Thank You Folks, Good Night!

Remember that episode of Seinfeld when George figured out that he should always leave on a high note. He cracks a joke, people in the meeting laugh, and he figures that's the best time to make his exit because it will go downhill from there.

I'm at the point now where I would like to leave my internship. Not leave for good, but I've been ending on a high note on most days, and I know that this run will end soon. We had a PPT meeting where I had to deliver results to some parents today. The kid had some major attention problems in testing and in the classroom. After ruling out other things and looking at the behavioral scales, we figured that ADHD was the logical choice. It kind of sucks though, while you get a high of figuring out what is wrong with the child, you don't get the satisfaction of telling the parent that you have the cure and the child will be fine in a couple of days. That's the part that's missing. We just get to deliver the news and then offer a plan and a label. Fortunately, the parents were aware of the child's attention problems, so ADHD wasn't a new concept for them. They thanked me for doing the evaluation. They thanked me. That was pretty cool. I got the chance to pass out some literature on ADHD and it made me feel useful, like I was offering some information to help them understand their child better. And to top it off, my supervisor and others told me that I did I good job reporting my results. That was cool.

Of course all this means that I will punched in the face by a 9 year old really soon. I need to go work on my reflexes.

BBC

Racial Balance

So the Supreme Court is handling a new case on racial balance of schools. This court is traditionally conservative so I think it will call the recent practices of schools in Kentucky and Washington as unconstitutional. The sad thing is that most people go to schools that are not racially balanced. I was lucky enough to go to a school with a student population that actually mirrored the demographics of the town.

Right now I'm working in a suburb that has a wealthy part of town and a poor part of town. Children on the south side don't get the resources that children on the north side do. It was interesting to look at a district map that showed how neighborhoods were divided in order to determine where students went to school. I've heard of gerrymandering, but my district is ridiculous. My school's zone looks like a double diamond. All the surrounding areas are a little more wealthier, but not by much. But it is interesting to see how the school zone looks. Who was responsible for determining which streets were in our zone? How is that determined? It just doesn't seem completely legit.

BBC

Today Was a Good Day

Today was great. It was the perfect way to end the week. I had to finish an assessment so that I could write the report over the weekend and hand it in on Monday. The kid that I've been testing was reluctant to come with me because he hated being pulled out of class. Today I had to be done with the testing, and I was feeling the pressure of the deadline. Of course when I sat down to prepare for testing I get call over the intercom to report to the office.

I get there and I'm told to see as distraught student in one of the classrooms. When I got there, the teacher told me that the student told her that she had a fight at home and she needed to talk to someone. I sat down with the student, and I was able to get her to open up to me and tell me what was going on. There were a lot of issues happening at home. Today, she had a fight with her sister which escalated into the police being called. Apparently, this student's family are no strangers to family services. After I got the necessary information I tracked down some resources and made sure she was able to get back to class.

I was finally able to start testing,. I had been trying to complete academic achievement testing and I only had a couple of subtests left. My student had a math test first, and then we finally met. Of course, by this time he had art class coming up, so we only met for a few minutes and then I had to dismiss him. Then I was off to meet with my supervisor. The meeting went well, and I received a good evaluation. It was nice to get some real feedback about what I can do to be better.

At the end of the day I was able to finish testing (whew), score it, and figure out how it will fit into my report. And the clincher, I was able to reconnect with a student that was mad at me because I failed to uphold my end of an agreement. He had been mad at me for weeks because I forgot to let him play basketball as a reward for good behavior. After using a teacher as a liasion, I approached him and asked if he wanted to play, he thought about it and said yes. I'm glad he finally agreed, because I was starting to wonder how long he was going to hold that grudge.

BBC

School Security Update

So my school really stepped up its security. It went from a school with an open front door that led directly to the indergarten with no one present to check on a visitor's nature of business, to a school with all locked doors, security cameras, a buzzer, and key passes for all personnel. I'm glad that finally happened, that was way overdue.

BBC

Election Day

Another election, and no mention of No Child Left Behind. What else am I supposed to rant about? The war? Anyway, I ran across this article in the NY Times. It's an interesting story about people on the spectrum.

BBC

Hell Hath No Fury

Hell hath no fury like an 11 year old scorned. I made the mistake of not following through with a reward system. An 11 year old that I'm working with didn't get his weekly award and was pissed at me the next time I saw him. It wasn't my fault, because his teacher told me that the program wasn't working. "Not working" equals "scrapped" to me, so I figured that the program had been dropped. Lo and behold, the kid was doing well and earning his checks. I was the one who didn't follow through, so now I look like an ass. I'm hoping that this will just blow over, but when I talked to someone who knows him well, she said that he doesn't let anything go, he holds grudges for a while. Great.

BBC

Who Are You Calling A Bully?

Today, I had my first IEP meeting with a parent. I had to present results from my evaluation. I prepared my presentation, but the parent didn't show. At first I was relieved, but then I was disappointed because I spent 25 hours writing that report, and I wanted the payoff. Well, I got the chance to do a mock presentation, and I'm glad it wasn't for a real parent because I made a little mistake.

I was giving my interpretation of the behavioral scales and I was mentioning some of the ciritical behaviors that the teacher noticed. I made the statement that the child sometimes bullied other children. The social worker, who was playing the mother, flipped out on me. "Who are you calling a bully? Are you calling my child a bully?" Shit! Now what? I had to stop the presentation and ask what to do. Basically I never call someone a bully, unless the parent has mentioned that before as well. Of course that all makes sense now, but I would have had my ass handed to me if I had said that to the parent. I guess that's why I'm an intern. I still have a lot to learn.

BBC

The Principal's Office

As an intern I'm trying to soak up every single experience. On days when we've had meetings I've attended most of them. Sometimes it does get ridiculous the number of people who show up for the meetings. For some meetings there could be the principal, reg. ed. teacher, spec. ed. teacher, school counselor, school psychologist, social worker, nurse, and mental health interns. That's not including the parent. I can see how the whole experience can be unnerving, especially for those people who are uncomfortable with being in school.

For a parent that spent too much time in the principal's office, coming back to school to discuss their child must be horrifying. I think I will be a little more receptive of this and not attend so many meetings. Besides, I have plenty of things to keep me busy.

BBC

Predator

This is just sickening. From the NY Times. Apparently if you were a young teenage boy in
Bayonne, NJ this woman was probably hunting for you.

BBC

TAG, You're Not It

Our district was putting the squeeze on the elementary schools to get their testing done for gifted students. I volunteered to help my supervisor out, since it would give me more pratice administering an IQ test. I was only giving the verbal subtests, so I knew it wouldn't take me that long.

I forgot that one of the plusses of testing lower than average kids is that they often don't know what they don't know. (That was an overly PC way of saying, "They're to dumb to know they got something wrong.") Sometimes that innocence is truly bliss. The kid I tested started crying at the end of the test. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he knew he got the last few questions wrong. Well, it didn't take a genius, he answered "I don't know" to most of them. I really felt sorry for him. Who knows what kind of pressure he was feeling or put upon himself to do well. That made me depressed at the end of the day. I don't know if he will qualify, his verbal score was just a little short.

Why is verbal capability the sole factor for determining giftedness? I know about C-H-C theory and g but isn't there more than just verbal skills. The kid seems to be pretty sharp at math, hopefully he will get some enrichment. My supervisor believed that his verbal score would qualify him for at least enrichment. That's good, because he's a great kid and I would hate to see him get lost in the shuffle. He could do whatever he put his mind to.

BBC

Hablas ingles???

So I've been rolling along with my assessment and counseling cases so far. There is this one kid that I haven't met with yet and I realize that it's because I need to speak to the parents first. My supervisor suspects that the parents only speak Spanish, so communicating with them will be hard. My Spanish is really rusty, so I have been reluctant to call them. I really don't want to get caught on the phone sounding like an idiot. I need to take a refresher course in Spanish pronto. It's really silly for me not to. I would be extra attractive as a school psychologist job candidate if I could add Spanish to my repertoire. Tons of school districts need bilingual school psycholoigists, I need to get this done. I know that if I took the time to refresh myself and spent more time speaking with others, I could be a decent Spanish speaker. I won't be translating Cervantes anytime soon, though.

BBC

School Shootings, Should I Be On Alert???

All the recent school shootings sort of have me on edge. I had a meeting with my supervisor today and we sort of glossed over it. I wish we were a little more proactive about what to do if something happens. We have a crisis plan, but I'm not sure what it entails. We don't have metal detectors in my school, and I don't think they are necessary, it is an elementary school. But some of these recent shootings involved outside people coming into the school and holding children hostage. That could happen just about anywhere, but I hope it doesn't happen in my school.

All this coverage makes me wonder about copycats. I wonder if the news coverage gives some disturbed people the idea of shooting up a school. I'm not trying to blame the media, but you do have to wonder.

BBC

Take It To The Limit

First thing this morning my principal walks up to me and pulls off my name tag. "Let's see how well people will remember your name now." Then he just walked away. It caught me off guard because I had heard that most interns had to wear nametags well into the school year. After 3 weeks my nametag is gone. That's good, I felt like a visitor wearing that damn thing all the time.

So after I tested my kid's cognitive ability today I decided to go back and test the limits on some of the visual perception tests. With some more structure and no time limit, the kid was able to complete most of the tasks. This was a far cry from yesterday when he was not performing well. So now I have to acknowledge the need for structure in my recommendations. I was glad to see that he was able to do the tasks.

BBC

Testing, testing, 1..2..3...

I was given my first evaluation assignment today. It was good to be working with a real kid. I've been practicing on the neighbors, children of friends, and some of my friends. I've practiced on some locquacious individuals. It was refreshing to work with someone who didn't give wordy answers for a change. When you work with children of superior intelligence, your idea of what's average becomes skewed. Practicing on the children of lawyers and doctors will do that to you. Working with the majority of children in our schools will show you what average really means. These children are, well, average.

I originally thought the kid I was working with had vision problems because when he worked on recreating patterns with blocks, they never matched the example. I was starting to freak out because I had never had someone do that poorly on that task. But as we went along he started to perform better. Whew!!!

When I thought about my first day of testing I realized that I probably didn't take the time to build good rapport. I have to remember that this is all a learning process. I guess the kid needed to warm up to me as well.

BBC

Jerry Springer Mom

Sometimes you meet people and you think "Is this for real?" We had a meeting today with a parent who was concerned about her kid's reading ability and behavior in school. We were able to determine that the kid is actually on target academically. He just needs to gain more confidence.

The mother was going on and on about how the kid's former school never kept her informed. Then she starts talking about how she wasn't really there for the kid the first few years of his life. She told us that she was a recovering addict. She told us that she also did some illegal things in the house when she was an addict. I assumed she meant prostitution. I guess the meeting was like therapy for her because she just kept opening up to us. I remember thinking, "Please stop talking." She kept saying things like, "I probably shouldn't be telling you this..." Please, don't tell us anything! I kept looking at the kindergarten teacher's face and she kept trying not to cringe. It got to the point where I had to stop looking at other people in the room because I was afraid that I would start laughing.

The feeling I had about the case quickly deteriorated. At first things seemed positive because the child didn't have as many academic issues as we first believed. But after the mother kept spilling things I became wary of the whole situation. 18 year old daughter that returned home, sugar daddy serving as the kid's father, implied prostitution, and the clincher, she had been clean for only 60 days! The whole time she presented herself as being a recovering addict for the past couple of years. Everyone was under the impression that she had been clean for a lot longer. Alarm bells went off. We will have to keep an eye on this kid's home situation.

I Spy

Today was all about observations. I observed several classes to see different teachers' styles. I also observed some of the kids I'll be working with. I observed a special education class where children were working on reading and math. It was good to see the detailed instruction that the children received.

I also spent a lot of time reading files today to prepare for counseling and assessments. The case histories are always really interesting. It's like doing detective work, "Here's the evidence that's been gathered, what do you make of it?" So far I have found a few inconsistencies with one of the files. I like trying to follow the paper trail to see where someone screwed up. I guess it's still fun because I haven't put faces or personalities to these files yet. Once they become real I'm sure I'll feel differently. Until then I'll continue to read files with the Law & Order chime going off in my head. Dong-dong!

BBC

I Want My Mommy!

Today I had to eat lunch with a kid who was distraught because he missed his mommy. Actually I should backtrack, I was sitting an eating lunch when there was an all page for support services to report to the nurse's station. When I arrived the nurse filled me in on this child who was not having a good time at lunch. He was sobbing and telling me that the only thing that would make him feel better was to go home and see his mother. I told him that I would eat lunch with him and the nurse was going to try and call his mother.

We found an office where we could eat and he started to calm down a little bit. I finally convinced him to take out his lunch. Did you know they finally changed Capri Sun packages, now the little straw hole is made of a thinner material. Do you remember trying to poke your straw through the old packages and having the straw tear a gash into the package? Was it only me? I swore off of them after it happened a couple of times. I don't like wearing Capri Sun. Sorry for the tangent.

As we talked I realized that this kid had a really good point. He wanted to see his mom because when he went home from school she was only there for a short time before she left for work. She returned from work after his bedtime. He hardly got to see her. I would be throwing a tantrum too. There are many parents that are working 2nd and 3rd jobs just to make ends meet. Kids like the one I dealt with don't see their parents either. Why isn't this addressed? This must have larger implications on education.

BBC

Consoler of Small Children

I think that's what my cards should say, "Consoler of Small Children." It seems like that's what some people think is my job so far. In some ways I don't mind because it gives me some practice with working with small children. But I wonder how many of these teachers actually try to resolve the situation themselves? At what point am I called in?

I received my counseling and assessment cases. Those should be good. Now I just hope parents are willing to have their children work with an intern.

I Froze

Today I froze when I could have handled a situation. I wasn't ready to dive right into a situation until I was acclimated to the school. Well, a teacher ran into the teacher's lounge when I was having lunch and asked for support services. Then she pointed at me and said, "You!?" And I looked at her and shook my head no." I probably had a look of sheer terror on my face. I really didn't know what kind of crisis was happening and I didn't want to get involved in something crazy just yet. In the end it was a crying child. I'm starting to sense a trend here.

For the majority of the day we looked at the special ed modifications that students required in the classroom. We discussed these with the teachers. Most of them seemed receptive to the information. There were a couple that didn't take it seriously. I was glad to see my supervisor remind them that the IEP was a legal document to be taken seriously. I was able to get the inside scoop on teachers that were likely to cause problems by not adhering to the modifications that were suggested. We shall see.

BBC

Words

On my second day, I walked around the school and spent some time observing classes. I sat in on an interesting lesson in one of te first grade classes. For homework the students had to find words that they knew and bring them to class the next day. Most of the words that the children knew were brand names like Disney and Coca-Cola. Some of the children brought in cereal boxes, and this showed how much they identified cartoon characters with food products, e.g. Fred Flintstone and Fruity Pebbles. The lesson was a very interesting way to show children how much they know about words. I could see it being useful for encouraging children who have reading difficulties. Although, it is scary how effective marketing can be to children. Here's an article about the increase in demands on first graders.

BBC