Confrontation in the Star Tours queue

[hobie16]

Guidance counselor? There's a waste of space and funds. They call you in once a year, have no idea who you are or what you're interested in, and have completely forgotten you five minutes after you walk out the door.

Wow. Thanks for that. Good to know I'm a waste of space. Guess I better tell that to the dozens of kids who told me at grad last week that I'd made a huge difference in their lives and that they'd miss me when they went off to their various colleges and universities... :mad:

Sorry you had a bad experience with some counsellor in the past, but please don't paint everyone with the same brush...it's a kind of Board X thing to do, like the SGs that think all CMs are rude and unhelpful just 'cause they happened to run into one bad one.

I'll try to avoid a flame war with my response.

My high school was literally across the street from Stanford. It was, and still is, rated in the 99th percentile of HSs in the US. The student body could be broken down into three groups. Those programmed to attend Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/etc., the greasers whose only goal was to snag a cigarette in the parking lot between classes, and the rest of us who would either be going to a JC or diving into the job pool after graduation.

Guess which group(s) got the most attention from the guidance counselors? It sure wasn't the rest of us.

You state, "... the dozens of kids who told me at grad last week that I'd made a huge difference in their lives and that they'd miss me when they went off to their various colleges and universities..." What about the rest of the kids? Why didn't they have any kind words for you?

I understand wanting to work with students who have high potential for success. You can look at their career arc and think, "I had a part in their success." You can also look at the greaser's career arc and think, "I kept that kid out of jail."

I taught sales reps and systems engineers for fifteen years. In retirement, I teach kids to sail. It's very easy to focus on the star sales guys or front of the pack racers but they are not the ones who need my help. Here's an example. In my last sailing class I had one little girl who must have been born with sailing DNA. She got in the boat, figured out how things worked, dialed in the wind, and was off and running. When we started them racing she was making tactical decisions that would get her a full scholarship into any major university who had a sailing program.

Meanwhile, another little girl was having a horrible time. She was getting buried in the starts and consistently came in dead last. We talked about where she was having problems on the course and I offered my race winning start strategy. She got a killer start, led the pack around the course, and pulled off an horizon job win. The payoff for me was the ear to ear grin.

So, my challenge to you is go get your hands dirty. Go work with the round headed kids who aren't off to colleges and universities. Go spend some time in the shop classes and find out what they're interested in and help them find their way. You may not get any comments from them at graduation but one day you'll pull into a garage or have a repair guy in your house and you'll hear a voice say, "Yo, Ms. Bookbabe. You probably don't remember me but you helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my life."

[delsdad]

Wow. Thanks for that. Good to know I'm a waste of space. Guess I better tell that to the dozens of kids who told me at grad last week that I'd made a huge difference in their lives and that they'd miss me when they went off to their various colleges and universities... :mad:

Sorry you had a bad experience with some counsellor in the past, but please don't paint everyone with the same brush...it's a kind of Board X thing to do, like the SGs that think all CMs are rude and unhelpful just 'cause they happened to run into one bad one.

We had 2 fantastic guidance councillors at my school, in northern Ontario. And there were also 2 useless ones. Word got around pretty quickly that you needed to see one of the 2 good councillors if you wanted anything done properly. It could take weeks to get an appointment, especially at university application time. THe 2 useless councillors regularly had their students missing university application deadlines for schools that were part of the main application processing centre. One application applied to most (but not all) of the large universities in the province. But the colleges, trade schools and technical institutes each handled their own admissions. With their own deadlines. I almost missed getting my application in on time, had I not insisted that another councillor take it on. My councillor refused to acknowledge that there were different deadlines for different schools. She was too busy to read the info I brought her! So I had to get the principal to force one of the good councillors to handle my application. Of course the good councillors were totally overwhelmed at this time of year.
Needless to say, other students applying to colleges through the bad councillors got rejection letters stating their applications were late. That went on for years.
I understand that the colleges are now on the University Application Centre system as well now. Thank Goodness.

[delsdad]

I'll try to avoid a flame war with my response.

My high school was literally across the street from Stanford. It was, and still is, rated in the 99th percentile of HSs in the US. The student body could be broken down into three groups. Those programmed to attend Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/etc., the greasers whose only goal was to snag a cigarette in the parking lot between classes, and the rest of us who would either be going to a JC or diving into the job pool after graduation.

Guess which group(s) got the most attention from the guidance counselors? It sure wasn't the rest of us.

You state, "... the dozens of kids who told me at grad last week that I'd made a huge difference in their lives and that they'd miss me when they went off to their various colleges and universities..." What about the rest of the kids? Why didn't they have any kind words for you?

I understand wanting to work with students who have high potential for success. You can look at their career arc and think, "I had a part in their success." You can also look at the greaser's career arc and think, "I kept that kid out of jail."

I taught sales reps and systems engineers for fifteen years. In retirement, I teach kids to sail. It's very easy to focus on the star sales guys or front of the pack racers but they are not the ones who need my help. Here's an example. In my last sailing class I had one little girl who must have been born with sailing DNA. She got in the boat, figured out how things worked, dialed in the wind, and was off and running. When we started them racing she was making tactical decisions that would get her a full scholarship into any major university who had a sailing program.

Meanwhile, another little girl was having a horrible time. She was getting buried in the starts and consistently came in dead last. We talked about where she was having problems on the course and I offered my race winning start strategy. She got a killer start, led the pack around the course, and pulled off an horizon job win. The payoff for me was the ear to ear grin.

So, my challenge to you is go get your hands dirty. Go work with the round headed kids who aren't off to colleges and universities. Go spend some time in the shop classes and find out what they're interested in and help them find their way. You may not get any comments from them at graduation but one day you'll pull into a garage or have a repair guy in your house and you'll hear a voice say, "Yo, Ms. Bookbabe. You probably don't remember me but you helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my life."

Hobie, I think that the way a guidance councillor works in the school system might be somewhat different here in Ontario. THe only way one could apply to an institute of higher education or for a trade apprenticeship when I was in high school was through a guidance office at a high school. If you wanted to be an auto mechanic, you had to go through them, just as you did to follow the path towards a BA or an MD. EVERY high school student is assigned a councillor, from the time they enter high school. They are supposed to deal with helping you choose courses that will set you up for the post secondary path that you wish to follow.
Sure some councillors are going to be useless. But we find that in any occupation. Luckily there are capable councillors who are able to ensure students are on track with the credits that they need. Several of my buddys became tradesmen, and it was the guidance folks that made sure they got everything in place to apply for their apprenticeship programs. One is now a mechanic with his own shop, another an electrician, and two became machinists. And if the councillors had not insisted they take all their math credits, they would not have been able to be admitted into apprenticeship programs. And these guys were what you would call the greasers.

So our guidance councillors do more than deal with those university bound. maybe thats why we had 4 or 5 in a school with 850 students.

[DisneyMom]

I'll try to avoid a flame war with my response.

My high school was literally across the street from Stanford. It was, and still is, rated in the 99th percentile of HSs in the US. The student body could be broken down into three groups. Those programmed to attend Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/etc., the greasers whose only goal was to snag a cigarette in the parking lot between classes, and the rest of us who would either be going to a JC or diving into the job pool after graduation.

Guess which group(s) got the most attention from the guidance counselors? It sure wasn't the rest of us.

You state, "... the dozens of kids who told me at grad last week that I'd made a huge difference in their lives and that they'd miss me when they went off to their various colleges and universities..." What about the rest of the kids? Why didn't they have any kind words for you?

I understand wanting to work with students who have high potential for success. You can look at their career arc and think, "I had a part in their success." You can also look at the greaser's career arc and think, "I kept that kid out of jail."

I taught sales reps and systems engineers for fifteen years. In retirement, I teach kids to sail. It's very easy to focus on the star sales guys or front of the pack racers but they are not the ones who need my help. Here's an example. In my last sailing class I had one little girl who must have been born with sailing DNA. She got in the boat, figured out how things worked, dialed in the wind, and was off and running. When we started them racing she was making tactical decisions that would get her a full scholarship into any major university who had a sailing program.

Meanwhile, another little girl was having a horrible time. She was getting buried in the starts and consistently came in dead last. We talked about where she was having problems on the course and I offered my race winning start strategy. She got a killer start, led the pack around the course, and pulled off an horizon job win. The payoff for me was the ear to ear grin.

So, my challenge to you is go get your hands dirty. Go work with the round headed kids who aren't off to colleges and universities. Go spend some time in the shop classes and find out what they're interested in and help them find their way. You may not get any comments from them at graduation but one day you'll pull into a garage or have a repair guy in your house and you'll hear a voice say, "Yo, Ms. Bookbabe. You probably don't remember me but you helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my life."

There are good and bad in every profession I tend to think that our fellow SGTers are the caring type

Hobie,I would most probably be the first to sink in your junior sailing classes :p: People (kids) like me are not naturals on coordination,and need the most help. I did great in classes but failed playground...the result being I pretty much lacked any self confidence and started not caring about my studies in junior high. I turned it around at senior year when I started going to the local JC...point is, EVERY kid needs help in something,and can succeed beyond all expectations,ALL of them deserve it! :)

[hobie16]

Hobie, I think that the way a guidance councillor works in the school system might be somewhat different here in Ontario. THe only way one could apply to an institute of higher education or for a trade apprenticeship when I was in high school was through a guidance office at a high school. If you wanted to be an auto mechanic, you had to go through them, just as you did to follow the path towards a BA or an MD. EVERY high school student is assigned a councillor, from the time they enter high school. They are supposed to deal with helping you choose courses that will set you up for the post secondary path that you wish to follow.
Sure some councillors are going to be useless. But we find that in any occupation. Luckily there are capable councillors who are able to ensure students are on track with the credits that they need. Several of my buddys became tradesmen, and it was the guidance folks that made sure they got everything in place to apply for their apprenticeship programs. One is now a mechanic with his own shop, another an electrician, and two became machinists. And if the councillors had not insisted they take all their math credits, they would not have been able to be admitted into apprenticeship programs. And these guys were what you would call the greasers.

So our guidance councillors do more than deal with those university bound. maybe thats why we had 4 or 5 in a school with 850 students.

The Ontario system sounds pretty good. In my four years of HS no one ever sat down with me to discuss career goals and the classes that would help me get there. As I remember, the guidance counselor(s) would call me in for five minutes, ask a few questions, and send me on my way. Looking back, I believe I was just a check mark for them as in, I talked to X number of kids today so I must be doing my job. See, here are the names I've checked off.

[hobie16]

Hobie,I would most probably be the first to sink in your junior sailing classes :p:

Nope. I tell a story at the beginning of classes. There was a guy who owned a summer home on a lake in the upper Midwest. He went to the home to open it up for the summer one year and decided to take his boat out for a sail.

At the lee end of the lake he encountered another sail boat that was stuck head to wind with the sail flopping back and forth. He came along side and asked the sole occupant if he needed help. The occupant replied, "I'm trying to get back to my house." and indicated that it was at the windward end of the lake.

Our sailor replied, "You can't go straight into the wind. You must sail at a forty-five degree angle to the wind and tack (turn through the wind) back and forth to get to your house."

Our sailor stayed with him all the way back to his house offering advice as they sailed back.

Over the summer our sailor saw the poor guy trying to sail and getting stuck at the lee end of the lake. He never was able to get back to his house by himself.

It turned out the poor guy was Albert Einstein. So, I tell my sailing students, kids and adults, that they will all be able to out sail Albert Einstein by the end of the class.

[bookbabe]

You state, "... the dozens of kids who told me at grad last week that I'd made a huge difference in their lives and that they'd miss me when they went off to their various colleges and universities..." What about the rest of the kids? Why didn't they have any kind words for you?
<snip>
So, my challenge to you is go get your hands dirty. Go work with the round headed kids who aren't off to colleges and universities. Go spend some time in the shop classes and find out what they're interested in and help them find their way. You may not get any comments from them at graduation but one day you'll pull into a garage or have a repair guy in your house and you'll hear a voice say, "Yo, Ms. Bookbabe. You probably don't remember me but you helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my life."

it's seemingly easy for you to judge when you don't know me, my students, my school or my history. Must be nice to have that kind of omnipotence...

There were about 240 students at grad this year. About a third of those are in a special program, and thus aren't ones I have any interaction with. Out of the other 160 or so, only about a quarter of them fall into my alpha group (4 counselors, I have surnames M to T). So, personally, the fact that over half the kids in my alpha took time out of their celebratory night with their friends to say something nice to me is a pretty good track record, thanks.

Not all of those college- and university-bound kids started out that way, either. Many of them just needed someone to believe in them. For example, one of this year's grads that I'm really proud of turned himself completely around over the last two years. He went from the stereotypical failing grades and constantly being in trouble with the law to being on the honor roll and heading to university next year. Don't forget, we also have a system of government loans and grants that allows even kids from low income families to continue their educations as long as they've got okay grades (say over a 60% average, depending on where they want to go and what program they want to take).

And, up until 2 years ago when budget cuts closed it, I was at one of those "keep 'em out of jail" schools...spent ten years there, and only left when they dragged us all out kicking and screaming as they were locking the doors. All of my students there were high-risk or special needs...and those students got just as much of my effort and attention, thanks, with pretty much the same success rate.

So please don't make assumptions based on just your own obviously negative experiences, when you have no clue who I am or what I've done with my life.

[hobie16]

So, personally, the fact that over half the kids in my alpha took time out of their celebratory night with their friends to say something nice to me is a pretty good track record, thanks.
[...]
For example, one of this year's grads that I'm really proud of turned himself completely around over the last two years. He went from the stereotypical failing grades and constantly being in trouble with the law to being on the honor roll and heading to university next year.
[...]
All of my students there were high-risk or special needs...and those students got just as much of my effort and attention, thanks, with pretty much the same success rate.

:thumbup: :thumbup: Good for you!! :thumbup: :thumbup:

[Goofyernmost]

My guidance counselor in High School was actually my next door neighbor. I saw him once when I first enrolled in the school and once again when I was in my senior year.

After a less than lustrous (not failing, but just getting through) high school career, I decided that I wanted to go to a Two year college that specialized in Business Admin. I went to see him about getting an application and help. What I got from him was this..."I'll give you an application but you won't get accepted and if you do you'll never make it through." In other words, you are a loser!

I would be OK if I thought for a minute that he was just trying to motivate me, but you have to believe me that wasn't his intent at all. Anyway, I graduated and went on to a pretty good life and career...no thanks to that jackass!

That, however, is not a blanket statement of all Counselors. So those of you with a high sensitivity level...this is not necessarily directed at you. You'll know if you fit into the give up on the loser syndrome. If you don't ignore this, if you do...correct it. I was a self motivator...not many are.

[hobie16]

Anyway, I graduated and went on to a pretty good life and career...

:thumbup: :thumbup: Score!! :thumbup: :thumbup: