What Makes An Expert An Expert?

 

This question came up in one of my classes this past semester and has been brewing and stewing in my mind since so, I thought I would ask you. 

What makes an expert an expert,  particularly when it comes to children and all things pertaining to kids?  Is it having kids of your own?  Is it having a degree in Psychology or in Education?

One so called expert who recently visited the school where I teach encouraged us to let a child, who is cursing because he or she is upset and angry, “curse it out.”  The kid just needs to get it off his or her chest.  However, another expert who visited about a year or so ago stated that not only is it unacceptable to allow a child to curse out a staff member, but that a child should not be allowed to swear at peers and should be taught to respect him or herself and others as well.

Two years ago, the teaching staff along with several aides and administrative staff members attended a day long conference with several workshops and break out sessions.  During one of those sessions, an “expert” told us that we should pick and choose our battles with the kids.  This “expert” told us that ignoring a curse word or two and turning a blind eye to certain harmless behaviors, as long as the kid’s general behavior is good, is completely acceptable and he encouraged it.  The school Assistant Principal (A.P.) even printed copies of this “expert’s” handout for all the teaching staff and discussed it the following afternoon at a staff meeting.

The day after said conference,  one of my students was sitting in class with the hood from his sweatshirt pulled over his head, quietly doing his work.  Although it is against school policy for students to wear hoods indoors, I didn’t saying anything.  Afterall, why would I want to do battle with a kid on pyschotropic meds, who also has behavior issues who is quietly working for a change?  Well, Mr. A.P. walked by my classroom, noticed this kid and his egregious act, entered the room and loudly stated, in front of the student and his peers, that the kid was violating school policy and that he needed points docked for wearing his hood in class.  The kid blew up and the situation quickly went downhill from there.  So much for picking and choosing battles.

And then, in addition to the myriad of so called experts that have been paraded in front of us at meetings and workshops, my colleagues and I have to deal with our resident psychology staff. Not only is the executive director a licensed pyschologist, there are also two permanent licensed psychologists who, in addition to serving as counselors for a few kids, supervise about four or five graduate students who are in the process of completing their doctorate degree.  I’ve seen many of these graduate counselors come and go, each with their own unique personalities and quirks, ready to try out all the latest theories, while putting both their book knowledge and DSM-IV guides to good use.  However, the group that was chosen to “counsel” the students for the 2006-2007 school year have been the worst by far. 

Two are affiliated with UCLA and they have not represented them well.  One is short and blonde and is seriously repulsed by people who are overweight and obese.  Very much the stereotyped privileged, valley girl blonde, she once stated to me that she could never be counseled by a person who was overweight “because, like, I would be thinking, like you’re wearing your issues, how can you possibly help me when you need help yourself!” Feel free to repeat that last line using your best valley girl voice.  She’s also stated more than once, “This is NOT what I was trained to do!”  Feel free to repeat that last line using your best valley girl voice, but this time whine while doing it.   According to her, she is going to use up all the days allotted to work on her dissertation without a single ounce of guilt and is counting down the days until she is gone.

Then we have the black Infinity SUV driving, I’m-too-cool-for-and-way-above-everyone-around-here, male counselor who has no fail solutions and suggestions for just about every behavior problem out there.  I wondered why he seemed to have this judgemental, you-should-be-doing-it-this-way air about him until I discovered that he was once a special ed. teacher.  Upon further questioning I found out that while he indeed taught in a special ed. classroom, he taught elementary grades.  Big, can we say BIG difference between elementary and high school kids.  Being me, I asked, “So why did you leave the classroom then?”  He paused and simply stated, “Because it was always my goal to be a pyschologist.”  Did I mention that this guy was the person responsible for bringing in the “curse it out” expert, who by the way read her PowerPoint presentation verbatim (which was unreable at key points due to a microscopic font size) and was so boring and dry that she had half the room dozing off?  And this apparently was the last straw for Mr. I’m-Above-Everyone-Else-And-Way-Too-Cool-Know-It-All-Counselor.  Feeling that this speaker, described by him as ”one of the smartest women I know”, (who was also turned out to be a former co-worker of his), was not given proper respect, along with feeling that his efforts to overhaul the student level and rewards system was not being embraced by staff, he threw his hands up and stated in one of our bogus committee meetings (created for district and California Department of Education site reviews/visits) that he has only x number of weeks left to go before he is out of here.

And you’ve already read about the DoE, who saunters into classroomsand makes comments and suggestions without having been in the room for more than three minutes or with out fully knowing the situation.  I won’t even go there . . . at least not yet.  Whew, I’ve digressed!

So anyway, I asked Dr. Man the question that I’m asking you and he said , “Well, it depends.  An expert is someone who has shown proven, considerable knowledge about the topic.  Because anyone can say they know a lot about a topic, proven is the key word, whether it be by licensing, certification, accreditation or some other general concensus.”  However he concluded saying, “But, that may not be what makes someone an expert in another person’s opinion.”

So what you do good folks think?  At a time when everyone, armed with a little knowledge or none, has an opinion, a book and a blog and seems to think that their way is best, what makes an expert an expert ?