What an interesting semester!!! (I mean that with all the sarcasim I can muster up).
This semester I have 4 online classes:
Advocacy, Counseling, Developmental Psychology and Sociology.. yep you read that right! Psychology and Sociology ONLINE and in the same semester!!! (what was I thinking??) Lots of writing in both classes, term paper in both classes, Ughhhh :(. Sociology is the most challenging of the two. 5 lecture questions that need to be answered each week and a 1,600 word discussion question. Oh my.... 1,600 words is alot of words!!!! and the "textbook" is from wikipedia and is somewhat sketchy and vague. The discussions have been VERY strange, some people simple restart the questions. In the syllabus it suggested our responses be 300 words. The variation of writing styles is amazing. The questions have been interesting and quite hard to respond to. This weeks question was "Do you think a culture can be completely uninfluenced by other cultures in the United States? Why or Why not? and what would they need to do to be able to do this?
Advocacy and Counseling I thought, okay the instructor I am familiar with from last semester. I understand her style and expectations. The textbooks are up-to-date and written by knowledgible professionals this should be easy and they seem to be going fine. I have done Advocacy work before and just this past summer so I felt good about it. The Counseling I have wanted to do for years, have reviewed many case studies and have worked with counselors before so felt pretty good about that too. Already had Ethics class and know all the do's and don'ts. Looking forward to learning techniques and some philosophy stuff and getting on with the semester. Both of these classes have had really good discussions so far and are going really well.
My traditional class is providing my challenge and was a surprise to me. Interviewing I thought was going to be an easy class for me. I can talk one on one, I know it is the core of counseling, talking with the client and getting background and current information. Listening to the client talk about things they want to work on. Here comes the surprising and challenging part. In this kind of interviewing, you do not ask questions. What??? How am I going to get the information I need to help the client? Well, here lies the funny part (always looking for the humor :) In counseling they believe that each person has the ability to solve their own problems and therefore we just let the client guide and direct the conversation. The less we say the better. And one of the techniques we use is silence!!! sit there and look at the client and not say a word. {You have got to be kidding me...} Oh!! the best part is we do not explain our "techniques" to the client and to top it off we are going to sit in a face to face position that is very awkward. Oh man everytime I walk in the building my heart races a mile a minute. I hate face to face, eye to eye contact when I am not sure what is coming. (yeah, yeah. predicting.. it is my control issue),
I have been the client and left a counselor thinking the person was rude, insensitive and disconcerned with helping me because they said very little and sat there starring at me for long periods of time. I talk alot (too much for some people) and can only imagine how awkward it is going to be to sit facing someone who is having trouble talking and watch their body language and eye gestures and not be able to ask questions to help stir the conversation. We do use "encouragers" and reflective statements but for the most part the client is to do all the talking and when we do say something we have to try to avoid the 4 No..No..'s of counseling: Opinion, Advice, Judgment and questions. Questions should have been my first name, and advice is helping right?? Judging and giving my opinion is not too hard to avoid, but the subtle opinions, inferred judgments are going to be hard to avoid. "That was really a shame he lost his job" (Maybe they were happy they lost their job. or maybe it will be fine he is out of work)
I have to do an interview and record it to be played in class for everyone to grade and give feedback for me to improve my techniques. Oh...man, panic attack. 20 minutes sitting face to face, trying to listen without taking notes, not ask questions and not give any advice. Wow... I am so not looking forward to this assignment. and we have to do it twice and then the final tape has to be video.
Hoping as the weeks go by things will start to gel and make sense. Right now it is a bit overwhelming doing all the reading and writing for these classes. Trying to work on the term paper for sociology as it is a gradual progect and we have parts due each week. Hopefully the semester will end as well as last semester did and this will just be a temporary ripple in the pond of my educational quest.
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