34
Every school district has THAT psychologist. THAT psychologist who everyone is hoping will just retire already. Everyone is just waiting a few more years for that incompetent person to leave. The mere mention of THAT psychologist’s name strikes fear and disgust in people’s hearts. The other day, a colleague said the name of an incompetent employee we know and I reflexively repeated her name in a low voice, with one squinty, suspicious eye. She laughed at my Pavlovian response to her name, as it is well known this person should not be around children, let alone be responsible for any portion of a child's mental health.
My visceral negative reaction to this person's name is not unlike the scene in Young Frankenstein in which every time they say Frau Blucher’s name, the horses whinny up in fear. My colleague and I had a good time whinnying that day.
Do watch the whole clip. The last 5 seconds are the best.
I have had to work with this Frau Psychologist (Niiiiiiihiiiii!)* before. She is presently still employed in an unnamed district and is approaching her 6, maybe 7,000th year as a “school psychologist.” I put that in quotations, because she does not resemble what I think of as a school psychologist. Some of her infractions include:
1) Writing incoherent reports that use 3 different kids’ names in them and read like this: Derek’s scores indicate that Franklin is in the above average range with below average skills. Casey showed poor reading skills, along with excellent reading comprehension. Results indicate that . No, I didn’t forget to finish typing, that was her conclusion.
2) Not having a basic understanding that a kid can be behind in reading or math and it is not due to a disability. A teenager she tested had just came from Mexico two weeks prior to testing, did poorly on reading in a language he didn’t know, and she concluded he was learning disabled and he went in special education.
3) Incessant noisy gum chewing. Ok, that doesn’t make you a bad school psychologist, but it sure is annoying *smak* to *smak* listen *smak* to *smak* that *smak* in *smak* between *smak* *smak* *smak* words.
4) Frau Psychologist (Niiiiiihiiiii!)* also angers easily and is toxic in every meeting. Once, when asked to contribute money to the social fund for a psychologist who was ill and in the hospital, she argued that she shouldn’t have to because no one got her anything when she was sick last year. Nice empathy.
5) As you can imagine, any psychologist who followed in her footsteps had a boatload of unethical, incompetent assessments to re-do. When a child was due for re-testing, I would cautiously open up the file, say a silent prayer she didn’t do the last testing, and then of course, have to re-do it entirely and tell the parents that we were just kidding about that learning disability.
How can it be that such incompetent people continue to shame our profession? Does this happen in other professions? Are there Frau Accountants, Frau Teachers and Herr Human Resource Guy? How are these people not fired???
All I know is I came across a Frau Psychologist* report the other day and inadvertently whinnied out loud and reared my arms up in manner of horse, and then had a lot of explaining to do to my co-workers around me. Maybe soon I will be the crazy psychologist people hope they don’t have to deal with. Then, it will be officially time to retire.