The initial case study in this
chapter may be shocking to some, however I see it as reality. I have been working in school districts for
the last four years, and there are “old school” counselors who think this is all
they are good for or that college prep is all that the student needs them
for. By “old school” I mean close to
retirement age individuals who lived through the time when that was all
counselors did. In the last ten years a
lot has changed in the world of school districts and school counselors because
the students have changed and the demands of what the school must provide has
changed.
My belief about the nature of the
school counselor now is that they are responsible for more than pushing
students towards a college. A high
school guidance counselor needs to make themselves present to the students and
available. A student may not want to
walk into your office for fear of being “caught” but they may talk to you in
the hallway, before or after lunch, during specials or at the end of the day. Showing the students that you are there to
help them, and going into the classrooms to tell them what you can do for them,
is A HUGE DEAL!!
When I was in grade school, I never
saw the guidance counselor unless I wanted to change a class, was in trouble or
when my mom called and asked that the middle school guidance counselor talk to
me about my parents getting divorced.
Then I saw the guidance counselor again my senior year when it was time
to complete the graduation project.
This to me is in most cases still typical guidance counselor
behavior. WE NEED TO CHANGE THIS!!!
I did have a different relationship
with my guidance counselor, because after meeting her in middle school I
decided I really liked her, because she made me laugh and seemed to understand
me and she was also later able to call my bluff as our relationship grew. She transferred to the high school after our
eighth grade year, so she stayed with our class from fifth grade until we
graduated. Just to be clear though she
never did lessons in the classrooms, nor did she walk the hallways looking for
troubled students, she could always be found in her office. Once she was in the high school there were
two other counselors and the first letter of last name split the grades up. This I do believe is still how a lot of
schools divide up the large amounts of students.
One of the personal qualities of a
school counselor that was listed was commitment to diversity and social
justice. I learned a lot about future
students and myself when I took the Multicultural Counseling class over the
summer. It is true that we all have
certain bias or judgment about other ethnic groups, the idea is to be able to
counsel students beyond your previous experience with other individuals. Because that’s all they were, one individual
of one race or ethnic group that acted a specific way. All white people don’t act alike just like
all Mexican people don’t act alike or have the same worldly views. I have seen complete contrasts of this with
my own eyes and I do believe that it comes with life experience and
maturity. I believe that being a school
counselor opens your eyes to people of all walks of life, and hopefully it
opens your heart too.
Reference
Dollarhide, C. T., & Saginak, K. A. (2011). Comprehensive school counseling programs, k-12 delivery systems in action. Pearson College Div.
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