Looking Forward by Going Back: A School Counselor Educator's Return to School Counseling (Perspective FROM THE FIELD‪)‬

As school counselors and counselor educators, it is imperative to remain knowledgable of trends and changes in school counseling. With the current emphasis on the ASCA National Model[R] (American School Counselor Association, 2005), the transformed role of the school counselor (Education Trust, n.d.), and school counseling program accountability (Green & Keys, 2001; Paisley & McMahon, 2001), the focus on the role of school counselors is more prominent than ever. While school counselors experience the daily events and relationships in a school setting, school counselor educators stay informed about trends or changes in school counseling by reading relevant scholarly literature, attending professional conferences and workshops, and supervising school counselors-in-training in their field experiences in schools. However, counselor educators cannot truly emulate the experience of being a practicing school counselor, despite interaction with or supervision of graduate school counseling students in the field. In the late spring 2004, I was given a unique opportunity to return to the school counseling field. As a counselor educator, I had not been involved in schools as a practitioner for 5 years. I accepted a position to substitute during the maternity leave of the elementary school counselor in the building where I had previously served as a counselor for 8 years (1990-1998). The decision to return to this position was based on two questions: (1) What changes have occurred in elementary school counseling over the 6-year period? And, (2) would my return to school counseling result in insights or observations that might have implications for school counselors and school counselor educators working with school counselors-in-training?