Changes

I've been thinking the last several weeks about making changes to my blog. Tonight I kinda looked around at the templates and colors and just decided to go with something different. I have been frustrated the past year or so with this blogging situation, simply because I feel constrained by the title "Cool School Psychologist". I'm so much more than my job and there are a lot of things I would RATHER comment about, think about, and write about. Don't misunderstand, I love what I do, it's just not the sum total of my life. If I wrote about my job, or discussed more formal academic topics, then I wondered if it was boring to the folks who know me just as me. If I wrote more personally, and discussed my faith, my feelings, my love for my family, or even talked about where I live, I worried about those of you who subscribe to this blog purely for the professional ideas you might glean. A lot of my subscribers are those who are also in my job field - and I have no problem with that, but I'm MORE than my job. I thought when I was finishing up school that I would enjoy going to conferences, and one of these days, I'm going to make the national conference for school psychologists, but I gotta tell you, I am less enthusiastic about that now. I think it's because I have come the realization that like so many people in the work force, I am powerless, more or less, to change the way the district expects me to practice. I just do what they tell me to. I keep plugging along year after year - go to this meeting, attend this training, acquire this new binder with information it it - and that's ok, but I really have no way to try innovative things in my practice. I keep getting catalogs in the mail, but why? I don't order testing supplies and now with no budget funds, I especially don't expect any new test materials. I'm basically a person who is trained in this specific area, and I have developed expertise in this area, and I like almost everything about my job, but I don't create or define policy, I don't drive RTI implementation at any school I'm at (the psychologists reading this know what I'm talking about), and I just basically put my head down and plow through the work - somehow, the elephant they served me in the fall and told me to eat all of by May, gets eaten bite by bite. The rule is, you can only eat 1/4 of the elephant by Christmas, and from January to May, you eat 3/4. Lastly, I've felt uncomfortable in the last year blogging about specific situations at school. My job is absolutely fascinating, frustrating, and amazing, and I wish I could tell you about things I've seen, heard, and know. I wish I could be open and share, but this is a public blog on a public forum. I have too much respect for my job, my students, and my supervisors to really say what I feel like saying. When I've written about students on here, I've always disguised their identities - however - there is always a slight risk of discovery. My intentions have always been to promote the field of school psychology, and to lend a perspective to my readers that they may not always see - but, doing that not only with integrity but discreetly remains a challenge. So, I feel better now that I've changed things. Those of you who are looking for purely a professional discussion, and you want to quit following, hey, that's fine. I'm not looking to try to please everybody. I just want to share from my heart to yours.