Blog 3 Chapter 4 Reflection Moment
For this week’s blog I
have chosen to focus on the following reflection moment from chapter 4. “What
were your academic issues in school?
What were your grades like? Did
you study hard? What were your
priorities? What were your easy subjects
and which ones really challenged you (Dollarhide & Saginak, 2012 p.53)?”
The timing of this
reflection couldn’t be more perfect.
Recently my mother cleaned out her attic and handed me a stack of
papers, projects, and report cards from elementary school. In the stack were my metropolitan achievement
test scores from the 5th grade along with several report cards. It was so eye opening for me to look through
those comments and scores through the lens of an adult about to get her master’s
degree in education, something I never dreamed possible. The following is what
I discovered and gained from this unique reflection.
When I looked at the
comments of the report cards my teachers all shared one similar comment…”Angela
needs to pay attention and stop talking to/ bothering her peers”. Yes I was a hyperactive kid who frequently
got bored in class. It wasn’t until my
college years that I was diagnosed with ADD.
It would have been nice to have someone help me with my attention in
grade school. Maybe I would have been a
more focused and disciplined student who could’ve lived up to her potential a
lot sooner in life.
I didn’t try very hard in
school and I got by with mostly B’s a few A’s in subjects that I found
interesting and occasionally I had a D or F in Math. As I got older I barely went to school and in
high school I missed 32 days my senior year.
Nobody cared and I graduated with a B average. Now that I look at my
report cards and the results of the achievement test I try to make sense of the
big picture and my educational journey.
My achievement scores are
very telling of something I think is often over-looked in school
counseling. As I look at my test results
the thing that jumps out is my high scores in math, science, and social
studies. I scored in the 97th
percentile for each subject. I thought,
“wait I was good at math and science” and nobody told me. I was never encouraged in either but here I
am studying the science of psychology and education and I think that I just got
lucky. I believe it’s very important to
encourage kids (especially girls) in
math and science in this achievement scores age. Did my gender detract from being encouraged
in a male dominated arena? As I continue
to review my test I notice that my scores indicate that I am competent in many
of the subjects at the high school level and overall I was in the 92nd
percentile in the nation. So why are my
grades so average and why did I get a D in math so often?
I believe my grades did
not reflect my abilities for a number of reasons that I think are important for
school counselors to consider when dealing with gifted kids. Gifted kids can be “at risk” too I talked to other kids because I was
bored. I have a genius IQ and I also
spent many years on the academic bowl (quiz bowl) team with the kids enrolled
in the gifted program. I was the only
student not in the gifted program and with average grades on the team. I didn’t want to be in the gifted program because
I saw it as extra homework and I didn’t understand why I would want to do extra
work. I wish someone had encouraged me
to try it anyway.
I did okay in school,
existing under the radar, and completely unchallenged. Part of me feeling unchallenged, came from my
home environment. My stepfather was very
verbally abusive and there wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t told I was
“hard headed” or “dumb”. If you hear a
lie often enough it can become the truth.
I began to believe I was stupid and I didn’t want to try. I just wanted out of school and out of my
home. That’s why when I was senior I
only applied to one school very late in the game. Lucky for me I was accepted and I went to
college because I didn’t have anything better to do and I could stay with my
friends. That’s the real reason I went
to college.
I also had a unique set of
health problems. When I was 12 I was
diagnosed with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (yes it’s really called that http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/mental-disorders/what-is-alice-in-wonderland-syndrome.htm
). It’s a condition that causes temporal lobe
seizures and made me feel dizzy and disoriented many times through out the
school day. I can remember the sound of
the school bell setting off my “dizzy spells” as we called it. Once my condition made me pass out in school
and an ambulance had to come. I was so
embarrassed and even got picked on for it.
Again, I was doing okay grade wise so I guess that’s why I never got any
form of assistance in school but I should have.
On the plus side, seeing my brain images from a CT scan inspired my love
of neuroscience and subsequently psychology.
The problem is when school
counselors, teachers, and administrators only look at grades to determine the
success of their students they miss the big picture. I think my saving grace and the thing that
got me into higher education can also be found in the stack of papers my mom
gave me. I see watercolor paintings,
collages, and even some short stories I wrote and illustrated. My creativity or spatial intelligence has
been the piece that has kept me engaged in learning. I love to invent and design because it
interests me and challenges me. Lucky
for me I have an intrinsic desire to keep being creative and that has propelled
into my career path. As a school
counselor I will use my experience to make sure I reach all students. I want student’s to know that all of their
issues and challenges are important and that just squeaking by isn’t good
enough. I am so grateful I am able to
reflect from this vantage point.
Dollarhide, C.T. & Saginak, K.A. (2012) Comprehensive school
counseling programs. (2nd ed.). New York: Pearson, Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment