High School Guidance Departments

In my high school, we had a guidance department. This was the place that a student could go to and receive counseling for post-high school plans. It was also supposed to be the place that a student could go to if he or she were having problems at school. The nature of a problem could range from simple trouble getting through a class (the curriculum was too hard, the teacher was unfair, the student had bad study habits, etc.) to personal problems. From time to time during the “Ad-Com” (administrative communications) period all students had to attend each morning, an announcement would be made to the effect that the guidance department was there for the students, and that any student could go there for counseling with their problems. Sounds great, doesn’t it? There’s only one problem here, though.

Like just about everything else done in this school, those in charge of running things presumed that students were just “little adults” who were completely responsible for their own actions. And if they weren’t mature or knowledgeable enough to react in an adult way to opportunities presented to them, then it was THEIR fault. In my entire time (from 7th through 12th grade) at this school, I never went to guidance for counseling with my problems (and I had quite a few, some severe). There are some very good reasons for this, the overriding one being that I didn’t trust the guidance people! My main problem as a kid was trying to deal with very aggressive (even to the point of being predatory) classmates around me. This was coupled with a plague of negligent teachers. Don’t forget that, like anyone else, I experienced my childhood advancing into the future one day at a time, with only my past experiences to draw upon. I did not have the luxury of looking back from a future perspective and saying to myself, “This guidance department they have here probably has some really nice people in it who will sympathetically listen to me, be my advocate, and make school more livable for me!” All I knew back then was that asking to go to guidance was a very public matter. It was always thrown about in a matter-of-fact manner that student so-and-so wasn’t present in class because he or she was in “guidance”. In my opinion, the staff in charge of running my school should have been much more proactive in getting students to use the guidance opportunities there by setting aside time to have each student go there and personally talk with a counselor, regardless of whether any need for one had been expressed or not. After all, one of the problems that the neediest have in any aspect of our society is that they don’t know how or where they can seek help. Sometimes you have to lead the horse to the water, you know!

One other thing that my school’s guidance department did that kept me away from it was that they used student volunteers, who worked there assisting the department employees during their free times at school. This may sound good on the surface, but remember that if a student is going there to talk about his or her personal problems, the last thing they would want is for some “volunteer” to overhear them from the hallway saying something of a personal, sensitive nature. Especially if it involved other students. And the sad fact was, some of the student guidance volunteers were also some of the most aggressive and gossiping students on campus! So I knew in advance, before I even opened the door to the guidance office, that I’d have to pass through this unwelcome gauntlet.

My advice to guidance professionals is to recognize that the children attending their schools are just that: children. And the ones with the biggest problems almost always are suffering from mistrust of others. It’s not enough to just say that guidance is there for those who want it: each student needs to be taken there regularly to be able to have at least one confidential conversation with a sympathetic adult advocate. Most kids with problems repress them, thinking that if there is anything wrong, then it’s their own fault, anyway. So, to guidance professionals: even though it may seem to be a “nice” thing to have them around, please keep student volunteers away from your guidance department. You’ll probably never know how many needy students you would otherwise have discouraged from seeking important counseling!