Blog 14

The article by Dahir, Burnham, and Stone (2009) was helpful in preparing for the in-class interviews next week. I feel as though in most of my prepared answers I brought up my drive to implement the ASCA National Model in a school that I am interviewing for, but I am left questioning to what degree I will need to explain what that means to an administrator. Will I spend most of my interview talking about ASCA only to scare my interviewer away? Yet that’s what has been drilled into our heads, for good reason, for the last two years so I feel it would be a disservice to our education to exclude ASCA when working toward a job.

                Dahir, Burnham, and Stone (2009) beg the question: "To what degree have school counselors acquired the attitudes and skills that will support their ability to successfully implement comprehensive school counseling programs?" (p. 184). To me, I feel that our knowledge of the ASCA National Model breeds the attitudes and skills that would make us successful school counselors; however I am fearful that talking about our plans could come across as arrogant in an interview (i.e., you’re not RAMP certified so let me fix that for you). In a different vein, without the proper continuing education training that the researchers say is not readily available, will our graduate training be enough to allow us to make the necessary systemic change in our school? So many questions.

          The results of Dahir, Burnham, and Stone’s (2009) study surprised me. Specifically, the scores showing that middle school counselors had the highest ratings on involvement in personal/social student issues (p. 186) was shocking because I often remember (and have written about in a previous blog) middle school as a terribly misguided time that could have benefited somewhat from greater school counselor involvement.

          It was helpful to see that the program management subscale had the highest ratings in elementary school (Dahir, Burnham, & Stone, 2009, p. 187) because that was one of our possible interview questions and it allowed me to have a more confident understanding of how I might use proper program management in an elementary school. The research also implied that elementary school counselors showed a strong drive to prepare students with a sturdy concept of personal/social development (p. 488) which is a tradition that I hope to continue.

          Overall, the articles and chapters from this class, though loaded with information at times, did a tremendous job of preparing me for creating a solid guidance curriculum.

Dahir, C. A., Burnham, J. J., & Stone, C. (2009). Listen to the voices: School counselors and comprehensive school counseling programs. Professional School Counseling, 12(3), 182-192. doi:10.5330/PSC.n.2010-12.182