May

8

Add an edge to your presentations- use Animoto to create some hype

Filed Under Goals, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Use Animoto, a Web 2.0 application, to add an edge to your presentations that your students or any other audience will find engaging.

I’ve been wanting to create a multi media presentation for my Learning Strategies Class that would review all the different types of graphic organizers that I encourage the students to use to help them organize their thoughts when doing various assignments.

Surprisingly, sometimes when I talk about graphic organizers my students’ eyes glaze over. :) I wanted to catch their attention, and given that my Power Point presentations don’t really fare well when compared to the Much Music videos the kids love to watch, I was delighted to find Animoto, a Web 2.0 application. Animoto lets me create a a multi media presentation on any topic that has “the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer”.

What do my students think about Animoto? They think it’s really cool and were excited about it when I showed it to them the other day. They’re having lots of fun creating their own Animoto videos because they know the final product will look great.

Check out what I’ve done. I’m still exploring Animoto’s potential , but I already love it. It’s as easy as 1,2,3 to use. I’m sure you’ll find lots of ways to use it in and out of the classroom.

This Monday I’m giving a workshop at school to show my colleagues how easy it is to use. When I featured Animoto as “The Website of the Week”, it created quite a buzz. There’s lots of interest about it.

Oh, by the way the graphic organizers featured in my video can be found by clicking this link A list of Graphic Organizers I’ve found useful

May

2

Twenty percent of kids sitting in classrooms are mentally ill.

Filed Under "At-risk" students | 3 Comments

 
icon for podpress  Twenty percent of kids sitting in classrooms are mentally ill. [8:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (362)

Twenty percent of kids sitting in classrooms today are mentally ill. That’s shocking. What’s even more shocking is that only 1/5 of that twenty percent are getting treatment.

I could hardly believe my ears tonight when I heard that statistic on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Next week, May 3 - May 10, 2008 , is Children’s Mental Health Week and I suppose that’s why the program, “Kids aren’t right” aired tonight.

Steve Paikin discussed mental health issues with a panel consisting of

Leena Augimeri is the director of Program Development and Centre for Children Committing Offenses at the Child Development Institute, and adjunct assistant professor and sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto.

Carol Ann Curnock is a Special Education teacher for the Toronto District School Board. She teaches a self-contained class for learning disabled students in grades 6, 7, and 8. Dr. Curnock has degrees in Education and Counseling Psychology and a diverse background in both education and mental health.

Cathy Dandy is trustee for Ward 15 with the Toronto District School Board.

Susan Hess is president of Parents for Children’s Mental Health and the mother of a daughter with serious mental health problems. Susan was the driving force behind the creation of a Quilt of Honour, designed to be a visible testament to all children who struggle with mental illness.

Richard Meen is associate professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine. He is clinical director and psychiatric consultant with Kinark Child and Family Services.

Steven Singerman is a school social worker with the Toronto District School Board. Steven is also director of Clinical Development Resources & Concerned Parents’ Seminars and has a private practice in counseling and psychotherapy.

a distinguished panel to say the least.

At first I was totally shocked by the number of kids who are suffering from mental health issues. Twenty percent of kids in classrooms are suffering from mental health issues - that’s an average of 5 kids in a class of 25 students. Wow. Many classes are larger than 25 students. No wonder sometimes classes are so chaotic despite the teacher’s best efforts.

I said at first I was shocked and really didn’t believe was that large, but as I watched and listened to the panel discussion and began to better understand the problem, I realized a lot of inappropriate behaviour that I saw in classrooms could actually be dues mental health issues and not behavioural issues.

Let me just say here, that although I put down my cup of tea, grabbed a piece of paper and took notes furiously, I’m sure I didn’t get everything. Please keep that in mind. I’ve put a link to the web page so that you can watch the video for yourself. I realize my notes reflect who I am - a special education teacher who works with trouble, troubling and troublesome kids all day. I’m going to share what I learned and my thoughts about what I learned.

First, I learned mental health issues can look like behavior issues.

  • Falling asleep in class to block out everything, breaking things like pencils, throwing things like chairs or books, shouting and refusing to do what is asked can be a sign of an anxiety disorder.
  • Irritability, behaviour problems, explosive behaviour, disruptive behaviour, ADHD type behaviour of not focusing, not be able to concentrate , not being able to sit still can be a sign of depression. Depression is not just quiet behaviour of withdrawn.
  • Anger is sometime mislabeled as bad and the assumption is that kids can be disciplined into good behaviour. Sometimes kids who are bullied respond in anger and that behaviour gets misdiagnosed.

I’m not a counselor, a social worker or therapist. I am a special education behaviour specialist. I can suspect mental health issues and then bring my concerns to professionals like social workers , counselors or therapists who are trained to provide treatment.

In fact, even as a special education behaviour specialist , I don’t know that much about mental health issues. My special education training was mostly about identifying behaviours and trying to put strategies in place to change the undesirable behaviour into a desirable behaviour. I’m not a special education specialist in mental health issues. Maybe there needs to be such a thing If 20% of kids are suffering from mental health issues.

Now, if I as a special education specialist has difficulty recognizing and identifying potential mental health issues , how does a regular classroom teacher fare. The panel maintained that the regular classroom teacher doesn’t get enough training to recognize mental health issues when they arise in the classroom. Teacher training is more concerned with curriculum and classroom management. That definitely needs to change. There’s no doubt about that.

Teachers have to have more training in recognizing potential mental health issues so that they can identify kids and bring their concerns to administration so that kids can get the appropriate help. We have meetings every month where we raise concerns about kids, but because our model is mostly behavioural that’s what we see. Our behavioural lenses determines what we see. What we need are bifocal lenses so that we can see the mental health issues as well.

I know that it’s really important for these kids to get help

  • Some of these kids are so disruptive in the classroom that they preventing other kids from learning. It takes so much of the teachers time to deal with those disruptive 20% that we have little time for the other 80% of the class.
  • All kids have a right to learn and anything that interferes with that learning is not acceptable and needs to be dealt with in an appropriate way. If a student is acting a certain way because of mental health issues lets not punish the student but get treatment for that student so he too can learn and be successful in school.
  • These kids need help so when they grow up and become adults they can function optimally to become contributing members of society.
  • These kids need help so that the family dynamics and life can improve.
  • These kids need to be identified and receive treatment so that they can develop to their full potential and lead satisfying life.

There’s just no excuse.

I’ve also learned that there are seven years of warning about mental health issues. The first warning happens at age 7 when kids get into minor problems at school, then age 9.5 , then age 12 and finally age 14.5 when kids get into very serious problems with the law. When we look back, we can see the signs. Let’s not wait until kids get themselves into trouble and all we can say is “He was trouble in grade two. What do you expect”. I expect better.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen that pattern myself but didn’t recognize it for what it was. I thought it was a behaviour problem, just as I was trained to do and then devised strategies to help turn that behaviour around. Regrettably, sometimes none of the strategies worked and I could only feel badly. What good is feeling badly. I’m getting angry now just thinking about how the system is failing kids. I’ve thought that grade nine is too late to to help some of these kids.They really need help in grade one. I wasn’t wrong.

I’ve learned that in the Toronto Board there is one social worker for every seven schools, and it can take up to seven months for non emergency cases to have a psychological assessment done. I’m not sure what it is in other district but I know that it takes about the same time in my district. Getting a quick psychological assessment seems impossible at this time. That’s got to change if we are serious about helping these kids.

I’m still shocked about this whole thing. Twenty percent of kids sitting in classrooms have mental health issues and only 1/5 of them get treatment. I’m really glad I decided to sit down and have that cup of tea and watch The Agenda tonight. I have to say that this program tonight has been an eye opener. I have to do something. What I’m not sure yet. The first thing I’ve done is to write this post and share what I’ve learned with you. Beyond that, I don’t know yet. But I cannot, not do anything. My conscience won’t let me.

What will you do?

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May

1

RSS Awareness Day on May Day- honouring “workers” on the blogosphere

Filed Under Blogging in and out of the Classroom | Leave a Comment

RSS Awareness Day

What a great idea to have RSS  Awareness Day on May Day, International Workers Day - the day traditionally set aside to honour workers.  The RSS feeds are real workers that make my life easier on the blogosphere.  Basically Google Reader and Itunes  do the work for me. I’ll raise a virtual toast to them.

  

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