Chapter 1

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the role section that ASCA described about school counselors. The areas include academic, personal/social, and career needs. These needs for people can be addressed in multiple ways but all of them should be addressed and not just one of them. I have seen multiple counselors that address one of the three main areas, which leaves a void in people who have other needs that are being ignored. I have been teaching for ten years and I am amazed at the different counselors that I have worked with, only a few are astounding. The majority of the counselors are not meeting all needs of an individual. Is it because they haev been beaten down by administration or are tired of fighting against teachers? I have seen several counselors focus on one specific area which then leaves the other two lagging. A counselor should be the one seeking out individuals who have needs in any of these critical areas and helping them to grow in all facets of their life. In numerous cases an individual could also be the one going to get individual help on a specific issue. The counselor needs to be open and willing to work through with the student and not just avoid them. In multiple cases I have seen counselors avoid or show great favoritism towards individuals that they work with. I am very concerned at how many needs of individual students are being overlooked. I am hoping that I have seen enough of these ridiculous cases that I do not fall into a trap that others are in and using poor counseling skills. This entire chapter was interesting because it laid out the framework and so many necessary components that counselors need and should do on a regular basis. The competencies were another section that still stood out to me when I was finished reading that I thought are critical to remember and to keep with me throughout my work/daily life as a teacher. Counseling should use prevention and intervention techniques for students at all levels. Being an advocate for students and teaching them to be one for themselves is important because it is easy for some children to be overlooked by staff when numbers are high. Using diverse strategies/perspectives is imperative because not all strategies will work for all students. You will sometimes need to pull out multiple activities for some to understand and to see the light in the tunnel that they want to be heading toward. As a counselor I need to remember that they must come to the realization on their OWN or they will not take ownership and feel as much success in it. This is one of the first textbooks that I have actually enjoyed reading. Most textbooks tend to be written at a high intellectual level and are very wordy, which are not pleasurable for me to read. This book has information that is useful, interesting, and written in terms that are easy to read and comprehend.