed like Olivia Newton John at the end of Grease. They were totally normal pants. My supervisor continued, “It’s not that they are too tight for the normal world, it’s just for middle school you have to be a bit more conservative. I’d avoid skirts as well.”

At the time, I thought, “whatever, my pants are fine, I don’t want dress like a schoolmarm.” But the perfectionist in me did not like my check tarnished by a minus, so I started shopping at (wait for it) Ann Taylor. Yes, at age 23. Why didn’t I just go straight to SEARS? It was so sad.

I told you this was a long story. The men who tried to prove me wrong about interest level are long gone.

Fast forward a few years. I found this great skirt by Theory on consignment for $10. Ten dollars! It was a simple, black pencil skirt. So classy. So I wore it to my middle school (of course, with tights and a frumpy cardigan to disguise any femininity.) And as I left the building at the end of the day, I heard an 8th grade yoot yell from the second floor window down to me: “I’M HOT FOR TEACHER!” Oh dear. Another added, “I’D HIT DAT!” Make it stop. The cat calls continued, from the ambiguous source and I cursed myself for not listening to my supervisor. Minoo, wherever you are, you were totally right.

Now I fear I have gone to the extreme. I sometimes dress like I’m the second sister wife in Big Love. I actually have an ankle length jean skirt. My husband threw it away recently because it really was horrifying for all involved.


(I'm the second from the right, in aforementioned jean skirt)

In my next life, I’m designing a line of clothes for school psychologists that are professional, attractive, but not too attractive. And now that I have written this all too important post about fashion, I feel like I have just told the blogosphere that I’m all that and can't possibly hide my hotness unless I'm in a jean skirt. I’m really not. I just happen to work in a teenage hormone fest.

Maybe I should start shopping at (shudder) Sears.

*I recently took a gander at the demographics of the Facebook Fan Page (what can I say, I love me some data), and it turns out that 88% of fans are female. Quelle surprise. I bet that matches the demographics in the schools.
**I needed some. I had a hero complex at the time. It’s in remission.
***It was one of my students on campus with a gun. Neat.

Awkward Conversation #249: Telling a Parent Her Teenager Has Mental Retardation

It never really gets easier. I get better at my schpeal, but telling a parent their child tested in the retarded range is never easy. It can lead to some very awkward and emotional moments, especially when a parent is getting the news for the first time and the child is FOURTEEN years old. I present to you, Awkward Conversation #249 (get a fresh cup of coffee, it’s a long one...)

Scene: Parent’s home (this parent refused to come to a school meeting, as every school meeting for the past, oh 8 years, has been people telling her that her daughter is behind, acting out, and in trouble). Blaring in the background is Jerry Springer-esque show, where every other word is bleeped out. We’re not going to turn that down, just to add to the awkwardness of having to yell the words, “Mental Retardation.” Good times.

Me: Thank you for allowing us in your home today. I look forward to sharing how Julia learns best and developing a school program that works for her. Before we start, how do you think things are going at school for her? (Knowing full well things are NOT going well. She wanders around the class and yells at teachers every day and is currently suspended).

Mom: I think she just needs tutoring.

Me: Hm…okay, so you are concerned about her academics (BTW, she tested in at the 2nd grade level in reading, math, and writing and she’s a 7th grader).

Mom: Mmm.

Jerry Springer Guest (in background): You think my baby mama gonna BLEEEEP BLEEEP BLEEEP BLEEEEEEEEEP

Me: Right. So let’s have a look at some of the possible reasons why Julia may be struggling academically. I tested her on how she solves brand new problems. This is a test that she can’t study for, as it is a set of new problems, both verbal and visual. (Read: IQ test). I give her very little help in solving them, and it is a good way to measure her thinking skills.

Mom:

Me: Okay. So here is a chart of where most students score. If she were just the same as her peers, she would fall here (points to average range). On both visual and verbal problem-solving, Julia scored here (points to 70—cut off for mental retardation). For example, when I asked her how a banana, apple and orange are alike, she said, “pear.” That’s not quite…erm…it’s related to what I said, but she misses the main point, that they are all fruits. Do you ever notice that sometimes she has difficulties expressing herself to you, or when telling you a story?

Mom: (Noncommittal grunt)

Me: Um. Okay. So you can imagine in the class, where she is currently learning about the Mayan empire, she might have a hard time making connections on her own without help. In head: Not to mention she can’t read the 7th grade text at all. She also might start to wander the class and get angry and yell, because most teenagers would rather look dumb than stupid.

Jerry Springer Guest (in background): BLEEEEPidy BLEEEPin’ BLEEEP!

Me: May I ask if this sounds like Julia? Am I describing her accurately?

Mom: (Stony silence).

Me: (In head: Is she getting this? Is it sinking in where I’m going with this?). I know this must be difficult to hear.

Mom: Not really.

Me: Um…erm..so what are your thoughts so far?

Mom: I think she needs tutoring. I’m not into labels. A student can get special education without being labeled.

Me: While tutoring is a good option, we also want to make sure that Julia’s teachers really understand her, and that she struggles so much with her thinking skills on her own. She can learn, but she requires a lot of support, repetition, and presentation of the material in simple ways. I don’t like labels either, but if they get her better services, then we should think about what is best for Julia. Without a label, you will continue to get calls every day and Julia will likely be misunderstood by her teachers and blamed for things she can’t help. Okay, self, time to just spit it out. She qualifies as mentally retarded. Here goes my “13 Doors Schpeal”.

Um, when we think about special education, we think of 13 “doors” into the program. Each “door” is a disability and with each disability there is a program. (To spare you all, I then go into the process of elimination of doors---not learning disability, not physical disability, not emotional disability—until we reach the “door” that in our district is called Mental Retardation)*

DEEP BREATH.

Ms. Parent, I’m going to use a term that is often kind of hard to hear, but I would be doing Julia a disservice if I didn’t use a term that we can all understand. Knowing what is causing her academic difficulties is the first step to giving her what she needs. The only “door” to services that is left is Mental Retardation. Now, there are several kinds of Mental Retardation. Julia is not in the severe range (points to bottom of chart), so we would not put her in a class with students who cannot take care of themselves, have physical challenges, or are learning only basic life skills. Julia has mild mental retardation (points to 70 on chart) and she has some typical life skills, so she would be in a class that would give her practical academic skills, like making change at the store, and reading and writing in the real world.**

Family Feud Guest (blaring in background): The Movies! Teenagers make out at the Movies! Buuuuuzzzzzz.

Mom: (Mumbles) Lover’s Lane.

Me: Excuse me? (Oh dear she is answering the Family Feud game). Right. So this must be difficult to hear that Julia has mild mental retardation, but the good news is we can find her a classroom where her needs can be met. Does this information surprise you? What are your thoughts?

Mom: I’m not surprised. Oh, and we’re probably moving out of the district next month.

End Scene

I don’t know how things will go for Julia in her new district. I know that I did my best to make it clear that Julia will not be able to keep up in a general education class, and that our meeting documents (the famous “IEP” which is an “Individualized Education Plan”) would carry over to anywhere in the country. I just hope she gets a seasoned teacher who understands that Julia's “defiance” is a largely a defensive avoidant behavior. I hope she gets to experience success. And I hope that there aren’t a bunch of “Julias” out there who could have been getting early intervention services for 8 years had there been a more concerted effort to have the school psychologist have a look at why she continually acted out.

We will return to our regularly scheduled Tomfoolery and funny stories next week. Promise.

*Some districts say “Cognitive Impairment” some “Developmental Disability” and some “Mental Retardation.” I don’t know if one term is better over another. The only benefit I can see of calling it Mental Retardation is that parents know what you are talking about. I have had parents who never really understand that Cognitive Impairment is really MR until their kid is in late middle or high school. Again, sometimes I get to break that news, and usually the reaction is, “Why didn’t someone tell me this earlier?” There is another school of thought that saying MR is not PC.

**And because of No Child Left Behind, some outrageous Algebra goal.

Tea Leaves, Writing, and Staplers. Oh My.

I often get inspiration for my job from the little sayings on my tea satchel. What? I work in a large, urban school district, I gotta get inspiration everywhere I can. At least I’m not reading the tea leaves for what to do, right? The other day, my tea told me that “If you want to know something, read. If you want to learn, write.” Or something like that. Hm. So writing is how we know we are learning? I suppose that writing is a more active process than reading in a way. I mean, when I sit down to write a blog post, I become acutely aware of what I don’t know because I sit there with hands over keyboard, waiting for inspiration. I also solidify my thinking when I write. That being said, I have to say that the initial driving force behind me writing this blog was (in a Viktor Frankl sense), to find meaning in my suffering. I jest. Not really.

Anyhoo, back to writing. As olde-timey readers will recall, I have had a penchant for written expression since a young age. In fact, my mom sent me another round of my early writing that she found in her garage, and I have really enjoyed retroactively diagnosing myself. But I digress. Writing. See how rambling writing is an indicator of not knowing what to write? I have been suffering from a case of Writer’s Blogque lately. Ever since those 5 people started subscribing to my blog on Kindle*, I have been putting pressure on myself to write something good. Then, you get two paragraphs o’ rambling.

I’ll make it up to you in the next few paragraphs, I promise.

I think I mentioned before that I am working on curriculum for special education teachers on how to be effective in working with students in special education. It’s a daunting little project. I have been in a round of revisions about the session on writing, and I have been thinking about the writing process. Or to be more accurate, I’ve been thinking about the revision process. Part of me is like my students, once it is written, I feel like it is done. But then after 4 rounds of revisions with multiple readers (like an adult writer’s workshop!) it really is much better. Without further ado about nothing, here are some of the strategies that have emerged for helping students with writing. Most of the strategies are for late elementary and middle school, but some can be adapted up or down in age. Again, snaps for the New Teacher Project for a good portion of the strategies. The others are ones I’ve collected over the years, and I invite you to contribute more!

Strategies for Improving Student Writing
1) For students with visual-motor integration difficulties, (poor eye hand coordination) you want to strike a balance between remediation (making them practice the physical act of writing) and accommodation (freeing up the physical burden by using by-pass strategies so they don’t get held up on developing good written expression).

2) For remediation, I have seen “Handwriting without Tears” work for some elementary students. You could also consult with an Occupational Therapist (OT) about other strengthening activities. I rarely get to interact with OTs at my school sites, but I imagine they have some great tips.

3) For reluctant writers with good ideas, but who hate pencils and all things writing, I suggest trying some accommodations. I recommend providing the option to orally dictate writing ideas to a peer or adult to transcribe or type, just to get out the writing ideas. Then, the student can work on revisions, improvements, and organization of ideas from the transcription. I am also a big fan of technology (MacSpeech for Macs and Dragonware for PCs) in which a schmancy computer program transcribes the student’s voice into typed text. Super fun and surprisingly accurate. And how cute do the students look with their little 1-800-DENTIST-esque headsets? So cute.

4) For students with difficulties with writing conventions (spelling, grammar, etc), I recommend having them start a personal spelling and grammar dictionary to help them with frequently used or misused words or grammatical rules. I would like it if they can keep such a log on their iTouch or phones. I know, I know, no phones in school, but I really think that kids would be more likely to jot down a frequently misspelled word or the difference between their/there/they’re for reference in their phones than in a notebook. But if you’re old school, they can have a little notebooks too.

5) Metacognitive Writing Logs. My middle school does this with great success. The kids learn to make connections with what they have read to themselves, to other texts, and with the world through their writing. A key point about this is to not say, “Just write whatever” when a kid is stuck. Why? Because it sounds like it isn’t important what they write. Take an interest in the writing by asking probing questions, using sentence starters (e.g. I thought the best part was… This reminds me of when I….). For reluctant writers, start with text-to-self sentence starters, because most kids like to talk about themselves.

6) For students with organizational difficulties (rambling paragraphs, unorganized ideas) I’m a fan of graphic organizers and pre-writing activities. Integrate drawing and art, and you may find a reluctant writer is more engaged. Seriously, just google “graphic organizers” and one million different great ideas will come up. Also, I like writing strategies checklists that walk students through the writing process. There are some good ones in Harvey and Chickie-Wolfe’s book “Fostering Independent Learning.”

7) To teach different genres of writing, there are a bunch of fun ways to do so. For example, teaching persuasive writing can be really engaging, because the students can take a stand on an issue that is important to them. They can do class debates, mock trials, “Take a Stand” activities in which they go to certain parts of the room to represent how they feel (left side of room
is agree, right side is disagree, middle is no opinion, etc).

8) I recently read a really interesting article about how kids today have a great sense of “audience” because of social media. The Greeks called it “Kairos” which is a needed skill in persuasive writing. These kids, through Facebook updates, are learning when something is inherently interesting to others by the feedback/comments and when nobody cares that you just had Rice Krispies for breakfast. I am working on that skill as well in my Facebook Fan Page updates.** I am thinking that students could do a variation on the metagcognitive journal and write status updates for characters in books, for themselves, etc. How fun is that? See, writing is fun.

9) There are many more, but I want to hear your stuff too! Be sure to share what age group/grade level and/or what type of disability the strategy addresses. Aaaaannnnd, Go! Let the Resource Fest-a-Polooza 2010….begin.

*What? You want to know how to subscribe because you got a Kindle for Christmas? I’m glad you asked. Click here.

**Sometimes, I forget Kairos and let boring updates slip in, like my riveting series on staplers (e,g. “Sometimes I feel like Schmeagal from Lord of the Rings looking for my precious….stapler.”) Most of the time, I try to make the updates useful or funny. Working on my Kairos. I really thought that stapler theft was a hot issue in education that day. I shouldn’t have switched to half-decaf. I can’t think straight.

Ain’t No Party Like a West Coast Party…Screeeeech...with Chaperones.

Last night, my husband and I helped a friend chaperone his 15 year old daughter’s first (and I think last) high school party. His daughter had a great idea of quarantining all the adults into one room so it would still seem like a party. She even put up a sign, so we could understand our place.

The fine print says, "No, Actually." As if "Parents Room" could be code for something else...

Yeah, we stayed in the kitchen with watchful eyes, periodically frightening the teenagers with our aged presence.

Being a chaperone at the party made me feel simultaneously 1000 years old and also kinda hip, because I knew what they were all up to. Things haven't changed that much since I was in high school. They weren’t even trying to be slick about sneaking things in. I mean, who carries a duffle bag to a party? Did you just come from the gym, buddy? Do you think I think that’s just a coke, stumbling young lady? And I know that’s not a new fragrance, called “Eau de Pot,” kids.

I applaud my friend for calling in the adult reinforcements. I can’t remember going to a high school party when I was in high school that had parents at it, trying to keep the liquor and drugs out. I even remember a few parents supplying the liquor. In retrospect, I am now horrified at that.

For this party, the five of us did the best we could to keep the party under control. It was the longest 2 and a half hours of my life. I was also a bit paranoid that I could potentially see one of my clients, as one girl I was working with went to that high school. I had an imaginary conversation with her: “I am wondering if this is the risky behavior your parents hired me to help you with?” Thankfully, she wasn’t there. My husband did run into a few horrified young men who he had coached in basketball before. It was kind of fun to see these kids’ worlds collide in the kitchen of my friend's house. I imagined they were thinking, “Why is my coach here and does he know there isn’t a basketball in this duffle bag?”

We made periodic rounds throughout the house to confiscate liquor. If 15-year old me had seen 33-year old me doing this, she would have been mortified. Toward the end of the night, my husband made a round to collect all the contraband (again) and came back with a giant Hefty bag of liquor. Damn, these kids are sneaky. At one point, a girl waiting for the bathroom took a giant swig of rum from a bottle (classy), because apparently, she forgot there were parents 10 feet away. I told her she needed to pour it out. She looked terrified that she had been caught, but then proceeded to gulp it down on her way to the trash, gurgling, “I’m sorry!” Girlfriend puked about an hour later, which is a far worse punishment than being caught by me.

The whole time, I couldn’t help thinking about adolescent development. I know, I can’t shut it off on the weekends. It's a curse. I know that some amount of risk taking is normal for adolescents and may even be biologically driven. And it is certainly amplified in large groups of peers (great, the whole school was at the party). Teenagers also take longer to make decisions about risky behavior than adults (even in deciding about fairly obvious risky situations like whether you should swim with sharks or drink Drain-o). You might think that thinking longer about a decision is good, but paradoxically, thinking longer about a decision is kind of bad, because it should be instinctual not to drink Drain-o. At this party, the kids were calculating the risk of being caught by the adults with the social-emotional drive to engage in novel, exciting, and emotionally-charged behaviors. Guess what won in the end?

We shut down the party at midnight on the dot. I felt a bit uneasy about letting these kids find their way home. Fortunately, they can’t drive yet. I was torn between my psychological theory (risk taking and experimenting is normal) and my maternal instincts (You’re only 15! Come little children, I will drive each and every one of you safely home and counsel you on the dangers of drugs and alcohol).

Like the kids, I too was torn between my rational brain and my emotions. I knew from research (and my own experiences of getting home from parties), that the kids would live to tell about how some old lady (me) made her throw away her rum and how their coach busted them with a 40 oz of crappy beer. I know my friend did everything possible to keep the party drug and alcohol free without humiliating his daughter by frisking everyone who came in. He even recruited his daughter to be the main enforcer, and she did.

On the way home, I asked my husband if he would ever let our future teenagers have a party at our house. He said he would, if we were there. I suppose I would too, only I fear that maternal-me would run into the living room and exclaim, “Surely you all would be just as entertained with a rousing game of Scattergories!” My daughter/son would die of embarrassment. Surely it’s better to not have a party at all. Then again, my daughter/son would just find another party and who knows if the parents would be as vigilant as my friend. Then AGAIN, I went to the unsupervised parties as a yoot and I think I turned out fine.

I love how I am pre-worrying about a fictitious high school party 16 or so years from now. I know I have more empathy for parents after last night. In the abstract, and from our own experience, we know that risk taking is normal. In reality, it is hard to watch.

Especially the making out in the hallway for 20 minutes. Classy.

New Years’ Day Analysis.

Happy New Year! If only I was technically fancy enough to make little virtual balloons and streamers fall from this page. Maybe next year.

In an homage to 2009, I have analyzed the most popular posts of 2009 from Notes From the School Psychologist, measured crudely by number of comments. There are a few posts that were my absolute favorite, and they were comment duds. Who knew? Like a good scientist-practitioner, I plan to tailor my 2010 posts based on your wants and needs. Judging that anything with “strategies” did well, I’m guessing you want practical stuff. Who doesn’t? Done. I also see that you want more posts with kittens, awkward conversations, and of course, urine. You’re a sick and twisted bunch! Just kidding, I love you people. Without further ado, the most popular blog posts of 2009:

January: Strategies for Visual Motor Integration

February: A Day in the Life of a School Psychologist

March: What I Have Learned About Executive Functioning From Planning my Wedding (By default—this was the only one I posted in March. I was busy crafting the perfect day).

April: Bride-chilla (Again, by default. It was all wedding, all the time)

May: Crisis Management (Seriously, I was obsessed. This was about a wedding crisis).

June: Awkward Conversation #247 in which I try to explain mental retardation to a borderline mentally retarded teenager. Awk-ward.

July: Judgy-Judgerson Gets a Karmic Punch in the Face (By default, this was my only post in July. I guess I had writers-blogque. I liked this one though).

August: Must. Write. About. Kittens. Kittens? Who knew?

September: Free to Be You and Me…and Pee?. “Urine” luck you don’t send your kid to this school…

October: Making Lemonde, Blog Posts and Whatnot. Enter: Stepford Elementary.

November: "Strategery”. Strategies for teaching reading comprehension.

December: Thrice Bitten, Not Shy. Who doesn’t love a good post about vampire children?

Thanks to all of you fabulous readers for sticking with me through all of the ups and downs of 2009! I wish you all a glorious 2010 in the classroom and beyond!

With much gratitude,

Rebecca

I’ve Got My Eye on You, Oral Language Skills.

In my free time, I have been writing curriculum designed to teach beginning special education teachers what they need to know about teaching students with special needs. I am on page 600 and have 4 more sessions to write. I mean, there is a LOT that teachers need to know. I don’t know how you people do it. And I have been trying to condense it all into 16 sessions. Good times.

Recently, I finished the session on oral language and through the process, realized that oral language seems to be the slightly ignored stepchild of the English Language Arts domain. I mean, when you think of language arts, you think of reading and writing, right? But what about oral language? It is so important! It is often neglected in psychoeduational assessments as well, unless it is wrapped up in general language processing.

Oral language is not just speaking. It is a large set of skills that encompasses listening comprehension, understanding and producing complex language, vocabulary and word knowledge, grammatical knowledge, phonological skills, and so much more. Allow me to illustrate how oral language skills are necessary for comprehension by confessing something embarrassing.

I am the worst at deciphering song lyrics. My best friend, Kendra, however, should be on that game show “Don’t Forget the Lyrics.” She was always my first choice in picking teams for Songburst. And when I can’t figure out what a song is saying, I call her.

Some embarrassing examples:

1) I was singing along with Kendra to the song “One” by U2, and belted out, “Love is a tent pole, love’s a higher love!” and she said, “Um, don’t you mean that love is a temple, love’s a higher law?” Ah yes, that makes more sense.

2) I was car singing (as I do) to Sean Kingson’s new song, “Replay” and I actually sang:

Shawty’s like a melody in my head,
That I can’t keep out
Got me singing like, la la la la every day,
Like an eyeball stuck on my plate, my plate.

Scrrrreeeeech (record scratches). Wait, what? That doesn’t make sense. But that’s exactly what it sounded like to me. I knew it could not be right (because of oral language skills, of course), but no matter how many times I heard it, I still heard eyeball stuck on my plate, my plate. Good thing my radio station plays this song like la la la la every day, because I finally got it…it’s like my iPod stuck on replay, replay.” Much more romantic than my eyeball lyric.*

Wait, what was my point? Ah yes, oral language. If one has a strong vocabulary and strong grammatical and semantic knowledge (how words go together and make meaning) then you are better able to understand what you read and produce written words. Let’s take another example. If you have ever studied a foreign language, you know that having limited vocabulary can significantly impair your ability to understand what you read. If you read “Tengo que practicar Espanol. Voy a charlar con mi amiga todos los dias” and you did not know the phrase “Tengo que” or the words “charlar” and “todos,” you would read, “Something to practice Spanish. I’m going to something with my friend something the days.” Say what?

Not having solid oral language skills can also impair writing. I always sound a little bit like Tonto when I write in Spanish, and/or super limited in my knowledge, because I avoid words I don’t know. Which sentence is better?

The student is exhibiting some symptoms associated with depression.

Or

The student is being sad.

The latter sentence is about what I could produce in Spanish, with my limited vocabulary and oral language skills. I love nuance, and it just doesn’t work well without strong oral language skills. The same is true for our students who come with limited “academic” vocabulary or limited English.

So how can we promote oral language in the classroom and at home to give students the building blocks for reading and writing? I’m glad you asked. Here are a few strategies that span the grades; Some can be modified to be easier or harder, depending on what you teach. Some are from the New Teacher Project, some are classics, and I hope you can offer some more as well!

A Few Strategies for Building Oral Language Skills

1) Show and Tell. A classic for elementary students! Students bring an item from home that they want to talk about and there is a precious question and answer session that ensues.

2) Daily Oral Language (D.O.L.) Traditionally, this is an activity where each day, there is a prompt written on the board for students, such as a sentence written with incorrect grammar for students to correct individually. I prefer to have the students create grammatically correct sentences in small groups (like their tables or with a partner). For example, you could give the words “Since” “Robert” and “party” and have the students come up with a grammatically correct sentence and discuss as a whole group. Another example is to pre-teach a vocabulary word that you will use that day or in the next lesson. Show the vocabulary word and have students talk about its meaning together in a small group and have them draw a group picture representing that word. Share out with the large group. You can have kids draw the vocabulary word on a post-it and then stick it on the board next to the word.

3) Dramatic Vocabulary. This one is from my good friend, Beth, who taught 9th grade English. I think middle school kids could do it too. It’s kind of like vocabulary charades. The students get in a circle and the teacher has a set of cards with that week’s vocabulary words on them (the students can make these cards in groups before the activity for added learning). The teacher pulls a card and gives it to one student, who must act out the vocabulary word for the other students to guess. After it is correctly guessed, the students say, spell, and write the definition of the word together on the board.

4) Word Wall. Also a classic! I think it is used mostly in elementary and middle school, but I can see its value in secondary classrooms with added elements, such as grouping by prefix, suffix, roots, etc. Basically, it is a wall of words that are frequently used in the classroom that are posted for easy reference. Teachers, feel free to comment on how you elaborate on the classic Word Wall.

5) Debates and “Take A Stand” activities. You can start out by providing a prompt for a related lesson, such as “Every student should wear uniforms to school” for a lesson on persuasive writing. Place a line of masking tape in your classroom that ranges from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” with “not sure” in the middle. Have students “take a stand” on where they fall on the continuum. Then, group the students to form teams for a debate on the issue (“not sure” kids can be equally divided or be their own group). From there, you can provide reading materials for the students to support their argument, or begin a research project for students to find their own material for a debate.

6) Listening Activities. For the little ones, I like the classic game “telephone” where the kids get in a circle and the teacher whispers a sentence to the first kid, and they have to whisper the sentence to the next kid. The goal is to have the sentence be in tact at the end. It never is. Hilarity ensues. For older students, teaching listening skills can be in the form of teaching good note-taking skills during lecture. Give the class a list of key phrases that they want to listen for in a lecture such as, “This is important..”, “One of the main things…” “The first thing you have to do is…, etc”, “You will need to know…” To begin, you could ring a little bell or something when you use the key phrase, then transfer that job to a student.

7) Fancy Tech Stuff I must admit, there are many many tech applications that frighten me with their newfangledness. However, I really think that we should be harnessing the students' natural interest in tech and social media. Maybe kids across the country could Sykpe-talk to each other about an issue/project/modern day pen pal thingy, build a personal word or spelling dictionary in their iPhones/iTouches, find an App for site words (there's an app for that!), making a classroom Podcast, etc.

8) Consult with your Speech Language Pathologist. These people know oral language and will have good suggestions for students. My SLP friend says that "written language (reading/ writing) is overlaid on oral language skills so it is very rare for a student with poor oral skills to read or write with a level of proficiency - yet we rarely focus on increasing oral skills when difficulties are noticed with written language." Amen sister. Go consult with these people. They are fabulous.

9) You tell me! I want you to practice your oral language skills too. Meanwhile, I will work on my lyrical analysis skills. ☺

*In general, I avoid the word “eyeball”. I think it sounds gross. Perhaps I have PTSD from when I had to dissect a sheep eyeball in order to study visual perception in school. Bleh.

Back AWAY from the scooter. I’m a professional.

Scene: It is a sunny day, 4 children and one psychologist are seated outside at the lunch tables of a nonpublic school for children with emotional disturbance. Birds are chirping.

Aaand….Action.
Three of the four children are eating bologna sandwiches. The fourth child looks at the sandwich and screams, “I hate this sh*%!” and throws said sandwich at psychologist.

Psychologist wipes bologna and mayo off of face and says, “I see that you do not like your sandwich. It’s okay to not like bologna, but it is not okay to throw food. Can you use your words instead?”

Bologna Hater jumps up and runs for a Razor Scooter.

Camera pans to psychologist’s terrified face and ominous music plays: dun dun dun

Psychologist leaps up and says, “Scooters are for riding, not throwing. Put down the….

Scooter is thrown at psychologist

Aaaaaaand Cut.

Questions from the audience?

Yes, you….No, I do not have a future in script writing.
Young lady in the front?...Yes, this really happened to me.
The gentleman in the back...No, thankfully no stitches required.
And last question?...Yes, bologna is a vile meat, I should have known better.

So there you have a dramatic reenactment of me trying to de-escalate an emotionally disturbed child. What the scene didn’t let you in on is that this little guy was a foster youth who had just had a supervised visit from his mother that had not gone well, and his reaction had little to do with the processed meat. This example stands out in my mind only because it is one of the few times I have been unsuccessful in talking down an angry kid from becoming violent.

Not to toot my own horn or anything (too late), but there are few kids who I can’t get to comply with instructions. My tips aren’t foolproof, but they have worked on more occasions than not. And since my last post about getting bitten resulted in requests for some tips for de-escalating students who are angry, here you go:

1) Prevention, prevention, prevention. Rarely does aggression come out of nowhere (even bologna can be a trigger, apparently) Usually, aggression comes from frustration, internal stress that has been activated, provocation from others, and/or a desire to regain control over a situation. Try to see what is underlying the anger and intercept it.

2) Anticipate, anticipate, anticipate. If you see a child becoming increasingly upset, intervene early in the chain of events. Understand that verbal aggression is the “gateway” to physical aggression. If you hear anything about anyone’s momma, intervene swiftly and redirect. “That’s not appropriate language for class. I need you to use respectful language. This is a warning. If I hear it again, you both will receive a classroom service.”

2) Anticipate when the child may have external factors that will impact his or her ability to control his or her anger. For kids with turmulteous home lives, they often cannot check their anger at the school door. For vulnerable students, provide a brief, private, check-in before class and give them a replacement behavior for acting out in advance. “I know you had a rough weekend. If you find yourself getting upset, then you can use this pass to take a break for 5 minutes.”

3) If prevention and anticipation are not sufficient, then we move to Defcon 3: Talking a kid down once they have already escalated a bit. This may look like the student grumbling, cursing under his or her breath, pushing something, etc. First, try to redirect privately if possible. There is a lot of secondary gain (usually attention) from acting out. In close physical proximity, acknowledge the anger. “I know that makes you angry when Joey talks about your mom. He will have a consequence for that. I need you to take a deep breath. Then, you can choose to take a quick break outside or go in the reading corner to relax. It’s up to you.” That way, the kid feels validated, and has a face-saving way to pull it together again.

4) Defcon 4: You try the private conversation and the kid escalates (shouts profanity at you, says he doesn’t care, or postures toward you or another student). In a business-like but firm tone, tell the student you need to speak with him or her outside for a moment. You could say something like, “I see that you are very upset. For your safety, we are going to step outside for a moment. This is your chance to turn it around so I can tell your parents how well you controlled your anger today.” Model calm. If you get worked up, it will likely escalate the situation.

5) Defcon 5: If the student refuses to see you privately outside, intervene in the chain of events you have set out in your classroom already (e.g. warning, classroom service, detention, call home). You can also call for backup at this point. There is nothing worse than being in a classroom alone with an aggressive student. If your phone doesn’t work (you can tell I work in schools where this can happen), and you have an aggressive child, move the calm children out. It is far easier to get 20 calm kids out the door than one out-of-control child. Say, “Children, for your safety, we are all going to step outside in the hallway while Jeffrey calms down.”

6) And most importantly, never serve an angry child bologna. Just don’t do it.