Wednesday -
I have been spending some of my non-client time engaged in thinking about the hidden curriculum present in my internship program (I wrote about this on Monday in this post, if you are interested in knowing more). I have spent some time refining the skills that I want an intern to possess before they start my program. I am developing interview questions to help me identify some of these skills. I am going back and thinking more about what I think being a professional in my work setting means - the skills and responsibilities of being a professional.
What I am finding is that my interns do not have some of the essential tools that I think they need to be successful music therapists later on. As we are all apt to do, I make assumptions that my interns have learned a bit about time management and work ethic that they have not learned in their education. I wonder what types of accommodations are happening in education programs that cannot happen in my setting as an employee. I know that extensions on assignments cannot happen when we are talking about IEP regulations and assessment deadlines.
How do I teach things like time management? Can I do that? I'm not sure I can. I'm not sure that I want to try.
It is internship information season - the time of year when professors tell their seniors that it is time to contact internship directors for information. I have sent out many fact sheets and links to my application over the past two weeks. I doubt that many of these contacts will turn into applications, but you never know. I know that some will apply because I am the closest internship to where they live. I am a bit skeptical about applicants who only want an internship and who do not have any interest at all in my clientele. I think my students deserve someone who cares about them as humans more than just wanting an internship because there is no need to move. I am getting more picky about who I interview these days.
How do I ask about things like time management systems? How do I determine that they are actually telling me the truth rather than just telling me what they think I want to hear? Can I ever do that? Is it even possible?? The questions that I want to ask are not legal. I cannot ask if someone needs accommodations. I cannot ask if someone has a history of missing assignments. There are so many things that I cannot ask during an interview. Once an intern is at my facility, there are still so many things that I cannot ask about. I can ask about time management and accommodations once they start with me, but the power differential at the beginning of the internship often leads to evasion and false confidence. Do I need to micromanage the first three months of an intern's time with me? Do I need to spoon-feed my interns more when it comes to establishing work patterns?
What bothers me the most is that my interns will not be able to keep a job as a music therapist if they cannot meet deadlines. The work that they are doing as interns is not a full-time caseload, no matter what they think about the load. They do not do all the paperwork. They do not do all the therapy sessions. They do not do all the administrative work that happens as part of my job. They get to do the therapy parts. When they move into full-time jobs, they get it all.
I am worried that I am not preparing my interns for their full-time jobs, but I am also finding that their educational programs are not doing a good job of this task either. It is very frustrating, especially since I do not know what to change to make them better prepared for their desired futures.
For me, the ability to complete work assignments on time is essential to being able to do therapy. You cannot do the fun stuff if you can't get the paperwork finished. That skill is a foundational skill. Hmm. That's another way of thinking about this concept - not just the hidden curriculum, but finding the foundational skills and then deciding if I can teach those in 1020 hours. Perhaps I need to focus on simple skills rather than expanding to increase knowledge of content creation, private practice, or research futures. If they cannot do what is asked of them, then my interns will not have much of a future as music therapists.
This is a similar situation that I find myself in with my clients - I get so excited about the fancy stuff that I forget about the foundational stuff. Time to reel myself in. It's not time to expand on what I do - it is time to simplify. Find those foundational skills. Teach and model those foundational skills. Be more strict with compliance to those foundational skills and make accommodations BEFORE things lead my interns to just not bother with their deadlines.
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