by And I forgot to put up the last blog post with the link to my project outline! Too much else going on I guess…
So here’s the link to my project outline (Perception in Communication and Problem Solving). As with most of my outlines, I highly doubt that when it comes time to ‘put it into practice’ that it will actually look like this! I was always the student who wrote her outlines after the fact (I hated the classes that required me to turn in the outline for my paper first, that just has never worked for me).
So I am anticipating-hoping-to begin some classroom guidance activities with my students next semester. This is a perfect excuse to ‘borrow’ a class of students for a little while. One of the reasons this outline will likely change is that I plan to collaborate with the Humanities teachers and make my lesson not only meet the Counseling Standards and Benchmarks (ours at ISB are slightly different than ASCA but not by much-we are also in the process of reviewing them), and TAIL standards, but also the Humanities outcomes…this is an idea that I have come to embrace based on Melanie Smith’s work at Concordia International School. The idea is that the classroom guidance lessons presented by the 
counselor tie into the other standards and benchmarks so it is not an additional or separate lesson concept, but one that reinforces and works with the lessons already being taught but also meets the counseling standards. A true integration if you will. Melanie has created a program that utilizes this concept. I believe it is one of those things that gets us closer to our ‘ideal’ in how a counseling program can be integrated into the regular educational program for all students-she’s brilliant in my opinion! I am excited to put this into practice and ISB and hope that it will become a regular part of the MS Counseling Program. Fingers crossed…