high school

This week will be my first week at the high school. Does anyone have any good advice about working with high school students? Until now I have been at the elementary school and I'm nervous about the high school setting.

Classroom Guidance Lesson

Overview of activity (brief statement): “Sticks and Stones” is a classroom guidance lesson that focuses on the issues of tattling in the elementary school setting. After explaining the difference between reporting and tattling; the children select a scenario card, decide if it’s a tattling situation or not, and then place it on the pile of shredded paper (tattling pile) or the sticks and stones (reporting pile).   

Purpose: To explain the difference between tattling and telling, and give them examples of each of the two categories.   

Intervention Level: This guidance lesson is considered to be a preventive and an intervention strategy for the students.

Age group / grade: 2^nd grade/ 7-8 years old

Materials needed: card stack of tattling and telling situations/ pile of shredded paper/ pile of sticks and stones/ reminder paper (for the teacher to hang up in the room)

Activity, step by step, with a time estimate of each step: 30 minutes

Step one: Gather the needed materials.

Step two: Set up the 2 piles for tattling and reporting.

Step three: Explain the difference between tattling and telling to the students.

Step four: Ask them to share their own experiences with tattling and telling.

Step five: Introduce the pile of shredded paper (tattling pile) and the pile of sticks and stones (telling pile) to the students.

Step six: Each students chooses a card, decides if the situation is tattling or reporting, and places it on the correct pile (sticks and stones or the shredded paper).

Step seven: Continue step six until every student in the classroom gets a turn.

Step eight: Introduce the reminder sheet to the classroom and explain the various aspects of tattling and reporting to the students.

Step nine: Leave the reminder sheet with the students’ teacher.

Follow-up activities with the class: I think that respect and responsibility activities would be great follow- up activities to do with the same class.  

Contingency plan (if things don’t go as hoped…): After the tattling, respectful, and responsibility guidance lessons are completed with the class, hopefully the students will interact with each other in a more positive and productive manner.

A magic wand

If I had a magic wand and could change one thing, I would change the amount of parental involvement in the students' education. Throughout this semester, I have noticed that a great amount of the parents are not very involved with their children’s education. There have been several instances in which the parent(s) were supposed to meet up with some of the staff members and didn’t show up for the meeting. Instead, a phone conference had to substitute in order to discuss the reevaluation for the child’s IEP (Individual Education Plan). If the parents were more involved in their children’s education, the student would have a better support system and a stronger connection with their parents. This would definitely make the school counselor’s job easier, since the parents would take more of their time to work with the children on their educational weaknesses. Having a strong and constant line of communication between the school faculty and the students’ parents would really help to influence this change in the school.

week #7

Based upon the feedback that I received from my first audio tape and after listening to it myself, I think that I’m where I thought I was in relation to developing my counseling skills. I realize that I’m still a novice in many of the aspects of counseling. When I did the first audio recording, I knew then and I still think that I have a long road of development in front of me. My site supervisor has years of experience from working in the school system as a teacher and as a school counselor. I admire her patience and her demeanor with the students during the guidance lessons and during other counseling activities.          

There are several areas that I would like to improve upon. For instance, I would like to continue to improve upon my classroom management skills. Another area that I would like to work on is my individual interaction skills with the students. Even though I have already given a few guidance lessons, I still want to work on the task of creating and carrying out the appropriate lessons for the children. Leading group counseling sessions is another facet that I hope to enhance upon during the time in which I will be working on my practicum hours at the high school level. Becoming more comfortable with working with students during individual and group sessions is another goal of mine.   


I think that a majority of my improvements will foster from the practicum site experiences at the schools, and from the feedback that I will receive from: my classmates, site supervisors, and my professor. In addition, today my site supervisor suggested that I do some research on managing the behavior of a classroom full of students, since I do have the background of a teacher. Lately, I have been getting nervous and slightly intimidated whenever I’m planning and conducting a guidance lesson.    

I think that I will know that I have improved my counseling skills when I’m not second guessing myself as much as I do now. In addition, once I do become more secure with working with the children, then I will know that my counseling skills have greatly improved. I also believe that by discussing and gaining feedback from others about various situations and how to better address them will really assist me in reaching my goals.

icebreaker activity

For class tomorrow, I have to instruct an icebreaker activity. I have decided on an activity that’s called, “Solemn and Silent,” and it’s mainly about self-control. Each person has to stand up, pair up with a partner, and stand back to back to one another. After the count of three, everyone will need to turn and face their partner, maintain eye contact, and try to continue to be solemn and serious with each other. Another rule of this icebreaker activity is that the participants cannot talk to their partners. If someone smiles or laughs, then they are out of the game and have to take a seat. The participants, who are still in the game, have to find a new partner and repeat the act. This activity will continue until everyone is out of the game. By some chance, if some of the participants are able to remain solemn and silent, then the participants who are already out of the game can disrupt them by talking to them. It will interesting to see how long everyone can keep a straight facial expression.