There is Still Time. Go Get this Book.

Back to School. I love the clothes shopping, seeing my colleagues again, and of course, seeing the middle schoolers now taller than me. Each year, I start out with the best intentions to be more organized, more efficient, and less stressed than the last year. To that end, this summer, I started researching good resources for educators--for both teachers and school psychologists alike. With Response to Intervention (RtI) becoming all the rage, (albeit kind of at a glacially slow pace in some schools and districts), school psychologists are more and more needing to have a good understanding of class-wide interventions and curriculum. I know, we are usually the gate keepers to one particular intervention (special education), but we really are evolving from gate keepers into key masters and key mistresses of all interventions through RtI. Should I get make us all Key Mistress shirts and sell them on the blog? No? Too much?

Anyhoo. As a reader of many blogs, I am always looking for ones that offer practical, research-based advice for teachers. We all know that theory and practice are disconnected sometimes, especially for new teachers. As school psychologists, we often consult with teachers about particular students, but at times, the solution can be classroom wide and help all students. And I give you, the mother of all practical resources: The Cornerstone: Classroom Management That Makes Teaching More Effective, Efficient, and Enjoyable.



This book is by Angela Watson (formally Powell), one of my go-to gals for interventions. She has a website for teachers and writes a great blog. She put together this fab resource in her SPARE TIME. The book covers everything from organizing your room at the beginning of the year, figuring out all your procedures for managing paperwork, setting up a class-wide positive behavior classroom management plan, to specifics for running centers, handling peer conflicts, and bathroom breaks. I mean, this woman has thought of all contingencies.

I sat down with Angela in her Florida home one Saturday afternoon with mint juleps, and interviewed her. Actually, I'm lying. I wish I was in Florida with a mint julep. I emailed her and asked her these burning questions:

1) What gave you the idea to start your blog and create The Cornerstone book for teachers?

When I first started teaching, I visited lots of teacher message boards to see what other people were doing. I didn't have a lot of ideas of my own yet, but I shared some of my basic classroom management strategies and people were like, wow, I never thought of that--it's so simple and yet it totally works! Eventually I noticed teachers were asking the same type of questions over and over (How do you get kids to be quiet in the hallway? What can I do about their disgustingly messy desks?), so I thought it would be easier to type up one response and put it on a web page, then just link people to my answer. That was 2003, and Ms. Powell's Management Ideas for Teachers was born! Over the years, I kept adding new classroom photos and printables. The blog and book just felt like the next natural steps.

2) Um, when did you have the time to write this gem? I mean, seriously, are you the world champion of time management and organization?

The book's motto is "Learn how to create a self-running classroom that frees you to teach" and I apply the same principles to my life: all my routine tasks are basically self-running which frees me to, well, do what I love and share it with other people. I cook large, simple meals 2 or 3 times a week and eat variations of the leftovers on the other days. My beloved Roomba vacuums for me. All my bills are automatically debited from my account online and I only run errands if something can't possibly be handled on the Internet. Even my cat's life is totally self-running: she has an automated litter box cleaner, an automatic waterer, and a food dispenser that puts out 1/2 cup every twelve hours. I spend a total of 5 minutes a week on cat upkeep. My husband is old-school and thinks I'm a bit over the top, but you can't argue with what works.

3) How do you think school psychologists could use this resource? (I know for one, that the movement to RtI means that school psychologists will be in the classrooms more than ever, and need resources for teachers)

Since working in a school somehow means you're destined to be surrounded by massive amounts of paper, I think the ideas for easy-to-maintain organizational systems, avoiding the paper trap, and keeping documentation records will be useful for school psychs. I also think it will help them relate to children in a large group setting; the story you tell in The Teachable Moment about your disastrous first attempt at conducting a whole class discussion is really common! It takes a special skill set to keep 30 squirming or surly kids engaged, and I've tried to convey some innovative ways to do that through the book.

4) Pretend I'm a first year teacher. What is THE most important thing they don't teach me in teacher preparation programs?

Having clearly-defined, modeled, and reinforced procedures will truly save your sanity. Otherwise you will spend four hours preparing a fabulous lesson, only to have it ruined by a kid who gets up in the middle to use the noisy pencil sharpener (leaving shavings all over the desk and floor), which will serve as the impetus for seven other children to suddenly decide that they, too, have impossibly dull pencils and must race over to sharpen them right. this. second, and then make a meandering trip over to the water fountain on the way back to their seats. There are lots of different ways to solve practical problems like these, so I've suggested a bunch of different options so teachers can choose what works for them, and then use a basic set of steps to introduce the expectation to students and train them how to be successful at meeting it.

5) Your book is super practical. Where have you been all my life? Do you find most education resources to be theory-based rather than practical? Where can teachers and school psychologists go for additional resources when they are in the trenches and nothing they learned in graduate school seems to be working as planned?

I love that teachers don't have to rely solely on formal professional development classes anymore--you can find pretty much anything you need online. I have a fabulous network of people that I rely on for ideas and resource recommendations through their websites, blogs (Google Reader is a lifesaver), Twitter feeds, and Facebook. The edu-tech gurus call this creating your own personal learning community or network (PLC/PLN). There are so many new resources being created daily for teachers, and lots of them are free. I love to explore online, and then compile the best stuff I find on my website.

6) Anything else you want to share? Please say new book, please say new book....

Yes, book #2 is in the works! The Cornerstone is the practical guide to managing a classroom, but there's actually something even more critical to effective teaching: the right attitude. It's so easy to get discouraged, frustrated, and bogged down in all the bureaucratic nonsense that teachers have to juggle, especially in urban classrooms. I'm hoping to share ways teachers can establish a mindset that will get them through even the toughest of days.

You know you want this book. Click on the Cornerstone icon on the right side of this blog under "Go on, Buy Yourself Something Pretty." Mama gets a 4 cent kickback, I think. In 10 years, I could buy a latte.

Whatcha Doin' on Sunday?

Friends, for those of you in the San Francisco Bay area, I am hosting a book reading for The Teachable Moment book I edited! Joining me in reading a little sumthin' sumthin' will be two of my favorite school psychologists/contributors to the book. Come one, come all, this Sunday, August 22nd at 3pm to hear yours truly read from the book and schmooze with other fabulous educators! I would love to meet readers of the blog.

The event is at Diesel, A Book Store in Oakland at 5433 College Ave (Rockridge area--by the Rockridge BART for you SF peeps). As an added incentive, husband is baking his world famous chocolate chip cookies.

For those of you not in the Bay Area, go on and charter your jet and come for a long weekend. San Francisco is lovely this time of year (you know, cruelly RIGHT when school starts)

More deets are here

p.s. What should I wear? Channel Shoshona Shauenmbaum, therapist from United States of Tara, or Nicki, second sister wife from Big Love? ;) Or maybe sport one of my power IEP school psychologist costumes?

Back To School Tips...For US!

Friends, how did it happen? How is it back to school already? In a previous post, I wrote about the three summer phases, the last being the most glorious--the relaxation phase. I have gotten so good at Phase 3, it's a shame to give it up, really. This summer, however, I did not master my goals of becoming bilingual, learning to reupholster vintage furniture, or finishing my book. I know, its shocking. But I did master removing all nasty spider-infested junipers from my yard on a juniper murdering spree involving a power saw. I also read a bunch of YA fiction books (for research!) about vampires and teens with superpowers (for research!). Lastly, I baked an apple pie from scratch. I mean, that's gotta count for something from the gal whose cooking repertoire is limited to spaghetti, wheat thin nachos (yum), and those cookies you can cut from a log of dough and pretend you made. If only I had one more month of Phase 3...

HOWEVER, I think I failed to mention (repressed?) in my previous post about Phase 4: The Panic Phase. Apparently it occurs right about...*glances at watch*, one week before school starts up again. How will I get up with an alarm 5 days a week? Will my brain work again? Am I ready to take on breaking the cycle of poverty and closing the achievement gap from my janitorial closet?

A few years ago (wow! my blog is so established--almost 4 years, peeps!), I posted a list of things parents can do to help their
their kids with a smooth back to school transition. I am reposting it now, but this time, with notes for US.

Before School Starts
1) Mark your calendar with important dates.
Ok, so we all know the important dates, like that looming FIRST DAY OF WORK one in our iCals or old skool planners. But let's also mark the holidays, shall we?

2) Buy school supplies early. Try to fill the backpacks a week or two before school starts.
No problem, right? Retail therapy. It's good. It does help the B2S transition for me to get all new supplies. Oh sure, I'm hemorrhaging money right now because of Target and Office Depot, but I feel more ready to return to school having a trunk full of Moon Sand, new play therapy games, and an unreasonable amount of new writing utensils.

3) Reestablish the bedtime and mealtime routines at least one week before school starts. Include pre-bedtime reading and household chores if these were suspended during the summer.
Gak! That means this week I cannot stay up until midnight watching United States of Tara and sleeping in? I do not like this. Not one bit. But I'll do it. I'll do it for the children.

4) Turn off the TV. Encourage your child to play quiet games, do puzzles, color, or read as early morning activities instead of tv. This will help ease your child into the learning process and school routine. If possible, maintain this practice throughout the school year.
Again with the TV hating? Perhaps this one is only for the children, right? I'm rationalizing again. Fine, I'll read over breakfast. I do have this one last YA fiction book I need to finish...(for research!)

5) Visit school with your child in advance if your child is young or in a new school.
Oh hell no! I am not visiting the district office or my school sites. I remember them well.

6) Designate a clear place to do homework.
Read: designate a clear place to write psychoeducational reports/grade papers/lesson plan. Ok, that's fun, and may involve me purchasing that great Mid-Century Modern secretary desk I've had my eye on.

Overcoming School Anxiety

1) Let your child know you care. If your child is anxious about school, send personal notes in the lunch box or book bag. Reinforce the ability to cope.
I am going to tell my husband to put notes in my test kits that I will have to lug around.

2) Do not over react. If the first few days are a little rough, try not to over react.
I will try.

3) Acknowledge anxiety over a bad experience the previous year (e.g. bullying, difficulty with academics or making friends). Contact the school to confirm that the problem has been or will be addressed.
Hm. N/A, for most of us, I hope!

4) Arrange play dates or get-togethers with some of your child’s classmates before school starts and during the first weeks of school to help your child reestablish positive social relationships with peers.
Oh yeah, I got this one. My school psych friends and I have been taking weekly walks together all summer. It is good to remember that you will see your super-colleagues again soon and get to socialize.

5) If problems arise, you may want to contact the school to set up an appointment to meet with your child’s teacher and school psychologist. They may be able to offer support or suggest other resources.
Oh, that's me. Um, yeah, I guess I need to work on sprucing up my janitor's closet to be ready. Here's hoping for a rodent and vermin free school year!

Please, please, post your own Back to School Tips. I am in Phase 4 just thinking about it.

Mistakes Are Not My Cup of Tea.

This fine Sunday morning, I decided to break out of my normal routine of lounging around and frittering away time on Facebook to take a Hula dance class (p.s. Ow.) I came home, already sore, and began to complain to my husband about how I shouldn’t break my routines. Sure, exercise is good, but did you know that hula is actually like holding a squat for an hour with your hands up while moving your hips? Ow. Anyhoo, after I demonstrated a few moves to my husband to illustrate my point, I realized that I needed to take a rest. So I started another one of my favorite Sunday rituals, preparing a cup of tea.

My tea is always so wise. It has these little sayings on the end of the tea bag that I always read, like a fortune cookie. I get a little un-Zenned when I get one I’ve had before. Thankfully, today I got a new one:

Wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from making mistakes.

Good one! I think my tea was trying to tell me that Hula class was a mistake and it is a NO in the future. Or maybe I’ve turned my tea into a projective task...It did get me thinking about mistakes though.

Raise your hand if you like making mistakes. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, I thought so. No one likes making mistakes. I am often telling my students that mistakes are how you learn, but can I appreciate it when I make mistakes? Yeah, easier said than done. One time, in my younger days as a school psychologist, I made a mistake that cost the district $30,000. Oopsie! But that is a tale for my memoirs. I do have to say I never made that mistake again, so I guess I did learn. But I beat myself up pretty bad for a while. It still stings a little. Sure, my mistakes now after 10-ish years of practice are fewer and far between, but they are still there, and I don't always take my tea's advice to think of it as a way to become wiser.

We have all probably worked with kids who are too hard on themselves too. A metaphor I often use with kids who are always beating themselves up for making mistakes is to think about a baby learning to walk. When the baby first learns, he or she makes all kinds of mistakes and falls down. Do we say, “Stupid baby! You should have known better than to fall down!” I reaaaaaally hope no one out there is saying “yes” to that rhetorical question. It’s true though, we have patience for young kids and other people trying new things, but can we as adults walk the walk too, and be okay with making mistakes?

Think about your role as a parent, teacher, school psychologist, or random lurker reading this blog because you googled “tea” or something. Can we be as patient with ourselves as we are with the kids we work with? I know right now, many of us are returning to school, or have just gone back to school, and are faced with 1000 decisions every day. Especially if you are a new teacher or school psychologist, do not be afraid to make mistakes, and do not be afraid to ask for help. Mistakes are feedback. Feedback is how you learn. I think what my tea is trying to say is to try new things and reframe each mistake or wrong decision as a little slice of learning toward your wisdom pie.

I know that if I keep up with Hula class, I’m going to be free to have all kinds of pie (wisdom or otherwise) with my tea in the future.

Did You See The Memo About…Interventions?

I’m starting a new series on this blog, called “Did You See The Memo?” because there are so many things I have to say in my job in urban public schools over and over and over and over and over again. And then one more time after that. And again. You get the point. Like that annoying boss in Office Space, I am that person asking if you got the memo about [insert special education referral process question] more than I would like to be. In the public schools, school psychologists are often the "gatekeepers" to special education assessments, deciding who can proceed for testing and who cannot. It is a role I hate, because all that energy could be spent on doing interventions with kids instead of fighting off inappropriate referrals. I know, I know, it's my job, but after 10 years of saying the same thing, you start to wonder if you have turned into a psych-bot-info-kiosk. It's one of the reasons I started this blog. You know, to mix it up. At times, I’ve fantasized about recording a conversation I have repeatedly, and then playing it back to people as needed instead of saying things again and again. Or, I could just type up the script and hand it over as a memo. That would create a lot of crying trees though, and like that fairy in Fern Gully, can’t you feel its pain?

The good news is (you know me, all about the silver lining) is that I’ve gotten pretty good at some of my schpeals (sp?) and I now get to share them with you. If you are a school psychologist, you will be nodding your head and saying, “YES. This sounds familiar.” If you are a teacher or parent who has been on the receiving end of this memo, know that I hate saying it as much as you hate hearing it. I get it. You want help for the student, and special education seems like a reasonable place to start. It can't start there for a number of reasons.*

The conversation that follows is one I have had 6, maybe 7,000 times, and it's time to convert it to a memo. It’s called:

“You can’t refer a child for special education without trying general education interventions first.”

How many of you have heard or given this speech?

Here’s the logic behind it. If you have a student struggling in reading, and he or she is not responding to the general education curriculum, standard teaching practices, or even extra help in the classroom, you begin to wonder why. Fair enough. I do too. Now let’s say I test this student (we’ll call her Sally), for a reading disability. Let’s say she has one. The intervention is to target her reading deficits and help her learn strategies. Let’s say Sally does not have a reading disability. The intervention is to target her reading deficits and help her learn strategies. Whoa! They’re the same. That’s right. There is no magical reading dust in special education, it is really just targeted intervention in the area of need with ongoing progress monitoring. A lot of the time, special education is basically just good teaching.

So I say, why not give Sally intervention in the first place, when she first shows signs of difficulty, way before she is so far behind that we spend 6 months in a bureaucratic-laden process to call her “disabled”? If after 6 months of intervention and good data collection, you will have a lot of information to work with if you end up doing an evaluation. But logic will get you nowhere in a school district that is under-resourced or hasn't bought into a response to intervention(RtI) framework yet.

All too frequently, special education becomes the only intervention, and that is just sad. There has to be an intervention before you can make a case that you need special intervention. Also, not all students with disabilities need special education. They may just need modifications in the general classroom. That is why I am repeatedly asking what interventions have been done in general education before I will entertain the need for a special education evaluation. I need to be convinced the problem can’t be remediated with targeted intervention in general education before I suspect a disability or a need for special education. Nevermind that you could go through the whole special education testing process and find there is no disability and that whole time you could have been doing something for the student.

Also, one of the “rule outs” of learning disability is that the problem isn’t due to other factors (second language acquisition issues, hearing or vision issues, poor instructional opportunities, poor attendance, etc). You can’t find out if the problem is truly neurological unless you rule out the environmental causes. The best way to do that is to provide the intervention and see if the student responds to it.

Now let’s make an important distinction between supports and interventions. I have sat in many student success team meetings (they are called several different names, but they are basically strategic parent-student-teacher-specialists meetings where interventions are generated for a struggling student.) At these meetings, ideas are generated about how to help students. Nine times out of ten, the “interventions” are actually supports. Here’s what I mean. Let’s play “spot the intervention” in the list below:

1) Sally will do her homework at a special desk at home
2) Sally will remain on task during silent reading
3) Mom will read with Sally 20 minutes a day
4) Mom will peak in the classroom from time to time to make sure Sally is working
5) Sally will not flirt with boys during silent reading time.

Ha! Trick question! There are no interventions in that list. There are only supports and expectations for Sally. So let’s put yourself in Sally’s shoes through an analogy. Let’s say you are in a foreign country and you are having difficulties reading in that language. Let’s say it’s Mandarin. Let’s say you get the 5 “interventions” above. Will this help your reading? Meh. Maybe? Or if you don’t know what you’re reading and you don’t have the skills, you might just sit at your special desk at home or during silent reading and just stare at the books you can't read. And as an added bonus, your mom is checking in on you and you can’t do fun stuff like interact with others. Now let’s say the intervention is a 6 week program with a Mandarin reading tutor who teaches you vocabulary, sound-symbol correspondence, Mandarin pronunciation, and does guided reading with you to give you corrective feedback. Will this help your reading? Um, I’m pretty sure it would.

The bonus is you can also do intervention PLUS supports. Just don’t leave out the intervention and then expect a school psychologist to take your referral for testing a student for a disability seriously. My eyes hurt sometimes from holding back the eye-rolling when I see only supports on pre-referral paperwork. I know the referrals come from a place of caring for the student and wanting to see progress. But let’s not be surprised when students have no intervention and do not progress. Friends, it’s not that your school psychologist doesn’t want to test the student for a disability, it’s that s/he doesn’t have any evidence that the problem can’t be remediated with a decent targeted intervention. And this is a clause that is in the law that we have to consider. It's a two part deal: 1) Have a disability, 2) Need special education. So if the students needs can be met in general education, no matter what their processing and IQ scores are, they don't qualify for special education. You can't find that out if you haven't tried targeted interventions first.

Sadly, here’s the rub. At some school sites, there are no decent targeted interventions because the school can’t afford a reading specialist or intervention specialist. Not all parents can afford outside support either. And here we have the perfect example of theory and practice being at odds. I totally get why special education is so popular as an "intervention." And I know teachers are doing their best with the resources they (don't) have. I get that they get blamed if the student is not progressing. And parents worry that their child will slip through the cracks. I'm with you. But I fear if urban public schools don't shift to RtI soon, I will have to bust out my memo for years to come. And nobody likes the person with the daily memo that says the same thing. Yeah....


*It can start there in the private sector. There is nothing stopping any interested parent from getting a private evaluation to undercover a student's learning strengths and areas of need and if there is disability causing academic or social challenges. In the public schools, its a whole another ball of legal and procedural wax. So to speak.

Special Education, IEPs, and Due Process, Oh My.

For those of you who missed it, here's my appearance on Learning and Laughter with Louise on the topic of special education. I did this radio appearance at 6:00 am on my summer break, since Louise is on east coast time. That means I had to get up at 5:30 to make a coffee the size of my head to be somewhat normal by 6am. I did it for the children.

We talked about a variety of topics, from the basics of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) to warning signs for Autism. At the end, there is a Q and A with parents who want to know if their child's behavior is typical, or a sign of a disability.

Also, may I note that I never want to hear myself laugh on the radio again, even if it is on a show called Learning and Laughter. I checked the url to make sure it was the right episode and I managed to skip right to the part where I laugh at my own joke. I die of embarrassment.

Enjoy!

Click here to download the episode onto iTunes. I tried for 2 days to embed a media player in this post so y'all could just listen here, but alas, FAIL. I guess if I were one of those fancy Web2.0 education people, I could do it. And if I even knew what Web 2.0 was, that would be even better.

IN THRPY.

I have run into this issue lately working with my teenage clients. They answer texts during therapy. Now I have to admit, I am an iPhone junky myself, so I can see the inclination. My iPhone alerts are like a baby calling. I know when my iPhone wants its mama even when it’s buried in my purse or far away in another room. *Ding!* That’s a text! Mama’s coming! While I’m being honest, I actually texted during my cardio workout the other day. So embarrassing. Why don’t I just get me a teacup poodle to put in my gym bag to complete the look? But it was important! At least I don’t have too loud conversations on public transit like the one I overhead last night: “Pookie! You know I want to see the kids, but I’m busy! Damn!” Everyone on the train knows about your marital issues. Fabulous.

So kids aren’t the only culprits.

In fact, I have had parents answer calls in the middle of presentations about whether or not their child has a disability. I have had parents check their email while their kid is telling them how they feel. A while back, I was working with a kid who did a drawing for me that was so telling. I have kids do what is called a “Kinetic Family Drawing” which is essentially a drawing of each family member doing something (to avoid the stick figure linear array and to get more at the roles the family members have). This girl, about age 12, drew a picture of her sitting on a chair in between her two parents, each with a cell phone on their ears, with a bubble coming out of their mouths saying, “Blah! Blah! Blah!” We had been talking for a while about her feelings, it was the end of the session, and I asked her, “Would you feel comfortable with me sharing this with your parents?” She said okay. I asked her, “Shall we bring them in right now?” She said, “Oooh. It’s just like Oprah. Bring them in.” Ha! I love that girl.

So what do you do when a kid is texting during treatment? I have taken several approaches. First, I think about the quality of the texting. Is it just one text and they say, “Sorry, I just have to respond to this because it’s my friend waiting for me?” Or, is it whenever we start talking about a touchy subject, the phone comes out? These are qualitatively different. I typically “notice and explore” to see if it is poor cell phone manners or a symptoms of something else (e.g. boredom, avoidance, passive aggressiveness). I say something like, “I notice when we started talking about school, you started texting. Is this an uncomfortable subject for you?” or “I notice that in the first few minutes of our session, you seem distracted with your phone. Can you tell me what that is about?” Usually, this ends up being a great starting point for other issues, such as parents trying to control them and their cell phone use, or how they get in trouble at school for their phone, or even how friends misinterpret what they text and they don’t understand why. I would have missed all that good stuff if I had been authoritarian about it, and stated “There are no cell phones during therapy.”*

Much of the time, when the phone comes out, it is just absent-minded poor cell phone etiquette.** So how do I address that? I think about what the underlying social skill violation is, and what the appropriate teaching point should be (usually, that it's rude to not pay attention to someone sitting 2 feet from you). Then, and give an “I message” to the student. As in: “I feel left out when you answer a text from your friend during session. Would you like to share what you are texting about?” Nine times out of ten, I only have to say that once, and I never see the phone again. On that tenth time, they sometimes share what the texting is about and it's a good topic to discuss in therapy. I can only hope my "I message" also planted the seed for preventing them from being that person who texts while doing cardio at the gym. Or at least that person who feels shame about it….

*In the public schools, I’m more rigid than in private practice. If there is a school-wide no cell phone rule, I give a warning and tell them the rules still apply in my office. They usually just put it away, no prob.

**In searching for a New York Times article I read a while back about how kids feel neglected by their parents because of excessive Blackberry use, I found this nice one on teaching kids cell phone etiquette. I couldn't find the original article I was looking for, so if anyone has the link, please share!