Blogging FRUSTRATIONS

I just realized, after typing out two responses to classmates blogs, that none of my comments are showing up. I'm guessing that means none of last week's comments did either.  I'm really starting to HATE blogging.

This Week...

I feel like my counseling practicum is getting off to a rather slow start.  Last week I logged 6 hours and so far this week I've only logged 2.5 hours.  Today I worked with a student on filling out an interest inventory for the PLAN test he will be taking on Thursday (which I get to help administer).  Unfortunately my phone stopped recording right before we got to the actual interest inventory part and so I didn't record all of the great conversation we had - including him telling me about his fears of public speaking.  I hate technology!  Our conversation did make me realize that I have a lot of experience to offer students/counselees and it also made me realize that I'm going to really enjoy the time I get to work one on one with students in a counseling setting. 

Tomorrow I go to my elementary school setting for the first time.  I will be there most of the school day.  Working with little kids is NOT my idea of a good time usually so this should be interesting. Thursday, as I said earlier, I am going to help administer the PLAN test to sophomores. Then on Saturday I'm going to help deliver some group counseling/teaching with my advising guidance counselor for seniors who are trying to prepare for the COMPASS test.

I hope everyone else's practicum is going well!

So This is Counseling?

Yesterday I finally got to work on gaining some practicum hours.  I arrived at the school at about 8:30 and talked to the counselor about upcoming dates that I could help out (I'm pretty excited to get to attend some college fairs and visits!) and some other details about my semester.  Then she set me to working on PLAN test preparation.  I spent a lot of my day bubbling in answer folders.  Just when I was starting to feel like putting my head through a wall and my hand was starting to look like it was developing advanced arthritis from gripping the number 2 pencil, she asked me if I wanted to tag along with her on a home visit! YAY!  On our 15 minute drive, she filled me in on the student's situation...he has moved back and forth between a mother and father who can't get along.  He's 17 years old and has a grand total of 3 high school credit hours.  He has resisted every opportunity the teachers and counselors have tried to give him and has now quit attending school altogether.  Of course my first thoughts were, "This kid needs to go to Job Corps! He is a perfect candidate!" We arrive and his father informs us that he isn't there and that he is going to move back in with his mother in another state.  He doesn't seem all that worried about it.  It saddens me and I wonder, without ever having met this student, what kind of future he can have.

College Decision Answers for High School Counselors: A Good Source

Obviously, I'm struggling with my own child's decision about what kind of education to pursue after high school, so I went looking for some answers. 

http://www.thecollegesolution.com/tag/high-school-counselor

This blog give some insight to the school guidance counselor's role in making these decisions.  I haven't read every post by Lynn O'Shaughnessy, but I think she offers some ideas about the areas that high school counselors really need to work on.  I completed a research project over the summer that examined how much time local high school counselors actually get to spend on working with students versus performing BAC and administrative duties and it shed some light on why there is a lack of time and knowledge in some areas.  I'm hoping that when I get my opportunity to work with students on making these important decisions, that I can be better educated and much more involved with helping students do what is best for them!

A Personal Counseling Conflict

As some of you know, my oldest daughter will be graduating from high school this year.  I'm ridiculously proud of her.  She is a great kid, has never been in trouble, has a 3.9+ GPA, already has 6 college credit hours under her belt.  Her entire life, I have emphasized how important college is.  She knows we aren't rich and that grades are important.  We have looked at colleges together and she is being heavily recruited by several.  Enter her horrendous boyfriend.  He just graduated from a 2 year program at a vocational school in Floyd County.  He works at a state department as an engineering assistant in Somerset.  He has convinced her that vocational school is the best.  UGH.

She received her acceptance letter to Sommerset Community and Technical College on Friday.  World War III erupted at my house.  My daughter's grand life plan at the ripe old age of 16 now includes living with said boyfriend and attending a 2 year nursing/CNA program at SCTC.  She knows everything and thinks I'm an idiot, after all, look at me - degrees coming out of my ears and no job.  I'm devastated.  Her high school counselor thinks her plan is fabulous.  I'm ready to murder people. 

So my question is this: What should her counselor do? Encourage this idiotic plan for an extremely bright and gifted student, while ignoring the fact that she could and should do so much better/more and also ignore the parent who is dying over this decision? Obviously this is extremely personal for me so I can, in no way, be objective in this particular case.  HELP!

Why Counseling?

I graduated from MSU with my BA in Secondary Education and was bound and determined that I would NOT pursue a Master's in any area of education.  Education courses were so boring, so repetitive.  I pursued and completed my MA in English.  It was a lot of hard work but I loved it.  Then unemployment hit accompanied by bouncing back and forth from job to job, school to school.  My MA was worthless.  I missed working with kids but started to realize that I may not be able to find a teaching position and gain tenure - especially since I had 8 years of teaching experience and a Master's degree, which meant I was in a much higher pay grade than a first year teacher.  I still didn't want to pursue administration or any other area which would require me to sit through course after repetitive course and, in the end, lead to me being consumed with paperwork and no valuable interaction with students.

I have remained in contact with many of my former students.  Many are now parents, members of the workforce, college students.  Many come to me with their successes and struggles when they just want someone to listen, to empathize, or to congratulate. Examining these relationships definitely influenced my decision to pursue my second MA in Counseling. My oldest daughter is a senior this year.  I have always emphasized the importance of academics and over the past few years we have discussed career options, colleges, scholarships, and her grand life plan (yes, at the ripe old age of 16, she knows EVERYTHING).  I have come to realize how daunting it is for students to make these decisions even with parents who are educated and who have attended college and who take a vested interest in them. I really hope to be able to help students feel better prepared for making these decisions as a high school or Job Corps counselor. 

I feel like I'm just rambling now so I will stop at that.