In this week’s chapter in our text, Dollarhide & Saginak break down some issues which they find important for us to be aware of in schools. A definite theme I noticed myself thinking was that it is imperative that counselors continue to change with the change in schools. This seems like an obvious point, however I believe it takes more purposeful planning and learning than we may first think. Changes in mental health and crisis family assistance is extremely important to stay updated and informed about, I talk very frequently about these issues with my counselor due to the fact that I have so many students with mental health issues in my classroom each year. She is always amazed at how much even just the requirements of mental health and other family resources change. Counselors need to be constant researches, constantly making connections with groups and people who will keep you informed.
When I read the section of the chapter on building crisis management I thought about the counselor from the panel that spoke about the check lists and files she keep about how to deal with particular situation. As a teacher I am familiar with this because as issues arise in my classroom I make a “go to” file for it and the next time something similar comes up (educational or otherwise) it is ready to go, this is a great procedure that will help keep us sane and remind people why we are also needed as leaders in situation where administration missed something or has other responsibilities, having another leader who views situation in a different light is a huge benefit.
When I read about diversity I really appreciated the reminder that we can avoid some stereotyping and judging if we view others whom are very different from us as an opportunity to learn. As I breezed over the other posts I saw that Nate mentioned how he could “hide” his thoughts about those who are different from him and admitted that he sometimes feels he is judging them in a way. I encounter situations everyday at school that make me thing “what the…” I have learned to curb some of those feelings by remembering that I do not know that persons story and could potentially learn from each person I encounter. Remembering this helps me be more curious than judgmental and take what I can learn from the situation and “leave the rest.”
The authors’ thoughts on spirituality were very intriguing to me. I had never really thought about spirituality in this way and it pleased me to think of the spirituality in my classroom and hope that I can create this same environment as a counselor. Reading about gender in schools helped me to reflect about how that might make counseling look different for each gender, this is something I often forget to account for in my teaching, gender diversity. In some ways I was reflective about my personal relationships with both genders as well.
The article was not surprising but kept me very interested. It left me wondering where my own administrators would put the counselor’s role. Each role described in the article; innovative leader, collaborative case consultant, responsive direct service provider, and administrative team player see as though they would be a part of our roles. After reading the chapter it made me wonder how all of the issues in schools that counselors face can be addressed in each of these roles and how the percentages of time spent in each role should be and how it correlates to the percentages found in this article.
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