revisiting interview in school setting: school psychologist? (Dionisius Ferdi Weros)

Actually, I have written about this topic few weeks ago. So, it is rather weird to see me writing the same stuff again. The reason is because my lecturer reviewed the topic again to give better understanding during the Interview Technique class few days ago. The lecturer decided to review again the interview in daily life setting to give better understanding. I think the most interesting part is when the lecturer decided to talk about school psychologists.

School psychologist is a rare profession in Indonesia because for efficiency and simplicity most of school psychologists’ work is usually done by counselor teachers (guru Bimbingan Konseling). Sometimes, in some extreme cases, counselor teachers need to do a lot of stuff that have nothing to do with their job, for example in the past when my lecturer work as a counselor teacher, she have to message students that felt sick. Actually, the two of them have a very different job. Counselor teachers usually deal with administrative job and they usually counsel students with minor problems. They also need to teach in classrooms. School psychologists main job are almost similar to clinical psychologists, but of course they deal with problems in schools. School psychologists give counseling, they give simple therapies and create special curriculum for children with special needs after the recommendation from the children’s clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, they give counseling for school staff, and many more. They rarely have to attend classes because they have a lot of job to do in their office.

Honestly, I’m quite eager working in school setting as school psychologist. Sadly, most schools in Indonesia school psychologists are the same thing with counselor teachers. I hate working as counselor teachers in Indonesia. That is why I felt discouraged working in school setting and become more interested working as clinical psychologist.

In my opinion, there is urgency for schools in Indonesia to understand the difference between counselor teachers and school psychologists in order to have a better service quality. In the future, there might be a better understanding about school psychologist’s profession. But, for now, since there’s not much understanding about them, I have almost no interest working in the educational setting.

5 Mei 2013