#Slice of Life 2019 Day 19

A glimpse of my morning as part-time Psych Examiner

This is my first year working for this district. I’m a new face to them. All year the students and teachers have been so pleasant and welcoming to me, but I’m glad the testing part of this year is almost done.

Today I worked at school: picked up the latest testing memo, requested students’ schedules and birthdays, set up the testing room and made arrangements to administer individual achievement tests to 3 children.

Usually, when I visit the class to request the students, they are caught off guard. As we walk to my testing room, I try to make conversation and put them at ease. I ask if there are other children in the family. I ask if this is the only school he or she has attended. I try to relate to them in a non threatening way. I tell them a bit about the tasks on the test: spelling, reading, math and writing, just normal stuff. I tell them how much time it will require. All this conversation can happen because this school has lots of halls. It’s all indoor halls from Kindergarten to high school. At the end of a normal day spent testing, my watch might show that I have walked 3.5 miles. I love that I’m getting to walk as I work, but it can be a challenge when I walk one student back to class then need to be at the other end of the building to get another student. I’m usually running a bit behind my schedule.

The first testing session went smoothly, the class was close to my room. We worked almost an hour, until it was time for recess and we could hear when it began. She didn’t miss anything fun.

When I walked to collect the second student, the class was gone. The note posted on the wall said they were in Computer class. I didn’t know where that was so I walked to the office to check. The secretaries gave me the room number and I walked in that direction. When I knocked, students let me in because the teacher was reading. I told the teacher who I was and which student I needed. The teacher softly said she was in the office. I ask, ” Behavior?” She shook her head yes, so I headed back to the office.

A small girl had been crying. I ask the secretaries if this was xxxx. The secretaries said yes. I told xxxx I planned to have her do some work for me but this might not be a good time. She said, ” No, I can do it.” I hesitated but she seemed eager to get out of the office so I ask the secretaries if I could take her with me to begin testing and they agreed it would be ok. We left and headed to my room. I told xxxx we should tell her classroom teacher what happened. She agreed so we walked toward her classroom. She told her teacher she got sent to the office because another girl got her in trouble. The teacher calmly responded to her, That doesn’t explain your behavior. Mrs. Xxxx will talk with you later.” We then walked to my room. She appeared ready to work so we began with a listening task. I watched as she worked to complete each task. No problems were noted and we continued for 30 minutes. It was lunchtime so I walked her to the cafeteria, helped her get food and sit with her class, even though I was running a few minutes behind to start with the next student. She chose which table of children to sit with and I headed toward the high school classes.

My next student to test was an 11th grader. He was caught off guard. I hate that part and again I try to explain…