CHANGED IMPRESSIONS

After perusing the information presented in the links provided for this module I must say my impressions on guidance and counseling have been flooded with a lot more data. In the beginning evidence of the foundations of counseling can be traced back to the 20 century in Rome and Greece. In the 1890's with the social reform movement, I learned that Frank Parson was considered the father of the vocational guidance movement. His work with the Civic Service House led to the development of an outline for a system of vocational guidance in Boston public schools. World War I introduced assessments in the form of standardized testing and during World War II the focus moved away from testing.

Since then counseling methods have changed and grown but most important the students are still the main focus. Counselors focus in providing all the necessary tools for students to have the best possible education available. Each grade level from 9 grade through 12 grade schools counseling methods depends on the school board/governing body of the school. Each county may have slightly different guidelines but all counselors must be licenced and follow strict guidelines. Some schools use the counseling standards as a blue print like we teachers use our standards to create our lesson plans, however, not all school systems use the standards. This fact was posted in one of the websites.

My impressions were not changed but I learnt a lot. Like teachers counselors have a very tough job and have many hats to manage.