Why School?

It was a carrier day for 5th graders at our school. Like many other adults, I was given a chance to speak to students about my job and different things I handle as a speech language pathologist. Students were curious and responded really well to my short presentation. One fifth grader asked me, " If you have so many roles you can play as a speech therapist, how do you chose where to work? You can work at hospital, clinic, skilled nursing facility and school. How do you take your decision where to work?  Why did you decide to work at school?" Due to the time limitation, I just answered him saying, "I chose school because I really like working with you kids. " 

Though, if I really think about it, I definitely thought about things like compensation I am going to receive, distance from my home to work, benefits and holidays, convenience to work and also have enough time to give to my own kids,   I have more  reasons to be a school based SLP. Here are few of them-

1) Surrounded by youth- Working with adults gives you opportunities to improve your public relationship skills. Working with elderly, gives you chance to learn from their life experiences, to listen to their stories while improving your professional skills. When you are at school, you get all this and more. You are always working in a team. The team consists of educators, at times rehabilitation professionals, parents and other school staff. You learn from many experienced teachers and therapists. Along with this you are always surrounded by youth. This awesome young energy reminds you to be curious about surroundings. It compels you to keep learning no matter what your age is. Their contagious energy passes to you and keeps you going without much complaining. Working at school, keeps you young. 

2) Multiple roles- Whatever your job duties are on the paper, when you are working with kids, you have multiple roles to play. You need to be caring like a parent. As per your job title, you need to be patient like a rehab. professional. You need to have medical knowledge to understand their background. You need to manage their behavior like a behavior specialist. To solve conflicts between them, you need to act like a detective to find out the actual reason of conflict. You need to be a good teacher to help them with their academic work related to language and communication. To help them succeed you need to play a role of a counselor. You need to be an entertainer at times to have their sustained attention on tasks.  Most of all you need to be a kid to have their acceptance. This really makes my life big. I get to perform so many roles in just one life! 

3) Impacting lives- When you are working with kids, no matter what, you will impact their lives for once and all. Now it is your decision whether you want to have a positive or negative impact but you are a big person because you will impact some one's life. If you can make a difference like this, I think it is totally worth it! 

4) I feel like a hero! - Everyday when I enter my school, there might be hardly a day without acknowledgment from a student. I see happy faces smiling at me. Some times kids running towards me and hugging me. Waving at me shouting, "Hello Mrs. Vaidya!" or just "Hey Speech! "   Annually I receive so many hand made cute gifts like cards on Christmas, pictures to hang in my office, lego dinosaurs, craft paper flowers and Easter candies! During summer breaks, some times while traveling, I hear a student shouting excitedly, saying " How are you speech? how come you are here?" There is no question about it, my students make me feel like a celebrity! 

Sure I have progress reports to complete, never ending meetings to attend, difficult behaviors to deal with but being a school SLP I learn every day to celebrate small successes. It is definitely the most feel good factor!