Blog 12

I enjoyed reading chapter 12 in our textbook “The Delivery System in Action” as I think it did a nice job of showing what a high quality delivery system looks like at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. It also gave me food for thought on my reasoning for wanting to work with elementary school students.

In my previous career, I worked with youth grades 7-12. While I enjoyed working with them, I definitely gravitated towards the middle school students. Yes there was drama and all that but I just found them interesting people to be around and I appreciated their ideas and energy. The high school students just seemed a bit too complicated to me. That’s simplistic I know but that’s how I felt.

 Until I had children of my own, I really didn’t have a lot of experience with elementary level students. Now my daughters are in 2^nd and 5^th grade and I have enjoyed volunteering at their schools. I found that I really enjoy being around this age group. I like their curiosity, enthusiasm, and playfulness. I love watching them have “a ha!” moments. They still enjoy working with adults and I like being with them at the earlier stages of development as I feel I could most make a difference at this level. At this point, I would be happy to work in either an elementary school or middle school. I think I lean a bit more towards elementary school. I really am not interested in working with high school students at this time. All of the testing and college prep doesn’t appeal to me. I know a high school counselor does a lot more than that of course but those two things are crucial at this level.

After working on the WIKI on our Comprehensive School Counseling Program, the reading this week was all familiar and I enjoyed seeing it all kind of “fall into place” under the appropriate categories. I felt like I got it for the most part and it made sense. I am so excited to start my Practicum (at an elementary and middle school) and see how this all plays out in real life. I have high expectations for these 15 weeks and I want to pack in the learning, observing, and guiding. I also am just very excited and a little anxious to see what job openings start being advertised and how that interview process goes. I am trying to stay positive but it is a little overwhelming when you hear of only a few jobs and a huge pool of applicants. My plan is to move forward with my optimistic outlook (with a healthy dose of reality thrown in) and expectation that I will get a school counseling position for fall 2014!

Dollarhide, C.T. & Saginak, K.A. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs. (2^nd ed.). New York: Pearson, Inc.