Bullying Article

I only work with elementary school-aged children so the level of bullying that I deal with is minimal for now, but this article from the New York Times sickened me. You want to know what happens to a young man that would make him snap? Try being the kid in this article for a couple of hours. It's a wonder that something disastrous hasn't happened yet. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

BBC

The Art of the Question

We had a psychiatrist come in to conduct an evaluation on a child who had severe panic attacks. The child couldn't finish the school day, because he would have these fits and try to leave the building. Well this psychiatrist came and interviewed the relevant staff, the parents, and the child in a matter of a couple of hours. He debriefed the us after he had met with the parents and laid it all for us. It was pretty amazing how he was able to sum it this kid's whole life experience in a matter of 2 hours. I was really impressed. It made me realize how it's all about the questions you ask, and how you ask them. He was able to get the information he needed to develop his hypothesis on what was going on with this kid. He didn't use any fancy instruments, tests, surveys, etc. He asked some questions, then some great follow-up questions and was able to formulate a theory. It really opened my eyes to the effectiveness of the clinical interview. I guess that the main difference is that because he has an MD at the end of his name, people take his diagnoses seriously. I could say the same thing he said, and I could be challenged on it in court. All this means that while psychiatrists can make definitive statements about what is wrong with a child, I have to speak in terms that reflect vagueness and uncertainty. "It appears that..." "It is possible that..." "It seems as if..."

Turns out there was a lot going on at home; much more than what we were aware of. There will need to be some significant changes within the family in order for this child to meet success. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

BBC

Standardized Tests

I was a proctor for our statewide standardized assessments last week. I've come to the conclusion that students use the same strategies when they have no idea how to solve a problem. What's even scarier is that they use the same strategies when they think they know. I'm realizing that if a student has a word problem that he doesn't understand, then he will just add up all the numbers that appear in the problem. Simple, but wrong. Granted, I was proctoring for the special education students, but I would still hope that they would use certain test strategies.

The students that I had all had time extension. Did any of them use it? No, only on the writing assessment. They finished before the actual time deadline on most of the tests, but they could have used as much time as possible. They had time to use their calculators, draw pictures to solve math problems, and really check over their work. But they didn't use it. It was very frustrating and demoralizing, because I wanted to help them, but I couldn't. It was really draining to see wrong answers, wrong strategies, and what seemed to be complete cluelessness about the whole process.

BBC

Rubber Room

I was listening to "This American Life" on NPR over the weekend and heard an interesting story about what happens to teachers who are removed from their classrooms in New York City Public Schools. Here's an archived version from The New York Times. When teachers are put on suspension because of some inappropriate action they are sent to the reassignment center, or as the teachers call it, the rubber room. Teachers report to the rubber room each and every morning until their cases are tried. Some of these teachers have been in the rubber room for months, even years. Some end a school year and start another school year in the rubber room. Meanwhile all of these teachers are earning a full salary. A full salary for doing 0% of work. 0.0%!!!! It would seem that the school district would want to hear these cases so that these teachers could be immediately terminated, if warranted. It is also peculiar that the teachers' union hasn't stepped in and stopped this mockery of the public school system. Any given day 750 teachers are attending these rubber rooms where they sit around, read books, play cards, sleep and do other frivolous things while substitute teachers teach their classes for them.

I know that some of these teachers get what they deserved. I'm sure there were more than a few that did things that I would not want a child to be subjected to, but why keep these people in limbo? This is reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay. Speaking of which, some of the teachers had been in the limbo room so long, that a prison culture has developed. There are racial cliques, people are hyper-territorial, and there is a pecking order. It's amazing how people respond to different situations. Educators reduced to hardened criminals.

BBC