Monday, November 30th & The Token Male

Back from the long weekend, I typed up the two risk assessments from last week as well as completed the SEMI paperwork for my November counseling. That takes up the whole morning. I also take a look at my upcoming due dates for re-evals and the wheels start turning in my head about what I need to do soon.

I also write an email regarding the pricing information I dug up on neuropsychological assessments and think about how I go about becoming a neuropsychologist. Then I grumpily admit that I don't have the time, money, or energy at the moment to go into a doctoral program.

Toward the end of the day, I attend an initial referral conference for a 2 year old who will be turning three in the near future. The case manager attempts to get the parents on the phone after they are more than fashionably late but meets with no success. So ends the day.

On Being the Only Male
I'm a minority in my department. The department has a history of only having one male case manager. Before me there was one male CM and only one before him. In my previous district, I was the only male CST member in my school but not in the district but the men continued to be the minority in the Special Ed department.

Part of this is the fact that education is a heavily female oriented profession. In the past, the administrative positions may have had more males than females but I think even that is changing to some degree since it is hard to find principals and superintendents, at least in the state of New Jersey. In my district, all the principals with the exception of the high school principal, are female. The department heads are female. The superintendent is female. The head of special education is female.

But I digress. I'm used to being the only male. In my previous career, I was the only male on my treatment team. Even so, it does bring up some interesting issues. I do feel that I have to be a bit cautious regarding what I say even though everyone is pretty liberal with their speech. While all my coworkers are great, I do feel a bit separated from everyone because I am the token male. Although it is interesting to note that since I have a small child/toddler, I get to be a part of the "mommy club" and commiserate with the other parents that have similar age children.

Now I'm not complaining about being the token male. I'm just commenting on it because I had the feeling of separateness due to my gender today. I do relate to my coworkers in other ways because there is an even rarer brand of coworker present in my office: the geek.