As your school years begins to wind down it is a good time to stop and reflect on your personal, professional growth as a counselor. Many school districts require personal goals as part of the Evaluation Process, often called SMART Goals.
Personally, I never found the Performance Evaluation process helpful for my own personal growth.
Secondly, You cannot always measure a counselors performance in the same ways of a teacher. Johnny doesn't just start keeping his hands to himself after 10 days of instruction (visits with the counselor). How does one measure learning to deal with disappointment or gaining strategies to deal with bullies?
Yet, I was eager to learn more about my counseling skills and always would strive to improve each year. Thus, these goals came from my own reflections. I preferred receiving feedback from the students, teachers, and parents. Most years I would ask my students to fill out a "report card"on me. In addition, I sent teachers and parents a brief survey. However, the best way I determined my new professional growth goal was by checking my morale level. What aspect of the year left me feeling upbeat and positive? What were some areas of deep concern?
I remember one year hearing from a few teachers that I just didn't get to them as much as I had in the past. They were sympathetic, knowing I had a full schedule, but at the same time felt a need for more time to process with me regarding their students. That year I was always rushing from one teacher to the next after school. So, for the next year, my personal, professional goal was to spend more quality time with my teachers. I set up a regular schedule for each grade level. For example, Monday I was available from 8 - 8:30 am for kindergarten teachers, Tuesday for 3rd grade teachers etc. In addition, I was able to gather data that in the past was not able to collect since I had consistency. Yes, there were a few times that the scheduled changed or teachers traded off times, but for the most part it worked well. If a teacher pulled me aside in the hall, I could say, "Let's talk about this tomorrow during your grade level time."
Here is a list of some of the areas that over the years I set for my own personal, professional goals.
*Focus on enhancing my listening and reflecting skills
*Increasing my awareness of my empathy
*Building trusting relationships with students, teachers, parents and administration
*Personal growth such as finding balance between work and home
*Finding ways to use humor and more laughter
*Work on my assertiveness and advocacy for students
*Work on being positive and smiling more
*Seeing potential in students
*Develop my observational skills
*Developing data collecting strategies
*Creating interesting guidance lesson
Hope you have a wonderful, restful summer. It is well deserved!
Affectionately,
Jeanette
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