Issues in the Media

There have been a lot of relevant stories in the news. In today's New York Times, the chancellor of public schools in D.C. is resigning. Michelle Rhee is calling it quits. I didn't agree with her tactics, but it would have been interesting to see if they were effective. she battled the teachers' union. She abolished tenure and supported merit pay. With her absence, I'm not sure we will get a clear picture of the results of her efforts.

The recent story about the Rutgers student that committed suicide has everyone talking about digital media, social networking, and cyberbullying. My principal has been subtly pushing me to address bullying schoolwide. I think we have done a decent job of handling any bullying situations. My social worker went to a workshop that de-emphasized the use of the term "bullying". The rationale is that it can be vague and it often requires prolonged abuse. She proposed that we work on abolishing meanness. Even kids in kindergarten can identify something that's mean. They don't always understand bullying.

"Waiting for Superman" is taking the nation by storm. I haven't seen it yet, but I would like to. I'm not as defensive about the teaching profession as some of my colleagues. However, I do think that most people that bash teaching have no earthly idea what they are talking about. And they wouldn't last 5 minutes in front of a typical classroom.

That Look - The PPT

I think that there comes a time when your savings account of experience--your training on dealing with parents; your knowledge of special education law; every lesson you have learned about dealing with the mentally ill, and whatever moxie you have that keeps you from curling up into a ball and crying--has to be drained in order to survive a meeting. I had one of those meetings yesterday. This has preoccupied my attention so much that I neglected to show for a PPT for an interdistrict student on Friday, oops. My team prepared for this meeting by discussing who was going to say what during the PPT. Our lineup included the school nurse (who talked about the need for medication management), the special education teacher (who had good news because his academics are really strong) the social worker (who interviewed the parents extensively) and me. We decided to go in this order, school nurse, special ed teacher, school psychologist and social worker.

I couldn't eat my lunch. Most people thought I was really nervous, but I wasn't that nervous. It was the nervousness I usually feel before a performance. It was a good kind of nervous, I knew that it would help me raise my game to the appropriate level. The meeting was in the afternoon, and I only took a couple of bites of my sandwich before I knew it was futile to try and eat. As I made my way to the conference room I had a worrisome thought: What if the parents didn't show? I hadn't considered that. They could have just blown us off and I would have prepared for nothing.

But, they did show and the show went on. I don't mind being the meeting coordinator, except for the fact that I have to wear 2 hats during the meeting: coordinator and school psychologist. For this meeting I had to talk about my evaluation results, so I was doing double duty. I'm not sure if people appreciate how stressful that can be. Well, I presented my results and I felt that my role was to present a dose of reality: the child is emotionally disturbed. He has a past of aggressive behaviors towards peers and adults, and suicidal thoughts. After the results were presented, I had to tell the parents that their son was eligible for special education services for Emotional Disturbance. Actually, it didn't go that smoothly. I think I actually said, "Emotionally Disturbed. That's such an awful term. If we can change Mental Retardation to Intellectual Disability, then we should be able to do something about Emotional Disturbance.

In the end, the parents took the news well, I think. The father remarked that they had heard the news before, and after hearing it from so many different people, there must be some truth to it. The team recommended the student enroll in a therapeutic school. The parents seemed more receptive to the idea of an alternative setting, but we shall see.

BBC

Suicide Risk?

Today I get called to a third grade classroom because a kid said something disturbing that attracted his teacher's attention. The kid was playing a game with other students and blurted out "Raise your hand if you wish you could die," and he raised his own hand. So I get buzzed to visit the classroom.

The child talked to me and I tried to figure out his state of mind. I asked him how he was feeling, and he kept telling me that he was okay. Although, I could clearly see that something was bothering him, especially when I took into consideration the anguished look on his face. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. He told me that he was feeling sad, but he wasn't sure why. I asked him if he said that he wished he could die and he said yes. "How often? " "Sometimes."

Now at this point, I'm taking this very seriously. I'm looking at an 8 or 9 year old child with possible suicide ideation. What do I do now?

In the back of my mind, I was screaming at myself, "Find out if he has a plan! Find out if he has a plan!!!!" I asked him why he sometimes feels like dying and he said, "I have a boring life." I dug a little deeper and asked him what could change that would make his life not boring. He replied, "I could play baseball." After explaining to him that baseball would be possible in the spring and trying to gain more information, I couldn't get a good read on his intentions. He kept telling me that nothing else was making him feel sad. And I was starting to get pressed for time (I hate it when that happens, but I had to be at a meeting later.) So I knew there had to be more but I didn't feel that I had enough time to get what I needed from him. Our conversation left me with a feeling of uneasiness, so I told my supervisor and sat in on their conversation.

She was able to ask him about a plan, which he had none. Overall, her approach was great. She was able to get more information out of him and learn enough to assess the situation. The child seems depressed, so I may check in with him to see how he's feeling over the next couple of weeks.

I know that these things come with time, but I really felt like I didn't know what to do. Correction - I knew what to do, I just didn't know how to do it. Watching my supervisor talk with the child was a great learning experience for me. I hope that I can gain those counseling skills before I'm out there on my own.

BBC