Dear J,
You have been doing fine in this placement, other than the concern I have had
regarding your orientation towards teachers, the profession that has a dominant
presence in this school setting. In several occasions (including the joint session
we had with all six students sharing their experience in the first part of the
placement),
you talked about "poor teachers" - their insensitivity to students' perspective/experience,
their tendency to stigmatize some students, and their indifference toward your
attempt in fostering a collaborative relationship with them to help their students.
I could understand your anguish, at times bordering anger, toward these teachers.
I wouldn't say you had misrepresented the picture. There are indeed "poor teachers"
(and "poor social workers" for that matter), and this is precisely why school
social workers should accept a broader job description than providing counselling
or developmental services to students.
If ever this placement was of value to you, I wish that it could have given
you a broader view of school social work and, in particular, the nature of inter-professional
collaboration with the teaching profession. I picked up this concern quite early
in this placement, tracing back to the first time we had our supervision session
in the school library. I brought up many ideas for your (and J's) practice assignments.
One consideration I had in mind was to create the kind of legitimization for
reaching out to the teachers in the school. It was not simply about getting
teachers' cooperation, or changing teachers' attitude, or helping teachers to
understand their students, but more about inter-professional collaboration on
the basis of mutuality. I would expect teachers helping us out, or helping us
to understand our clients, or changing our attitude. Any inter-professional
work is best premised on an open dialogue, shared interest, and mutual understanding.
So, do give this aspect of your professional experience in this placement a
greater weight.
I think you are 'gifted' in reaching out to students with a clear sense of the boundary issue - how you define your role and identity as a social worker vis-a-vis your students' tendency to define it otherwise. In the early weeks, you told me about your concern of students turning the social workers' room into their common room, and in an irresponsible manner. Thus, the first lesson to learn was the boundary issue. Are social workers supposed to relate to students as "their friends"? What does it mean to be friendly to students? What does it mean to set limit on what students can and cannot do? All these questions should be equally relevant to teachers, though many teachers may find the notion of "being a friend" to their students somewhat peripheral or even detrimental to their teacher role. In this regard, there is the possibility for social workers and teachers finding a common language, even if we are sensitize more to the difference in attitudes, values, and practices between the two professions.
There have been visible changes in your recording practice, and in the right direction (narrating your experience, thoughts, and process observation). The new focus now is to extract reflective learning through writing and reflecting on your practice. Experience is experience, but the meaning of it that is available to us as "learning" is not something immediately apparent. It takes reflective thinking (What is it?), and it takes the person to interpret and/or connect her/his experience to intellectual work. I am pleased that you are now ready to cast your eye on that - and it is about time now that you would have the mental space to think about your practice experience in terms of concepts, theories, and therapy models. You mentioned about "my weakness" in using social work theory...and difficult to link it together in my reflection". I can understand how students approach this issue of "using theories" and "linking it to practice". It is difficult? But what is the nature of the difficulty? You need to examine this phenomenon the way you experience it, and what it is like in your attempt to do just that - "using theories" and "linking practice with the intellectual base of social work".
I am very pleased with the way you have been using supervision time. You have been active and also prepared for our meetings. You have also been sensitive to the learning style/needs of your partner. If ever you attend more to reflective learning and the grounding of practice on theories and concepts, I would find the supervision time intellectually more satisfying. This is one important thing I wish to see.
Student: 70144153
Instructor: W M Kwong
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