Chapter 12 and article

As I was reading through Chapter 12 for this weeks reading I realized one thing for certain: I am definitely pursuing the correct path in only getting certified in secondary education.  While I would like to be able to make myself more marketable for a job by being certified in both elementary and secondary, I know I would not be happy if I got a job in an elementary school.  I already knew that working with young children is not one of my strengths and reading through this chapter and the expectations for the school counselor at this level is not what would make me happy.  This point ties in nicely with the article that was assigned for this weeks reading as well in regards to job satisfaction and mattering in the school.  

The article starts out by saying that, “Given the rising demands placed upon school school counselors are experiencing greater rates of job-related stress and lower levels of job satisfaction, and ultimately school counselors may leave the profession altogether (Rayle, 2006, p. 207).  This definitely gave me an uneasy feeling because while I am aware that this job is by no means going to be stress free, I would hope that the stress isn’t so overwhelming that it would make me want to quit my job.  On the other hand if this statement is true then maybe there will be job openings for us as we graduate because other counselors are too stressed and decide to leave which could be good thing for us.  The article goes on to talk about how job satisfaction is related to how much they feel they matter to the school.  Since we do not know the type of school in which our first counseling job will be in it is difficult to evaluate this and determine if we will matter or not.  However, I think that we have been given many tools throughout this program to help us show people that we do matter.

I also wanted to briefly mention our discussion with the panel of counselors from last week’s class and just say how much I enjoyed listening to them and I think I got a real sense of what it is like to be a good school counselor.  They had some great ideas for lessons and different ways to get the students involved in different activities. It was interesting for me to get different perspectives from current school counselors and to be able to ask them questions that really pertain to my future as a counselor.  I came away from class being more excited than I ever have been about becoming a school counselor.

Dollarhide, C. T. & Saginak, K. A. (2012). Comprehensive school counseling programs: K-12 delivery systems in action (2^nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Rayle, A. D. (2006). Do school counselors matter: Mattering as a moderator between job stress and job satisfaction. Professional School Counseling, 9(3), 206-215.