Blog 3 - Nakia Eckert

Blog 3 – Nakia Eckert

I would like to start this week’s blog by reflecting on our class discussions. This class is taking it to another level for me personally by taking the theories we have learned over the past couple of years and applying them to the “real world”. I love hearing from the other students who have such a diverse set of work experiences and backgrounds to see how they feel about what we are reading and discussing. Just when you think you have something all figured out, a new idea is shared and makes me rethink my stance entirely. It is also great hearing from others who are currently entrenched in public schools and how they are dealing with not only new legislation on education but the changing face of today’s student.

Reflecting on the article “Day-to-Day Activities of School Counselors: Alignment with New Directions in the Field and the ASCA National Model”, I was interested immediately when I started reading. I am particularly interested in how socioeconomic status affects the achievement of college students, but since I work in the “vacuum” of higher education, I have to be reminded that these cycles of poverty begin at a very young age. What a child sees on the way home from school, how their home life is structured, the education level(s) of their parents, etc. will all interweave to ultimately affect their achievement through their school years and beyond. “Despite the best efforts of teachers, a significant achievement gap remains between students from upper- and middle-class families and their counterparts from families living below the poverty line, particularly students of color” (Walsh, Barrett & DePaul, 2007, p. 371). This is something that I see every day in my current position and I am sure that it is not news to anyone: the students with the most financial and emotional support systems from their families are the ones who have the highest success rate in secondary and postsecondary school. Aligning the ASCA National Model with schools that have a large majority of students living well below the poverty line (especially starting in elementary school) will allow the school counselors to implement programs and interventions aimed at their target populations. It will also allow them to “work within an overall, organized, and integrated program of services, supports, and projects that can effect change both in the individual student as well as in the systems that surround the individual, such as school, family, community and neighborhood” (Walsh, Barrett & DePaul, 2007, p. 371). One school counselor I spoke with mentioned that although it is cumbersome to get the ASCA National Model implemented initially in your school, once it is up and running it makes the school counselor’s job so much easier and allows them to be more creative and targeted in their approach with students.

Walsh, M., Barrett, J., & Depaul, J. (2007). Day-to-day activities of school counselors: Alignment with new directions in the field and the ASCA national model. Professional School Counseling, 10(4), 370-378.