"Changed Impressions."

After reading the early history of counseling, obviously the field has broadened from targeting vocational education, to the entire field of education.  What is interesting to note, is that history continues to repeat itself with the lack of support, particularly funding being allotted to the field of counseling.  The overall goal of the school counselor as a profession appears to have have started based upon the need to provide services beyond education to include social services. Taking a further look, the United States continues to fall behind the rest of the world in the fields of math and science.  The reading also suggests that the development of the field was a slow process, aimed overtime at providing much needed services to students, and though the mission seems to still be relevant, the process of specific, defined roles, aimed solely at student success, seem to allude us, particularly in the district that I teach in.  I often hear counselors speak to 9th grade students about the importance of starting off strong and maintaining high GPA's and involvement in extracurricular activities so that when they begin to apply to colleges they are able to compete with other students around the world. The problem is that the speech here or there is not enough. Just last week, I had several 11th grade students to come to me after they had gotten the latest class ranking report asking me how they could go back and recover credit from their 9th and 10th grade years. I heard complaints such as "I should have been more serious my 9th grade year", and "I had a good time that year, I wasn't thinking about school".  It is my belief that if more support and resources are aimed at the underclassmen, then the remediation and summer school courses will become less of an issue at the "11th hour."  After reading all of the articles, I realize that the field of counseling has made great strides over the years, but more support is needed in order for counselors and students to reap the benefits of the services that many of our students depend on.