Cspu 512 My Vision of Professional Effectiveness

Lindsey Kukulski
CSPU 512
Dr. Parker Di Scala
May 5, 2019
My Vision of Professional Effectiveness
Personal Mission Statement
My belief is that every child has the capacity to be successful when given the
proper support. My goal as a school counselor is to provide that support for as many
children as possible. I strive to understand each individual child I work with in order to
identify their unique needs. Whether they're having issues at home, struggling with
mental health issues, have special needs or they simply need someone to talk to, I'm
happy to there for them in their most important stages of development as their
cheerleader, their mentor and their advocate.
Personal Essay
My road to school counseling has been bumpy but interesting. I started college
directly after high school as an Art major because I thought it was better to study
something I’m passionate about rather than something sensible like business.
Unfortunately it took me multiple years and plenty of mistakes to realize this wasn’t the
right path for me, and I took some time away from school to reevaluate what I wanted
for my life. Upon significant reflection I realized some truths about myself: I am
incredibly interested in the study of behavior, I like listening to people and helping them
solve their problems, and I love working with children. I took a psychology course to test
out my interested, and quickly realized this was what I was meant to be doing. Soon
after I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology with the intention of going onto
graduate school to become a child psychologist.
Then life happened, and I found myself in a new relationship in a new state
simply trying to find a decent job with the education and experienced I had acquired
thus far. I found a part time job working with mild to moderate special needs students at
a local elementary school, and I immediately fell in love with it. So much so that I chose
to follow it up by working full time at a nonpublic school for severely disabled students
who are primarily nonverbal and on the autism spectrum.
This job was life changing for me in many respects. The people I worked with,
the students I helped, the things I learned about myself, the directions I decided to go
next. For a while I even thought I had found a new path for myself, and originally
enrolled at Brandman to pursue a Master’s Degree in Special Education. However I
realized soon after that this level of stress would be unsustainable for me, and I
acknowledged that my best work with students was always done one-on-one through
conversation and building rapport and coming up with strategies that best work for
them. This was how I finally landed on school counseling as my career.
It was also here where my philosophy of what makes a good educator and what
type of educator I strive to be became fully clear. Through my career, I encountered a
lot of educators who put students in boxes. Teachers at this school specifically spent a
lot of time writing students off as incapable of completing certain tasks or understanding
certain material. Working with a population of students who were unable to express
themselves verbally led to many misconceptions developing about their cognitive
abilities. I made my first major breakthrough when I realized my student with severe
cerebral palsy was actually saying my name to get my attention during recess. He was
thought to lack the mental capacity to grow his vocabulary and know the meaning of
most words. Yet here he was using my name is completely correct way to gain my
attention, it was simply harder to understand what he was saying. Later, I discovered
this student as well as one of my other main students were not unable to recognize
letters and numbers as it was originally thought. Rather they simply seemed bored by
the repetitive material. In actuality they were both capable of basic addition and
subtraction, and my second student was also capable of spelling third grade level
words.
These students taught me the importance of never assuming what a child can or
cannot do. Every child is truly different, and I feel the most important quality of an
amazing school counselor is being willing to put in the extra effort to learn rather than
assume. To speak to your students directly, and find out what motivates them, what
challenges them, and what’s important to them. Another important quality of a school
counselor is being open minded since your students will be coming to you with a variety
of issues, and having a negative response to their feelings will likely be a lot more
damaging to them than if they hadn’t talked to you at all. Lastly I feel school counselors
must be detail oriented and organized to show the proper attention to all of their
students. They must be capable of managing the needs of many students at one time in
order to be excellent at their job.
As an educator, I have been very skilled at building the trust of my students and
making them feel like I truly care about them. I have brought the best out of them
academically and behaviorally, and continually worked to make them feel as though
they are capable of more than others may tell them. I help them set realistic goals for
themselves to help them have the best futures they can. My greatest flaw would likely
be that I can care too much, and let the stress of their problems transfer to me at times.
However, through my experiences I have learned how quickly this can make me feel
burnt out, and therefore have done quite a bit of work at setting healthy boundaries for
how much I care. And though I have spent the most time with special needs students at
this point, I feel I have both the experience with other student populations and the
empathy to put myself in the shoes of almost any student I meet.
Overall I can say with great certainty that I have made a positive impact on the
lives of each of my students I have worked with for a significant amount of time, and as
a school counselor I hope to continue that tradition. Hillary Clinton once stated, “Every
child needs a champion,” and I’ve always felt the need to be that for as many children
as possible. Someone they can look up to as a kind and responsible adult, and
someone they can count on to be there for them when they’re lost or upset or in need of
advice. I want to be the type of school counselor they want to go to when they need
help, and most importantly I want to be someone who sets up the next generations for
their best shot of success.

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Lindsey Kukulski

Dr. Parker Di Scala

My Vision of Professional Effectiveness

Personal Mission Statement

cheerleader, their mentor and their advocate.

graduate school to become a child psychologist.

who are primarily nonverbal and on the autism spectrum.

enrolled at Brandman to pursue a Master’s Degree in Special Education. However I

them. This was how I finally landed on school counseling as my career.

type of educator I strive to be became fully clear. Through my career, I encountered a

themselves verbally led to many misconceptions developing about their cognitive

order to be excellent at their job.

empathy to put myself in the shoes of almost any student I meet.

their best shot of success.

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