4th Year Reflection

So far, this has been an exciting year. Entering Year 4, I realized that there is more I know in terms of how my school district functions and how to address student needs. I also realized that the programs I have established over the past 3 years are making an impact within our school community. Perhaps what I am most proud of is a mentoring program where 8th grade students learn how to be leaders to a small group of 6th grade students. This year, I've had 40 8th graders working together to meet with groups of 8-10 6th graders. We call this program Wolf Pack.

This year, I've been able to use the lessons I created previously to build upon skills related to social awareness, communication, and connection. Basically I've taken my goals from an intro to 6th grade group, and expanded it to be a tier 1 intervention for our 6th grade class. As we keep moving through the year, I am excited to see the relationships continue to grow.

There have been many more moments of growth and successes throughout the year. In my transition to the 2nd half of the year, my goals include utilizing and sharing a calendar for my counseling program; attending the state counseling conference; and have student schedules completed before the second to last day of school. Wish me luck!

Opportunity to Influence

This past October, the leadership staff of our district worked together to host a leadership summit for secondary students. This summit provided an overview of 8 Values that the high school has embraced and will continue to focus on this year. One of those values is responsibility. This was the value I was asked to speak on. While I do not mind public speaking, it is not something I always seek to do. However, I was asked after watching the film Miss Representation. One of the main points being, you cannot be what you cannot see/imagine. Timing was serendipitous. 

But what could I say about Responsibility. Well, as it turns out, a lot. I ended up speaking for 10+ minutes with the primary message being: We have responsibility to take care of ourselves and positively influence others. At this point I am not even sure how I talked as long as I did but my hope is that this opportunity to share about influence has influenced others.

If you would like to watch this presentation, please use this link. 

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!

When thinking about time management, I note that this is an area where I struggle. Partially, I hate saying no to things. Therefore, I have a tendency to double book myself. This is an area I continue to work on. Perhaps my most positive area of growth is utilizing the phrase, "I need to check my calendar." It's not a no but it is a more responsible step towards balance. It has also led to better awareness of how I am spending my time as a counselor.

Currently, my time has been dedicated to Minute Meetings. These are short opportunities for me to connect with students in a 1-1 session. The set up of these involves partnering with teachers, and working through their rosters one student at a time. Within about two weeks, I have completed nearly 200 minute meetings. That's 200 students that I've intentionally worked to connect with and find out about how they are doing and what they want in their futures.

So why spend so much time on this? It takes time away from getting other projects going (e.g. groups, student need follow up, preventative meetings). It can be draining. I'm never 100% sure of what the student will share with me. However, one of my priorities is to connect and serve all my students. That's 500 students whose names I need to learn and connections I need to make. This has been one way that has helped me learn those names and build those relationships. Thankfully, my teachers also value these conversations and understand that when crises come up, Minute Meetings are postponed. Getting back into them, comes back to my time management and prioritizing my counseling program.

For more ideas with Minute Meetings please comment, or check out these blog posts:

• http://www.schcounselor.com/2011/12/got-minute.html 
• http://jyjoynercounselor.blogspot.com/2012/01/minute-mtgs.html
• https://www.schoolcounselingfiles.com/blog/category/minute-meetings
• https://lisakingcounselor.com/index.php/2016/09/13/minute-meetings-what-why-and-how/

First Steps

One thing I've learned about myself is that my spirit is lifted through creativity. So my first day in office, rather than entering the world of skyward and jumping right into scheduling, I developed and put up my first bulletin board.

Quote from the Cheshire Cat 

In preparing for the school year, my first steps have been to connect with families of students with 504 Accommodation Plans and students/families who were in temporary or unstable living situations at the end of last year. Preparation also entails ensuring that schedules are complete for at least 1st trimester and creating schedules for new students.

An area I need to grow in is applying those same intentions of connecting with my staff members. Sometimes this means ending the previous year with more intention. Sometimes it means creating a personalized welcome message for staff. Sometimes it means purposefully introducing myself with new staff members. 

To work on that area of growth, I created welcome back notes for my teachers. They included a pack of gum and a note that read: 

Here's to a FRESH school year! Let's start with some EXTRA encourage-MINT from your school counselor!

I'm hoping it acts as a reminder to staff and to myself that I am here to support my teachers. We are all on the same page in trying to support our students to be the best they can be.

First steps have been taken; students come on Tuesday and it is time to keep walking!

Theme Decided!

I am someone who enjoys having a theme to work around. I honestly feel a bit lost if I don't have a general theme or idea to plan my year around. Last year, the school's theme was #ChooseLove So it was easy for me to plan around that. Basically I tied everything back to our choices and how acceptance of ourselves and others might realistically look.

This year, I don't yet know about a school theme. Our district theme is Wonder. While the novel by R.J. Palacio provides a ton of inspiration and counseling themes, I didn't want to be so tied to it. Instead, I'll be using Alice in Wonderland as a general theme to support the growth and learning of my middle school. This should allow for some fantastic quotes and bulletin boards and the ability to tie the connection to my staff.

Side note: Alice's journey could parallel many of my middle schoolers who are discovering that the world doesn't always provide what they expect and some things are indeed nonsensical.

So here is to my 2018-2019 Theme: Welcome to Wonderland!

It has been a while

After completing my second year as a school counselor, I realized that I had let this blog fall to the wayside. My apologies; I have not made keeping this blog updated a priority. In the spirit of priorities, that is the focus of this entry

https://zestnzen.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/best-new-years-resolution/

Recently I attended a training on School Counseling leadership which used one session to emphasize our roles in career exploration by intentionally and individually encouraging passion and purpose. In that session, the "Jar of Life" story was brought up. From what I can best tell, this metaphor was presented by Stephen Covey in his book First Things First. The basic premise is that we have these big rocks that can fill a jar but the jar is not full until the pebbles, sand, and even water are added to the jar. However, if you fill the jar with water or sand first, the big rocks won't fit. In this roundabout way, the speaker pointed out that these big rocks are our passions - the consistent forces that bring us purpose and joy. As school counselors, we can support students in identifying what their "big rocks" represent. Hence, my introductory activity was envisioned. When I go into classes this September, beyond letting students know who I am, I hope to help them brainstorm a bit about who they are. While going through this metaphor, students will write down what are some of their "Big Rocks" and then some ideas for pebbles and sand that might feel more pressing but might take away from their rocks and values. Not only might this be a time-management metaphor, but it also relates to interpersonal relationships, values, and future planning.


So now its time to practice what I preach. I took a smidge of brainstorming time and came up with a couple of ideas for my "Big Rocks." These are my values that help fill my cup and increase my excitement about working with students. These values may not have led me to school counseling since there are many careers where I could live out these (let me hear some suggestions in the comments) but they are present in my work as a school counselor. I also filled in a couple of ideas for the pebbles and sand that also occupy my job. These I've applied more directly to school counseling because that is where my mind currently is and the focus of this blog. However, it could also relate more broadly in your life. For instance, I think of working out or reading as activities that might fit in any of the three categories depending on the individual.

My List

Big Rocks:

↦ Honesty

https://zenhabits.net/big-rocks-first-double-your-productivity-this-week/

↦ Respect

↦ Trust

↦ Joy

↦ Helping others feel important

↦ Creativity

Pebbles (smaller to dos):
↤ Working with staff/parents
↤ Seeing growth
↤ Listening

Sand (what else):
↳ Lunch/Hall Duty
↳ Scheduling
↳ Smiling

Through identifying a few of my "Big Rocks," I now have reminders of what brings me to school counseling and excited to start my third year!

Resources:
Jar of Life story: http://www.worklifecoach.com/Big_Rocks.pdf
Animated Jar of Life story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5ZvL4as2y0
Photo 1 (2 jars): https://zestnzen.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/best-new-years-resolution/
Photo 2 (3 stones): https://zenhabits.net/big-rocks-first-double-your-productivity-this-week/

I've got spirit how 'bout you?!?

This week we are having a spirit week with dress up days with themes of PJs, Western, and Sports. Perhaps most exciting, we are having a Pink Day related back to a video everyone in the school watched to address cyberbullying and being kind to others.

This year, bullying has come to the forefront of concerns at school since we have a lot of mean behaviors directed at various individuals. With a slightly outside perspective, it seems like a lot of this meanness stems from insecurity with ourselves. Therefore, I chose to enter the Elective classes over the next week to discuss how middle school can be used to specifically build habits that work towards individual dreams! This presentation gave students the opportunity to think about their dreams and identify something to work on while acknowledging that not everyone finds complete success in school.

To see the Prezi (Speeding through Middle School) use this link: http://prezi.com/mrmi9ska04ei/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share 

The main message was about exploring to find your niche - I am interested to see what niche pops up during this week!