Rewards and Challenges

Guidance Counselors have a major responsibility to the student body that can be challenging at times. They are helping the students to recognize their self identity. Between the years of middle school to high school, kids are trying to find out who they are and how they belong. As the students get older, they take on more of family issues which in return can be brought to school. The counselors are faced with tryin to get them to cope with life decisions, but seperating it from their acadmics. Sometimes it hard to focus as adults, and how today's society is, children are faced with more responsiblity than ever before. Another challenge is peer pressure and trying to belong to the "in crowd". This situation can make or break a person of any magnitude. It seems to come as a challenge for the counselors because they have to create various counseling strategies that are designed to help the young people deal with all of the pressure that their adolescent years comes with. Although there are challenges, counselors also seek rewards in dealing with the students on a day to day basis. Watching a student grow and excel academically can touch anyone's heart. Because guidance counselors aren't teachers nor administrators, they serve as a buffer before receiving discplinary action resulting in suspension or getting expelled from school. Helping a student that has/had a discipline problem so that it doesn't reach that plateau is also a great feeling. Sometimes having the right thing to say can change that student's decision making process within a second. I didn't realize that guidance counselors were faced with so much adversity. They are an intricate part to the student body and without them, I think the schools would be lost. They are just as vital as teachers and administrators are to education.