Tall Poppy Syndrome

Tall Poppy Syndrome comes from the idea that when an individual reaches a higher status, others feel the need to cut him or her down, i.e. cutting the tall poppy. Recently a teacher in my school was awarded a very prestigious national teaching award. There was a huge build-up to the event. We all knew that there was going to be a special assembly, and that many people from around the entire state would be in attendance. There was a huge amount of suspense and they finally announced that one of the teachers in my school won this magnificent award. It was a great event, and I was happy for her.

I had spent the first part of the morning trying to figure out what the announcement was going to be. I met some of the special guests and developed a few theories based on who they were or where they were from. At some point in the morning, my principal pulled me aside and told me that she had an assignment for me during the assembly. She wanted me to read the body language of the teachers after the announcement was made. At first I thought that the announcement was going to be some sort of letdown. Were they going to announce a new initiative dealing with curriculum, or something else less desirable? So now my wheels were really turning-what were they going to announce?

I remembered my assignment and when the name of the teacher was announced I made sure I observed all of the staff members that were within my view. There were many teachers who seemed happy, I'm sure there were a few who were putting on a show, which was fine. But there were a few who didn't try to hide their displeasure or apathy towards the announcement. It was really interesting to see the number of people who were not thrilled about this teacher winning the award. Tall poppy syndrome reared its ugly head. I guess when one person is singled out, everyone asks the question, "Why not me?"

All teachers work hard, so when one person gets recognized, others feel left out. I understand. But I would have hoped that those teachers would see how this one teacher's recognition shines a spotlight on our school. One teacher that I talked to mentioned that we all should be recognized for the work that we do. I agree but I think we should support and celebrate when a teacher is recognized for his or her work. Maybe it's easier for me because I'm not a teacher, therefore I don't have to "compete" with them. This teacher didn't apply for the award, in fact, no one can apply for it, the committee selects each candidate from a pool of candidates that each state provides. This teacher was selected from a pool of candidates and the selection committee liked what they saw. I'm proud of the fact that my school has a teacher that has received national recognition.

BBC

Triage

I'm back. I've been out of commission technologically for a several days. The hiatus is over so back to the stories, and this one is well worth the wait. This happened three weeks ago.

The story actually begins the night before (Tuesday night). I'm watching the evening news before going to bed and the local broadcast reported a deadly shooting spree that occurred in the town where I work. Not only was the shooting in the town, but it also occurred in my school's neighborhood. At the very least I knew that I would have some children who would be aware of what happened, so I mentally prepared myself for doing a lot of talking the next day. I knew that one particular student, Nathan* would be preoccupied with what happened. This student has a proclivity for discussing violence, and his conversations are usually peppered with battles of good and evil and bad guys dying. The first words out of his mouth when he stepped off the bus were, "Somebody got shot!" I knew that I needed to pull him aside and talk to him immediately. I didn't need him scaring other first graders with that kind of talk. Before I could pull him aside, the bus driver informed me that there were police cars outside another student's house as she was picking him up. As I walked into the building to talk to Nathan I saw that the other student in question was talking to the principal, so I figured that she would handle that situation.

I walked Nathan to his classroom and the exchange with his teacher went like this.

"Good Morning, Nathan."

"Somebody got shot last night."

"What?"

I informed the teacher that I was there to talk to Nathan about what happened. As I was turning to walk down the hall, I saw a 6th grade teacher waving frantically at me. He yelled down the hall that he needed me. I told him that I was busy, while pointing the Nathan. By this point the teacher was closer and told me that he had a 6th grader who apparently witnessed the shooting. So then I entered triage mode. I had to handle each emergency according to severity. At that point I believed I had a 6th grader, completely traumatized and curled in the fetal position in the 6th grade hallway. So I tried to find someone to watch Nathan while I dealt with the other student. I found the principal in the conference room talking to a student. I asked her if I could drop off Nathan, she told me no because she was dealing with an issue. I asked her if it was the same one I was dealing with and she emphatically said no. She was enlisting the help of the social worker for her issue. I couldn't find any interns either. (What are their hours anyway? I swear I was constantly at school when I was an intern.) I did find a teacher to watch Nathan while I went to help the 6th grader. Imagine my surprise when I finally walked into the 6th grade wing to find the student calm, relaxed and looking at a book. Not crying, not hysterical, not in the fetal position. I was relieved that he seemed okay, but at the same time I was a little peeved at the teacher for implying that it was a critical situation. I brought the student down to the conference room to talk with me and the principal. I have to give my principal credit, there are times when she really knows how to handle a situation and knows exactly what to say. I've asked her before how she knows what to say. She said that she thinks about and emulates the social worker and the former school psychologist, who just happened to be my supervisor. I'm surrounded by good role models. Back to the story: So, we sat down with the student, Steven*, and asked him what he saw the day before. He told us that he was walking down the street with relatives that afternoon. He said that he saw a teenager walk behind this other teen and shoot him in the back of the head. Then the police showed up and arrested the shooter. The shooter was someone that Steven knew. The shooter was also a former student of my school. The story sounded credible, Steven sounded convincing, but part of me felt like something was missing. I felt that his timeline had holes in it. Boy shoots another, boy gets arrested. It seemed like there should have been fleeing in between, but what did I know? Steven was confused because he didn't know why the suspect would have shot the other teen. He also didn't know how the suspect got a gun. That was actually quite refreshing to hear since many kids are too street-smart for their own good. The fact that he didn't know how to get his hands on a handgun gave me some hope.

We finished interviewing Steven and I told him to be careful about who was near him when he spoke about the incident with classmates. I explained to him that while a 6th grader can think hypothetically and has a secure sense of timing, kindergarteners, first graders and second graders do not have this sense. They were likely to misunderstand and think that someone was at the school shooting, or planning to shoot them. He understood and agreed to refrain from discussing it within earshot of the younger students.

Meanwhile, the social worker was dealing with the student who had police cars outside his house that morning. There was a domestic violence dispute happening in his house involving his parents. Children's services were contacted and came to school to interview him.

Also, a disgruntled third grader was refusing to leave his mom's car as she was attempting to drop him off in front of the school. At one point, mom sort of shoved him out of the car and sped off, leaving him on the curb. The student slowly made his way to the flagpole, which he clung to in protest. Normally, he would have been top priority, but under the current circumstances, my principal told the receptionist to make sure that someone was at least watching him to make sure he didn't run off.

Someone else in the building reported that a first grader's home was the target of a home invasion the night before. Someone talked to the first grader and realized that he had no idea what happened, so he wasn't a major concern for the day.

There were multiple reports floating around the school all day, and it was hard to figure out what was fact and what was speculation. Children have very vivid imaginations. I ended up talking to the school psychologist at the high school and she was able to shed some light on the situation. Her perspective was completely different, yet useful. She believed that my 6th grader didn't see what he claimed. The sixth grader fingered the wrong person. But we still didn't have the facts.

During the day I remembered that I watched the news the night before and saw that they had arrested someone. His name didn't match the one that Steven said. I found the article online and shared it with my principal. The article mentioned that a 15 yr old was also arrested for the first shooting. I wondered if that was the person that Steven knew. My principal and the school psychologist at the high school were able to figure out exactly what happened. Here goes:

Steven did see someone he knew get arrested. He may have witnessed the shooting from far away. The unfortunate thing was that Steven's acquaintance and the real shooter were dressed similarly, so when the 15 yr old was arrested, Steven assumed that he witnessed him doing the shooting. The real shooter continued his shooting spree, which tipped off the police as to them having arrested the wrong person. So in the end, Steven was wrong, yet he wasn't lying. And the clincher: the 1st grader's home invasion was the police invading the home to arrest the real shooter.

Just an extraordinarily crazy day in the life of a school psychologist.

BBC

Elizabeth's PPT

We had an interdistrict PPT for Elizabeth today. It was an interdistrict meeting because Elizabeth is under the custody of Children's Services. Our goal was to get her former district to provide an aide to supervise Elizabeth in our school. There were many people at this PPT. Representatives from her former district were there, as well as her educational surrogate, foster parents, and numerous therapists. The staff members from my school were also present. We discussed Elizabeth's issues at length. We came to a decision that her therapy at school and in private practice shouldn't overlap, which was fine with the school. We don't feel comfortable providing therapy for her sexual abuse. It sounded like her therapy is going well, she has a lot of issues to deal with. The positive thing is that she is very open about her past, which is something rare in victims. At the end of the meeting, we revised a few of her goals and the other district agreed to pay for a paraprofessional to work with Elizabeth. Mission accomplished.

BBC

Michigan J. Frog Syndrome

Do you remember the Looney Tunes cartoon that featured the singing frog? Click here for video. He would don a top hat and a cane and sing "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal..." He would only perform in front of one person and whenever that guy wanted the frog to perform in front of others, the frog would just sit there and say "ribbit." The frog's name was Michigan J.Frog and he also became a spokesfrog for the now defunct WB Network. I mention this because I sometimes see the Michigan J. Frog syndrome whenever I do observations in classrooms. Today I was observing a new first grader who has displayed many immature behaviors. He seems overly sensitive to when the teacher corrects him. He is very clingy with the classroom aide, even sitting on her lap at some point. He seems fragile both physically and emotionally. I went in to see if I could observe some of the reported behaviors. What I ended up observing was a very appropriate and attentive child. He followed directions, sat attentively, and even answered a question directly. The class was reviewing the letter "v" and offering words that started with that letter. The student raised his hand and answered, "Victory". The teacher looked at the incredulously as if the to say, "I can't believe he actually came up with the right answer. Needless to say, I didn't seen any notable behaviors. He was the perfect student. Classic Michigan J.

BBC

Report Writing

My school has experienced an influx of new special ed students. The positive of these additions is the fact that I get to see many different writing styles in the psycho-educational reports. I get to see how many people actually interpret findings instead of reporting numbers. Unfortunately, I've learned in the past few weeks that truly interpretive reports are hard to come by.

I guess I have to thank my school psychology professors and site supervisor because they stressed good report writing. I see the report as a way to understand why a child performs or behaves the way that he or she does. The report should paint a picture of the child that one can observe in the classroom. Unfortunately, the majority of the reports that I've read seem to be content with listing scores and what each test is supposed to measure. The reports haven't been reader friendly, and they do a poor job of describing the child. Anyone can list scores, it takes talent and skill to interpret what it means and make connections to observations. I've always found that what I observe during IQ testing, not what a child says, but how she behaves when responding, is the most important information. Is a child answering questions easily? Does he struggle to answer most questions? Does she try to avoid answering questions? Is he aware of how well or how poor he's doing? These all matter and tell me about motivation, level of effort, self-awareness, and ease of information retrieval. These are the little things that I add to my reports to inform the reader of how the child completes tasks. I guess I was trained well.

It's just frustrating to expect to learn something about the student and all you have are scores. How can people take pride in pumping out bland reports like that? This is something that will sit in the child's file forever. You're making your mark. I can't believe people don't take more pride in their craft. The report is where you show off your competency as a school psychologist. People don't see us test or counsel children; therefore the report is a way to make a great impression and prove your worth. Otherwise, what's the point? I could put scores on a chart and save a whole lot of time.

BBC