Blog 11

I think that the first most challenging scenario for me would come from the Froeschle and Crews’s (2010) ethics challenge.  The scenario is talking about the emotionally disturbed student who was described as not going to be able to succeed in school.  I think we are ethically bound to not say anything in that moment, but I think that the counselor should at least tell someone.  I say this because if someone is told then maybe the school can help the student more so they can succeed.  It is true that if you tell the teachers that he won’t succeed then the teacher won’t really care about him, but at the same time if someone is told then maybe he can receive special services so that he can grow.  It’s a hard situation to be in but I think the counselor should at least tell someone so the emotionally disturbed student can get some form of help whether it is inside the school or outside.

            Another challenging scenario once again came from the Froeschle and Crews’s (2010) ethics challenge.  The scenario talks about the child cutting himself on a regular basis and the parents don’t do anything about it.  First of all, this breaks my heart because the parents should help but at the same time, the parents might not be in a position to help their child.  They may not have enough money or insurance to take the child for therapy.  On the other hand the parents are expecting the school counselor be the one to effectively counselor the student even though that is not in their expertise.  It’s a hard dilemma to deal with but I would probably end up calling the child hotline to get the student some help.

            The last challenging scenario that I want to discuss came from Romley’s (2012) quiz.  The scenario talks about the high school teacher and picking students for the senior calculus class.  The teacher described how he now picks those students based on an aptitude test but in the past he used other factors but he said that it took too much time.  The first thing that I would do is talk to the math teacher before I would go the principle.  I say this so that the counselor can build a relationship with the teacher and talk about the importance of not just using the aptitude test.  I would also want to talk to the teacher to give him other ideas on how to select his calculus students in different ways.  I would definitely be motivated to do this because I was never really good at aptitude tests but I was always very good at math.  Sometimes one needs to talk to the teacher first before the counselor goes to the principle. 

Froeschle, J. G., & Crews, C. (2010). An ethics challenge for school counselors. Journal of School Counseling, 8, 2-25.

Remley, J. P., & Huey, W. C. (2002). An ethics quiz for school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 6(1), 3-12.