Dr. Johnny Lops, child psychiatrist, reflects on the damaging pressure from testing on NYC parents, teachers and kids
Dr. Johnny Lops is a child psychiatrist who works at a hospital in Brooklyn and has a private practice. His website is at Drjohnnylops.com; and he tweets at @drjohnnylops
It’s Monday morning and I am sitting in my office in a clinic in Brooklyn, NY that services primarily low income multi-cultural families. My phone is blinking that I have a message, most likely over five. I can already predict the variety of calls I am about to hear. Many will be mothers informing me of complaints from school that their children have been acting out again, or that they are not focused, or that they continues to show insufficient effort or motivation.
Day in and day out, it seems the job of a NYC parents and teachers is becoming more stressful. I make jokes to the parents of the kids I see that I would not wish my worst enemy to become a teacher in these times. Gone are the days where teachers were allowed the time get to know their students or their parents and do what I hope schools would provide: the opportunity to develop good social skills, executive functioning , emotional intelligence and enhance their moral development.
What schools do instead is put an overwhelming, overbearing pressure on kids to achieve high scores on standardized test s, on which their teachers are then evaluated.. Well, if I am a teacher, I don’t have time to work on the development of a child. If my job is simply based on academics, then getting through lesson plans are most important. If I have a child who has experienced trauma, copes with multiple stressors at home like a majority of my kids, has an anxiety/depressive disorder, and/or a behavioral disorder, these kids are negatively