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.