As a parent and a teacher, I am less than thrilled about the reforms in education. We are now testing our children multiple times throughout the school year and using these test results as a way of evaluating the worth of a teacher. If students do not test better each year, the teacher will appear to be ineffective. So, teachers of the "gifted" are not going to appear to be very effective, as their students are not going to show much improvement.
On the other hand, children like my son, who is struggling with memory and processing issues from Lyme Disease and PANDAS, are every teacher's nightmare. He once did much better on these standardized tests, but as each year goes by, his score plummets. No, my son ain't gonna make no teacher look good. And no teacher is gonna be thrilled to teach a kid like him (except for his easy smile and great personality--but no--these also seem to be plummeting with this new PANDAS exacerbation.)
What's happening is that many schools are teaching students how to take these tests instead of teaching about the real world. So, instead of studying rocks and minerals in class, they might read passages and answer questions for months on end. That's not the kind of teacher I want for my kids. And it's not the kind of teacher I can be.
My 5th grade students can debate the merits of the electoral college. They can quote Shakespeare and give a speech. But if they struggle with math, and no matter how much I work with them, they bomb the end-of-the-year test, I'm going to look like an ineffective teacher.
My son now struggles with math and bombs the end-of-the-year test. Yeah. Guess his teachers are ineffective. No matter how good they actually are.
Years ago, a superintendent once said, "If a child is starving, you don't keep putting him on a scale. You feed him. So instead of constantly testing these kids, teach them."
What if a kid has a disease and isn't getting better? Do we keep tossing drugs at him? Do we throw him into a psychiatric hospital when the disease starts to affect his neurological system (or when the longevity of it results in depression?)
How accountable are doctors? For two years, my son was incorrectly diagnosed. This is typical for kids with PANDAS. And way too typical for kids and adults with chronic Lyme Disease. If the CDC doesn't yet recognize chronic Lyme Disease, are doctors still responsible for treating this? Where do ethics come in?
Part of the problem is that the current tests for Lyme are inaccurate. They often result in false negatives, as they did for my son. Igenex is supposed to be one of the stronger tests, and there are others as well, but none of the doctors we saw in NY used these.
The doctors who ultimately found the PANDAS and Lyme in my son are out-of-the-box thinkers (and also out-of-state.) These are the doctors, who, if they were 5th grade teachers, would be performing educational plays with their classes instead of spending months prepping for state tests. But this is what is shameful--it is these doctors who are being penalized. Some of doctors in our country who treat patients suffering from PANDAS and Lyme are being investigated by departments of health and harassed by competing doctors who don't subscribe to the treatments to this diseases (sometimes for undisclosed financial gain.)
Which doctor is considered highly effective--the one who observes every rule set out by the CDC or the one who treats the patient despite rules that are outdated? If a doctor says he doesn't believe in PANDAS, although there are hundreds of articles about it and a multitude of reseach studying it, do we get to complain to the principal or superintendent (and get that doctor fired?)
And that leads to the next question--why is it that NO hospital in this entire country can treat chronic Lyme? Is there NOWHERE for me to bring my son if we need a hospital? If the Lyme affects his brain, and I bring him to a hospital, they'll want to toss him into a psychiatric ward, much as Boston Children's Hospital wanted to do to sixteen-year old Elizabeth Wray.
Totally ineffective, that BCH, when it comes to PANDAS and Lyme.
I'm totally pro-doctors. I think doctors should be paid enough to make their many years of sacrifices and education worth their while. Mass General is installing a PANDAS clinic. They have my utmost respect. Westchester Medical Center? They won't recognize chronic Lyme. When we brought my son to the ER there, they didn't even test for Lyme. They assumed he had a psychiatric condition. And you know what they say about assuming.
Not recognizing that chronic Lyme exists is like saying that children don't have any learning issues. It's like stating that children are lazy and if they can't sit still, they need a good smack. It's about time we get our medical community up to standards--the patient's standards--and that starts from the top. And when it comes to evaluations? We need to look at the big picture. And the tests that currently exist don't measure this. In education or in the world of PANDAS and Lyme.
(Coming up--from Molecula Labs-- PANDAS test created by Dr. M. Cunningham.)