Early Numeracy in Pre-Schoolers

Recent article in the New York Times (Brain Power - Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them - Series - NYTimes.com http://bit.ly/4oKBPX) looks at different ways to teach preschool children. I thought this was going to be another article that focused on reading. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it focused on math. Educators need to realize that math skills can be taught at an earlier age. We need to think about how children should be taught math basics including one-to-one correspondence. Lots of good info in this article.

BBC

That Look

"He just had that look in his eyes." The words from my principal as we debriefed on what had been an absolutely crazy 2 hours.

It all began innocently when a new student began his first day of school. What began innocently as a chld with some social anxiety saying he didn't want to eat lunch in the cafeteria, quickly turned into me slow-chasing this child around my building, while preventing him from climbing over the stair railings.

First, he refused to leave his classroom because he didn't want to eat lunch. The social worker convinced him to come to her office. He then ate lunch in the main office, which seemed to be working. I was in meetings all day so I didn't know that he spent a part of that lunch period roaming the hallway in front of the office. Someone asked me who his teacher was, because he was a new student, no one recognized him and, oh yes, he was refusing to talk. I jumped in and tried to talk to him, but that didn't work. That's when my adventure began.

I'm in an elementary school that has 3 floors. I never really thought having 3 floors in an elementary school would be cause for alarm. That is until I met this kid, Elijah (name changed for anonymity). So I was in slow pursuit up the stairs, because I knew that he had some anxiety issues, and I didn't want to make him more anxious. But he was raising my anxiety level by trying to climb onto the railings. To make matters worse, when I told him to get down, he refused, and he wasn't talking-just grunting and gesturing. The only time he spoke was when he told me he wanted to play the drums. I followed this kid around from about 20 minutes. When he tried to squeeze in between the railings that's when my principal stepped in (a little bit scared at this point) and told him he had to go downstairs. After a few minutes of "chasing" him around the office, he finally settled in the copy room. Of course to get there he had to break the sanctity of the teachers lounge. The teachers that were in there were alarmed and flabbergasted to see a kid traipse through the lounge. When he found the piano, it had a soothing effect and it pacified him. And that's where he stayed until his mother arrived to pick him up. He was immediately suspended.

The next day, his mother provided a stack of paperwork from his psychiatric intake, hospitalizations, school suspensions, and other mental health matters that occurred since last April. This would have been handy to know the day before. I immediately set up a PPT because this kid came with mental diagnosis and had a full evaluation. The report was pending at the time of our meeting.

My director did not like the idea of this student being in my building. He is too much of a risk, especially to himself. My director immediately suggested outplacement into a therapeutic school, that specializes in problem behaviors and emotionally disturbed children. I was shocked because this happened so quickly, usually this kind of outplacement takes months. It's not cheap. But I guess it's cheaper than having a possible suicide on your hands. The mom agreed to having her son attend the school while we complete an evaluation. The child has not enrolled yet, nor has the mom gone to the school for the intake interview. The child has been on homebound (receiving lessons at home) in the meantime. It will be interesting to see where this ends.

BBC

Bearer of Bad News

I had a PPT where I had to tell the parents that their son has significant issues and needs to attend a program in another school. Fortunately, the son was previously identified. It's hard being the bearer of bad news. Most parents don't take that kind of news too well, and who can blame them? There is no way around it, but as a member of the PPT I have to give the information as honest as possible. I think that some people find it easier to sugarcoat their news, or downplay the seriousness of their information. Unfortunately, the parents leave these meetings not understanding how limited their children are.

My most recent case involved a student that if he was a year younger (4 years old) he would have qualified under the disability of Developmental Delay. But since he was already 5 years old, no one wanted to revisit this case in less than a year to give him a new label. He entered my school as a kindergartner with a disability of Speech (Language) Impairment. Obviously to us he had more issues. These issues came to light during our evaluation. The good news was that the mother was aware that he had some limitations. n her words, she "hoped the news would have been better." The good part of the job is that we usually offer great recommendations to help the child. In this case, the child needed to be placed in a different school with a smaller, more intense kindergarten program. The parents agreed that it was a good recommendation and he entered the program today.

BBC

The Chocolate Milk Debate

This caught my attention because these are the things that Boards of Ed spend their time debating. From the LA Times, http://bit.ly/5U63cY.

I like how the 10year old girl convinced students to sign a petition. Future activist in the making?

BBC

RTI: An Update 3

As I suspected, I'm being slowly sucked into the RTI vortex at my school. We've started the process, yet no one knows what they are doing, and I'm afraid that it will somehow disintegrate into our former pre-referral system. Ugh.

My principal has begun the process of looking over referrals. I expressed my concern that there were only 2 referral forms on her desk. Teachers are still in the mode of "I don't think this child is doing well, let me fill out a referral form." They don't get it. The data, the numbers should tell them who gets referred. Am I supposed to believe that only 2 children are significantly behind in reading? Almost everyone did well on the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment)? Really? My principal first tried to find a time to schedule an RTI meeting so that relevant staff would be present. She doesn't work well with visual logic problems. I was able to figure out the day and time when everyone could meet. I guess this spoke to my scheduling skills. Mistake #1.

A couple of days ago, my principal asked me how to move forward. I told her my vision of how RTI should look. Mistake #2. (Damn it, I said I would profess to no knowledge of RTI!) Then today, she told me about her administrators' meeting with the superintendent. The principals were complaining about the RTI process and the confusion that was ensuing in their schools. People are stressed out and felt as if there is no direction coming from Central Office. Well, that would be the case when Central Office tells everyone that RTI will look different in each school. Now principals are comparing what other schools are doing and they are upset over the differences. Initiating RTI without a clear cut view of how it should look in every school, and without some uniformity was a major mistake. But what do I know, I'm just a school psychologist. Wait, I know everything! Because unlike all the other education professions, school psychologists have been talking about RTI for years now. Years. And everyone else is being introduced to it now. Unbelievable. The kicker: My principal remarked, "Well, you and I will have to figure out how we're going to run RTI here." We??? (sigh)

BBC

New Moon?

I'll admit that I used this title to get some hits from prepubescent girls looking for the latest on the Twilight sequel. However, I'm referring to something entirely different.

A teacher knocked on my door and told me she had something for me to see. She showed me a card that was obviously made by a student. She told me that the student handed it to her first thing this morning. It was a sheet of plain white paper, folded in half. On the front flap it read: Happy Day of School Happy. I should mention that this child is on the Autism Spectrum. Anyway, she pointed out the fact that someone, we assumed the mother, corrected the spelling and superimposed the correct letters on the card. Inside the card was picture of the boy with his shorts to his ankles, baring his butt for the camera. It was a bit shocking, and quite funny. And of course, really inappropriate. The teacher asked me what was she supposed to do with this information. I told her that she had to call the mother and tell her that he gave her the card. Upon further investigation, I realized that it was likely that the mother took the picture. There was a finger in the frame of the shot, and I could make out a long fingernail. The picture looked like it had been printed at the drugstore; definitely not printed from home, unless they have a great photo printer. Anyway, I was convinced that his mother was somehow involved in the creation of this card, and felt that the teacher needed to confront her.

She ended up showing the principal and social worker the card. The card made the social worker's day (see previous post). I predicted that the mother would first say that the card was hilarious, then agree that the card was inappropriate, then say that she had absolutely nothing to do with it. Before the teacher called, she informed us that recently the mother had mentioned that the boy wished to take a picture of his butt and give it to her. The teacher asked her not to let that happen. I think her exact words were, "Please don't." I guess mom didn't get the hint.

Of course when the teacher called, mom denied having any involvement. She claimed that she helped with the card's cover, but wasn't aware of what was on the inside. She also said that he used the self-timer on the camera to take the picture. That just wasn't true because you can clearly see someone's finger at the edge of the picture. Also, I'm not sure he has the skills to use the self-timer on a camera.

The bottom line is: Mom is weird. This isn't the first sign of abnormal behavior. She obviously thought this was hilarious, and when called on it, denied her involvement. The good thing was that my principal recognized that the boy really had no idea what he was doing. At the very least, he didn't understand how inappropriate that gesture was. Talk about a bad influence.

BBC

Heal the Healer

"Who heals the healer?" That's the rhetorical question I asked my principal today. Our social worker missed a couple of days this week and these days no one questions if you're really sick. If in doubt, stay home-that's the philosophy in the H1N1 era. Well, I assumed she was sick. When she walked into my office, I asked her how she was feeling. She told me she felt better and told me about feeling under the weather, which I suspected. But then she surprised me when she told me that her mother-in-law died yesterday. She started to weep and it was a bit disorienting. She and I are supposed to be the ones that console others when they are sad. Now I'm sitting across from my social worker, and she is understandably sad and I'm at a lost for words. She's supposed to be the strong one. She's the one that has the right words. What was I supposed to say? I tried to offer words of comfort to a colleague. But I wasn't prepared for my own reaction to her distress.

Who heals the healer? I think this question is relevant given the shooting incident in Ft. Hood. When you remove the suspicions of Islamic fundamentalism, the issues of military service, fraternity, and allegiance to this country, you are left with a man that was in distress. Worse still, a psychiatrist. People are focused on the motives behind such a tragedy, but I wonder what was in place to help this psychiatrist keep his sanity. It's pretty clear he had some kind of mental lapse, to put it mildly. Who was available to help him? Did he seek help? Hopefully, we'll get some answers soon. Time will tell if the military will look at the mental health of their mental health staff.

BBC

RTI: An Update 2

After the last few days, I am starting to feel a little more confident about the RTI process in my school. It has been promising that my principal has taken charge and responsibility of the whole process. This is a refreshing change, because I initially thought she would make me the RTI coordinator. The rollout will be rough, but I'm feeling better about because I won't be responsible.

BBC

Big Brother

I had a department meeting today. My supervisor told everyone about some changes. The one change that had everyone in an uproar was this log that we have to complete whenever we leave our buildings. At first, everyone was okay with it. We all thought it was wise to keep track of when we are at meetings in other buildings, doing outside evaluations or attending to personal business for a long period of time. But then we found out that we have to log in and out if we leave our buildings for lunch. What?? People were outraged. Why is the district keeping tabs on our whereabouts at all times? I knew the answer. The support staff at the high school have been abusing their lunch breaks. The high school is large and no one keeps track of the staff and their attendance during the day. They don't have to sign out of their building, so they come and go as they please. When I worked as an intern, I witnessed people coming in hours after school had started, leaving for hours at a time to do personal business during the day, and just being away without anyone knowing where they were or when they were returning. I'm sure there were some crises that happened at the high school and there were support staff that were unaccounted for. My supervisor said that he created the log so that when he gets phone calls about his staff, he knows where they are. So basically, because a few people abused the freedom to leave the building, everyone has to suffer. Isn't that the moral of education reform? Because of some bad practices in the past, the remedy goes completely overboard and inconveniences everyone.

BBC

RTI: An Update

My district decided to roll out RTI at all elementary schools this year for grades K-2. It decided to do this by having a 2 hours inservice with every k-2 teacher, elementary special education teacher elementary school psychologist, social worker and speech pathologist. It was a packed room with a bunch of confused people. There was too much information and not enough explanation on why RTI is a different concept. That's my main gripe: So far, only special ed people have been talking about RTI. Regular ed teachers haven't been talking about it. So when they sat in the inservice, most of them had no idea what the presenters were talking about. Each school should have had its own day to discuss this. The teachers need a new frame of reference. Many times I heard teachers still using terms as "referral" and "pre-referral" and they just didn't get it.

Unfortunately, my principal is to blame for the teachers from my school misunderstanding RTI. She erroneously told them that RTI was just like our broken pre-referral system. Therefore, the teachers didn't bother to pay attention. She is in denial, and we need her to get a grip and realize that this is a paradigm shift. The old way is dead. RTI is now.

The literacy specialists are inviting a teacher from a school that ran a pilot RTI program. We hope to learn how they adjusted and what role each person played. That's the main concern from the support staff: How do we fit into RTI? If our principal isn't taking the lead, then we need to be proactive and figure out how we fit before someone tries to use us as before.

BBC

Whose Child Is This?

Second day of school. Everyone is still learning the ropes. Kids are still learning the rules. Teachers are still learning who the students are, which is critical for what happened today.

Mid-morning an older woman comes into school looking for her granddaughter. Apparently her grandson put the granddaughter on the wrong bus. The little girl was supposed to go to another school in our town, but she got on the bus that came to my school. When the grandmother asked us, it seemed odd because we figured that it could not have happened because the teachers take attendance and someone would have noticed an extra student. The little girl was a kindergartner so my principal and the grandmother walked to the kindergarten wing. They asked the teachers and no one had heard of the girl. Luckily the student teacher was listening and told the principal that a student with the same name told her that she was in first grade, so she walked her down to the first grade wing. So principal and grandmother walked down to first grade and there was the little girl, walking beside the teacher, learning the rules of the classroom. When she saw her grandmother, she ran to her and hugged her. The teacher was bewildered and didn't understand what was happening. Apparently, when the little girl said her name, the teacher misheard her and thought she said a name that was similar sounding. The teacher thought she was a student that was not present on the first day of school. Being in first grade, the teacher did not have a true idea what the girl looked like, and assumed she was the missing student. The funny thing is, the little girl is actually in kindergarten but decided to tell the student teacher that she was in first grade. In the end, the grandmother was happy that her granddaughter was safe and sound, and took her to the correct school. It was truly an odd story that had a happy ending.

BBC

First Day

Another first day has come and gone. I asked my principal how first days affected her. She told me that she has nightmares about them. I haven't gotten to that point. My role on the first day is to be supportive, and since the first day is all about learning the rules and routines, I'm not needed as much. I spent the majority of my day working on scheduling meetings and tracking down information on new special ed students. Eleven new special ed students and I only have information on half of them. My school has so many new students, yet so many have left. There is a constant struggle with residency issues, and we suspect that there are still a few families that try to break the rules and send their children to school. The first few days are spent waiting for students to enroll because of late vacations, not being aware of when school started, or pending residency confirmations.

The day was uneventful, but my principal did pose an interesting question. As I passed by her office, she called me into her office. She asked, "What do you call those small bags that marijuana is sold in? (pause) Dime bags." She answered her own question. The odd thing was that she was busy typing something as she asked me the question. Now I'm wondering who she was typing this for. I simply remarked, "I'm not going to ask," and walked off.

BBC

RTI: The Experiment

"It's just like stuff we've already been doing." That's what my principal said in response to teachers asking "what's RTI?", when she informed them that there was a professional development day that would focus on it. Yeah, this year is going to be great. (sarcasm alert) When she said that I looked across the room to a couple of special ed. teachers and chuckled. This is going to be a mess. Where to begin? First, there is nothing happening in my school that is related to RTI. For some reason my principal thinks that it's better to introduce it as something that has been done before, but it's not. This is a huge shift from everything we've been doing. Our pre-referral process is a nightmare, and it needed something major to fix it. This is a start if it's implemented well. Second, the fact that teachers haven't heard of RTI is a major concern, but it has always been my concern. This is supposed to be a regular ed initiative, but regular ed people haven't been talking about it. This should be interesting.

BBC

Corporal Punishment

There are 20 states that still allow corporal punishment in schools. Click the link for the New York Times article http://bit.ly/NAKlJ I grew up in one of those states, and luckily live in a state that doesn't allow this practice. One would think that special ed students would be exempt from this form of punishment, but that would make too much sense. I hoped in 2009 that most states had moved away from this and it would be an interesting, antiquated story from my childhood. Unfortunately, more people will be able to share stories of paddlings for years to come.

BBC

Jury Duty

I was summoned for jury duty and I had heard that most lawyers don't like having psychologists as jurors. I'm not sure how true that is, but I was wondering if anyone else has heard this? Is it true?

The process is excruciating. I had to report by 8 AM but then we didn't get started until 10 AM. There was a humorous orientation by an assistant clerk. He must have done the speech hundreds of times, so he must have to spice it up a bit so that he doesn't fall asleep. Everyone definitely listened because his voice was very entertaining. Think game show prize announcer, e.g. Jack Pardo.

I couldn't help but think about how I was going to get out of jury duty. It's sad that I am a sensible and knowledgeable person, perfect for a jury, yet I don't want to be inconvenienced. So many people feel this way. If most people hate the idea of jury duty and do what they can to get out of it, then most juries are comprised of disgruntled people that couldn't get out of it and those who have nothing better to do. This may explain some of the unbelievable acquittals that have occurred in the past, i.e. O.J., Robert Blake, etc. The assistant clerk brought up civic duty and involvement in government. He brought up the issues and protests in Iran and I felt guilty for about a minute, and then I remembered that I enjoy having the summer off.

In the end I was not selected. They found enough jurors for the trial. Summer's back on.

BBC

The End is Near

Just a few more days and it will all be over. I actually made it through all of my annual reviews unscathed. I have a few more items of paperwork to complete, but I'm closing in on the end. Unfortunately, if it's the end of school that means the children are losing it. They are falling apart in record fashion. The kids with behavior issues are coming apart at the seams, and some of the well-behaving kids are having issues. It happens every year, but it always surprises me. There's something about the prospect of spending summer at home that causes turmoil within some kids. They can't handle the lack of structure for the entire summer. I feel for them. The ones that come from terrible homes get it the worst, because school is an escape. So for the next few days I expect to get a lot of requests for help.

BBC

Merit Pay for Teachers

This columnist makes a good point: merit pay can be disastrous in the wrong school. I think that mine fits that bill. http://bit.ly/16pECq

I see my staff becoming insanely jealous of any teacher that would earn the bonus. I can see some cheating happening, and worse, I think referrals would increase. Not only would we see an increase in teachers focusing their instruction solely on standardized tests, but more teachers would try (in vain) to have kids identified so they wouldn't be in their classes anymore. I'm not sure how that would work towards their yearly progress numbers. Furthermore, how would I become eligible for some merit pay? I'm pretty good at what I do, don't I deserve a bonus. Yeah, I don't see this working too well.

BBC

ED not only means Erectile Dysfunction

Recently I was part of my first evaluation for a student with Emotional Disturbance. As I told the parent that her son qualified for services under Emotional Disturbance, the words sounded really awful coming out of my mouth. The mental health field has made tremendous strides by changing mental retardation into intellectual disability. Why hasn't there been a similar change in Emotional Disturbance? The term sounds very negative and contributes to the stigma of being in special education. Hearing that a student is ED conjures up images of the worst kind of student in the classroom. No one hears ED and has pleasant thoughts.

The student was the subject of my last post, "Stuck in a Corner." He's definitely ED, no question. His inability to regulate his emotions prevent him from meeting success in the classroom. In the PPT I described him as having 3 sides, 1 side is jovial and compliant, 1 side requires constant prodding to motivate him to perform, and 1 side is completely non-compliant. I have seen these different sides of him during the evaluation and observations. Now that he has been identified I hope that his new program for next year will help him find success.

BBC

Stuck in a Corner

It always happens this way: I plan out my day, know where I need to be each minute of the day, and the unforeseen happens. I was observing a child in p.e. when he decided to have a meltdown. He was participating in a shooting contest where the students had to make the most baskets in 30 seconds. He missed a few shots at the beginning, but started to make them before the time was up. He became upset because he thought that one of the student's that was supposed to retrieve the balls for him impeded his performance. Luckily I was there to witness the whole thing and felt that he was being unrealistic about what actually happened. He stormed off the court and went through the emergency exit into the stairwell. I followed him and tried to coax him out of his funk and back into the classroom, to no avail.

We sat in the hallway for over 30 minutes as he repeatedly said "no" to every request I made. I ended up recruiting the principal to sit with him because I was supposed to finish an evaluation. I wasn't in the mood to sit with him, especially when he was being so non-responsive. He was stuck and I was stuck. Of course, I was the reason he stayed there, so once I left, he was willing to leave with the principal. I try not to take it personally when that happens, but it still gets to me. Sometimes I feel absolutely helpless when a kid refuses to leave the classroom, hallway, gym, etc. There really is nothing I can do when a student doesn't want to leave. I can't physically force the student to move. I have to somehow convince them to do so, but it is impossible if the child has a) emotional difficulties, b) a language impairment or c) general behavior issues or d) problems with authority. That accounts for about 80% of my school, so when a kid doesn't want to be removed, they put up resistance and we have a standoff. I guess the one thing I have going for me is that I never let the child see me annoyed by the situation. I try to stay pretty calm no matter what. I just wish that I could get some negotiation training from the FBI or something. I need to know some tricks on getting kids to give in and do what I need them to do. That might be beneficial in the long run.

BBC

Genius

David Brooks' op-ed piece in the NY Times was interesting. Click here http://tinyurl.com/coepo4
I remember reading about Tiger Woods' work ethic and how he would practice religiously. He practiced so much that other competitors failed in comparison. I don't think it's a coincidence that he's selling Tiger Focus Gatorade: Hydration for Concentration. He knows what it's all about.

BBC