Reflection on the Blogging Experience

1. At the beginning of the course, I really looked forward to the course blog.  Then I got my job back and reality of time constraints kicked in and I simply didn’t have time to keep up with it. 
2. The nature of this course – the hours we spent working in other schools, completing indirect hours doing things for our practicum supervisors at the schools, the class time – make the blog something of an afterthought, or at least it did for me.  After completing the first several weeks of blogging and finding out that my comments weren’t posting, I became frustrating and put blogging even further down on my list of priorities.  I really expected to enjoy the blog when we were first told we would be writing one, but the fact that there was very little feedback given and that we had to search each blog out individually, made conversing through them very difficult. 
3. Frustration and anxiety.  I am a procrastinator by nature.  My motto is, “Nothing instigates progress like the last minute!” Once I fell behind in keeping up with the blogging assignments, I really FELL BEHIND!  I was trying to complete my hours, complete assignments for EDGC 682, and take care of my kids and the blog just was not something I made time for.  It didn’t help that blog sites are completely proxied at work and I have little to no time on the computer at home, between wrangling a 3 year old and fighting two teenagers for the laptop.
4. See number 3!
5. I’m sure that my reflection is skewed by the fact that I did so much of my blogging at the end, at once, but I really don’t feel that the blog would have enhanced my reflection had I done it every week.  I talked to several of my classmates and they seemed to share similar feelings, even though they did much better about keeping their blog posts up to date.
6. Had I had more time, I think I would have liked blogging more.  I also enjoyed blogging in posts where we didn’t have an assignment per say.  Some of the assignments seemed repetitive and I found myself rambling a lot.
7. As I have already touched on, time constraints made blogging a nuisance.
8. I would suggest requiring one blog assignment per week, with fewer assignment-type posts.  I think, as professional adults, we are all capable of including reflections of progress and idea-sharing without specific assignments.
9. As this was my first experience with blogging, I am not sure if there is an easier way to keep up with other blog posts?  Sometimes I felt that it was so time consuming to try to track down classmate’s posts that I just didn’t.  Is there any way to have an interactive class blog?  Technology, as I’m sure you know, is not my thing so I’m just thinking out loud here….

Icebreaker Blog

My icebreaker was WAY back on August 28^th.  I found it on the internet and it was called “Shared Drawing.”  It works best with groups of 10-20 students/clients.

Each participant gets a partner.  Then each pair of students gets out one piece of blank paper and one pen or pencil.  One member of the team should draw a line horizontally across the paper, about two inches above the bottom edge of the paper.  In the big space that’s left, one of the team should draw a large oval in the center of the paper. 

The leader will explain that each team will draw a face.  The instructions are that one team member will take the pen and make only one line or mark on the paper, and then pass the pen on to the other team member.  There must be no talking, no communicating, no laughing. 

After the team completes drawing a face, they are then instructed to create a caption by writing only one letter and then passing the pen to the other team member. 

When the captions are written, the leader calls a halt.  With some deliberate sense of ceremony, the leader should collect the drawings and lay them out to have an “art” show, so that everyone can look at all the drawings and have a good hearty laugh, which will have been building up.  The leader should explain that these drawings always turn out rather insane-looking.  The captions often make no sense at all.  Let the group know that this was exactly what was supposed to happen.  A discussion should follow about how it felt to create something without controlling the process.

Self Reflection

When I began this semester, I was most apprehensive about working with elementary age students.  My experiences have primarily been with high school age students and older so I’m a little intimidated by young kiddos.  After doing classroom guidance activities for five weeks with 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd graders, I’m still definitely out of my comfort level when working in an elementary school but at least now I know that I can do it.  I would like to have more experience working with students individually before I would feel competent to be an elementary school guidance counselor, but since I really want to continue to work with older students, I feel that my practicum did prepare me well for that. I think practicum has also opened my eyes to some of the realities that high school guidance counselors face.  As much as I would prefer to work as a guidance counselor and spend my days counseling students and interacting, the reality is that at least half of my time will probably be spent on record-keeping and administrative duties.  Schools are on a tight budget and an even tighter staff and everyone has to wear more than one hat.  I still plan to make counseling students my priority, but time management is going to have to be something I really look at once I do find myself employed as a counselor.

Week 14 Post of Choice

I found this poem….I just thought I would share it.

Still life

I watch the children line up like ducks
 all in a row, except one.
Noisily they ramble past concrete walls
 follow-the-leader style
 behind a blond-haired woman
 in a light yellow dress
 who quietly talks to them through her motions.
Today is picture day in the school
 with a jolly old man who says: "Cheese"
 tossing tidbit compliments before boys and girls
 as they fix their smiles at him.
In just a flash roles are caught,
 a moment recorded, and lines form again.
Straight and precise the children walk
 all except one, who in dimly-lit halls,
 rapidly steps in a zigzag manner
 defying a rule and defining himself.
Gladding, S. T. (1975). Still life. North Carolina Personnel & Guidance Journal, 4, 28. Copyright Prentice Hall.
 

Post of my Choice for Week 12

Right now I’m not sure if I’m going to be using my counseling degree anytime soon – in its official sense anyway.  I really love my job.  I love the kids I work with.  I love feeling like I am making a real difference in their lives. I definitely feel like I do a lot of counseling here even though my official job title is teacher. 

I love the experiences I get to have with students here.  Yesterday we held a “Reality Store” for them so they could experience budgeting, paying for bills/necessities, supporting children, etc.  Some of their reactions to seeing how much was left in their bank accounts, or how many jobs they had to hold in order to pay all of the bills was priceless.  Today I had one of my girls graduate.  She left about an hour ago with a hug, a promise to stay in touch, and telling me she would remember what I always tell her – to “Make good choices.” I have high hopes that she will be successful while I struggle with my fears for the life she might be going back to.

But right now another student needs my attention…