In today’s society children encounter many obstacles to their formal education such as poverty, bullying, death, and abuse. Most children are not equipped to handle these situations alone. They look for guidance from their teachers to help them through difficult situations. Teachers need to be aware not only of their student’s academic performances but also any personal situations that may impede their ability to learn. How a teacher handles a student’s specific personal crisis can either help the student overcome their burden or may make the situation in their life worse.
Complex issues that students are dealing with today are in schools that have policies and programs in place to counter act these problems, for example, many inter city schools around the United States, such as the Atlanta public school system have a breakfast program to serve the kids before school. This helps the children living in poverty in the inner city to get one of the most important meals of the day. Teachers in the Atlanta school district serve food to the children before the start of each school day.
Another critical issue that many students face is bullying. 71% of students report incidents of bullying as a problem at their school. (Facts and Statistics) I was included in that 71% while I was in middle school. I attended an all Caucasian Christian school where I was harassed and mocked for the color of my skin. My bullying experience was not limited to students but also included teachers as well. My 6th grade my teacher singled me out by screaming at me to move my hand that was supporting my head. I listened to her at first but as a habit I put my hand back to support my head. She then got furious and threatened to call my mom which I thought was ri...
... middle of paper ...
...ith school counselors and administrators to provide appropriate support for the student.
As is evident from the examples presented, how a student responds to a personal crisis often depends on a teacher’s support or lack thereof. In the case of my own personal bullying experience, my teachers were not supportive and not only did I change schools but this is a memory that will always haunt me. However, my friend who struggled through the divorce of his parents did receive help from teachers, who recognized and steered him away from the self-destructive path he was on. Even though most teachers are not trained comprehensively in psychology and counseling, they still must possess an awareness of their student’s needs and behaviors. Perceptive and proactive teachers can have a lasting positive impact on their students and can make the difference in child’s education.
Mental illness in the classroom has become an issue that is important for teachers, not just parents, to look out for. According to Cinda Johnson, “Studies indicate that 1 in 5 adolescents have some sort of serious emotional, behavioral, or mental health problem”(Johnson). When adolescents spend half of their days in school, it is important that their teachers take the time to notice unusual signs their students may be showing them. Teachers have the opportunity and the influence to help students work toward a better future. In Graziano’s article, however, the teacher’s influence was spun the wrong way and led to mistreatment of the six-year-old boy and his learning disability. Johnson explains, “Effective teachers are “responsive to students’ problems and…emphasize reciprocity and the value of their students’ perspectives and feelings”(Johnson). The issue of disability in the classroom coincides with the issue of teacher and student trust in the classroom. In both articles there...
Middle school marks a very exciting, yet challenging time for many students, parents, and teachers. During this time period students are exploring their interests, moving deeply into their studies, taking on more responsibilities, and trying to find their personal identities. Most importantly, this is a time where students turn from their parents and seek advice and approval from their peers. Because many adolescents are emotionally sensitive and vulnerable during this stage of development, their heavy reliance on peers for acceptance and approval makes them more susceptible to emotional damage. For that reason, school counselors plays an essential role in the lives of their students. Gonkawon Strother and Sheree Leonard, middle school counselors at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Temple Hills, Maryland understands the importance of their role. Gonkawon Strother, the primary counselor for sixth and seventh grade students, has been a counselor for five years. His colleague, Sheree Leonard, has been a professional school counselor for three years. Leonard primarily
While most people would agree that the situations adolescents have to deal with now are much more stressful and tempting than they have been in the past, not everyone knows how to deal with it. The stresses of families, friends, relationships, work, school, and extra-curricular activities leaves students with hardly any time to just relax and simply be a teenager. From all of the stress and lack of sleep, students’ emotional, spiritual, and physical health have begun to slowly deteriorate. While it is not always easy to minister to them, it is that much more important to reach out to the students who are hurting. They are crying out for help and love and attention but if it is not received, then the students are very likely to shut down emotionally from any adult advice or attention.
Bullying has become a major problem facing the United States today. The American Psychological Association reports that roughly 40% to 80% of children are involved in bullying on some level during their time in school. (APA, 2014) The magnitude of the problem can be observed in the statistics. In the United States, a total of 4,080,879 children between the ages of five and 18 have been the victims of bullying compared to 3,892,199 who have reported that they have engaged in bullying someone else. Additionally, 851,755 said that they have been both the victim and the bully. That's a whopping 8,824,833 people in the United States that have been involved in bullying behavior on one level or another. (High, B., 2000 Census)
I cannot recall a more rewarding experience than helping facilitate a child’s education while enabling parent participation alike. These experiences have drawn me to my current position as an Educational Assistant where I am constantly interacting and establishing relationships with students, learning about their goals and aspirations. It is that same desire to empower our future students that has steered me towards a career as a school counselor. By enrolling in the Masters in counseling program, I aspire to develop methods and experience to become an effective, experienced, and adaptable school counselor that promotes self-awareness, allowing students to realize their full potential and impetus them towards a promising future. I want to learn skills that facilitate personal and career development, ensuring that our students grow accomplishing their goals and ambitions. To discover techniques that help students improve in all areas of academic achievement, establishing relationships with students and parents alike. By becoming a school counselor, I am determined to become an advocate for underserved youth. I aim to become an effective agent educational reform, providing support for students in the various institutions that may disempower
It is important for school counselors to serve parents and also protect the needs of the child. According to the Ethical Standards for School Counselors, school counselors are to have a primary obligation to the students who are to be treated with dignity and respect as unique individuals. Professional school counselors are concerned with the educational, academic, career, personal, and social needs and encouraging the maximum development of every student. Professional school counselors should maintain confidential relationships with students in counseling situations but must understand the limits of confidentiality and recognize the parent as the primary decision maker in a child’s life (ASCA, 2010).
For instance, I learned that one major component of resilience is physical health. Thus, it is imperative for children to eat well, exercise, and get six to eight hours of sleep each night. Another component of resilience is school support. This means that children need support from another adult that does not pertain to their family, such as a school counselor. Furthermore, I learned several strategies that schools and teachers can implement to help their students overcome traumatic experiences. For example, I learned that teachers should keep familiar routines, maintain high expectations for their students, and avoid focusing on their students’ negative behaviors. In addition, schools can be flexible and give these students time to speak to their teachers, counselors, or staff members. Talking to any of these individuals helps students express their feelings instead of bottling them up. Overall, this article helped me acquire more knowledge on resilience and strategies that I can one day use with my future
It is my goal to become a school counselor in a local high school. As a school counselor, it is also important to try and understand the different experiences that children go through in order to get through to them. After studying the different counseling theories, I have discovered that each theory is valid and there are ideas and techniques that I would use out of each of them. However, there are some theories more than others that I would use to guide me daily as a school counselor. Modern day counseling is equipped with a wide variety of therapies, techniques and approaches. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast three approaches of therapy. Also in this essay the views of the person and the Therapeutic process will be discussed. The three models that are going to be compared are Adlerian, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Solution Focused Brief therapy (SFBT). This essay is going to highlight the similarities and differences of the models and their main focus, and how the three models will help the clients choose goals that best fit their environment and resources. The main goal of using these models is to help people.
Teachers can “show support by being compassionate enough to look at each child realistically, to communicate genuine concern for the student, and to help the students move past emotional issues being dealt with at home (p. 339).” Students should be exposed to another side of life through positive environments. Emotional support and exposure soon become the catalysts for changing some children’s misconceptions into more positive attitudes towards education. It is also important that teachers avoid labeling these students as lazy or unmotivated, but rather know who their students are “linguistically, ethically, and economically (p. 339).”
Bullying against teens is still happening even though there are various awareness programs to try to prevent it. I want to create awareness of bullying against teens of all religions, race, and sexual orientation. Even with the various attention to bullying, the problem still persists despite the school providing awareness, students are still afraid to say anything. Societal patterns today make bullying a difficult issue to eliminate. Starting in 2007, a total of 35 states made laws to go against bullying at school. These laws consisted of a clear definition of bullying, and how schools will be required to enforce uniform standards of conduct. The reason bullying comes as such an issue to me is because I actually know friends that have been suicidal and have caused themselves harm due to being bullied every day, in school and at home.
Bullying is a devastating issue that threatens the well-being of today’s youth. Those who are most likely at risk are those who; have a learning or physical disability i.g., autism or ADHD, are underweight or overweight, are gay/lesbian/transgendered, or speak a different language. Of course, there are no specific guidelines of who will become victims of bullying. Children who are bullied experience lower self-esteem, greater loneliness, greater anxiety, and more depression in addition to the already stressful adolescent years. The longer the bullying occurs the more profound the symptoms can become. As a low-level, subtle form of violence, bullying creates an unsafe school environment and can lead to more serious types of violence among students (Whitted & Dupper, 2005).
“Researchers have conducted that at least 25% of all children will be affected by bullying at some point during their school years, and many of these children miss significant numbers of school days each year owing to fear of being bullied” (Bray, M., Kehle, T., Sassu, K. (2003). Bullying has become a major problem for our students and our schools. Children are missing educational time and are losing self-confidence because they are afraid or intimidated by other students. We, as teachers, need to reduce bullying in our schools and prevent bullying from being a reoccurring issue in the lives of our students in order for them to learn, grow and develop. Our goal as teachers should be “to reduce as much as possible-ideally to eliminate completely- existing bully/victim problems in and out of the school setting and to prevent the development of new problems” (Olweus, D. (1993).
Bullying has become a serious problem in public schools systems. Being a victim of bullying is a daily struggle for some students. The issue continues to grow, but the question is how to stop bullying from occurring. Many ways have been attempted to stop bullying, but some are more effective than others. Having the students get involved seems to have the most positive effect on the bullying issue in public school systems.
Guidance counseling, also called school counseling, has evolved over the years into an important part of the education system. Counselors are now taking on new roles in schools as leaders so much so that the ways in which counseling is being implemented has become a much talked about topic in schools. The effectiveness of counseling in schools is looked at by the education system more frequently than it was in the past. Though all school counselors must follow a national model for counseling, the roles and functions of counselors at various levels in the school system are different, however, school counselors at all levels of education before college are generally effective despite implications.
She believes some of the challenges contemporary families are facing are the economy, healthcare, loss of employment, lack of basic necessities, and broken homes. Despite these challenges, schools and families can work together to make schools stronger by creating a positive learning environment and show the student that they are there to help the student in any way possible. She also states that it is important for the teacher and parent(s) to be on the same page and support each other in regards to learning styles and techniques.