Several smart counselors have told me, “Define your role before someone else defines it for you.” To me, this means that as a school counselor, I need to be proactive in explaining my job to administrators, teachers, and parents. There’s another important group who needs an orientation to my job: Students. At an elementary school, this can be a challenge. At one end of the spectrum are kindergartners who are learning everything new for the first time. For these younger students, a book like “Who is Your School Counselor?” met my needs. With older students, however, I needed a different approach.
To lead the “Meet the School Counselor” lessons, my co-counselor and I used KWL charts. Many teachers use KWL charts to assess students’ knowledge, interests, and learning about a particular topic.
- K stands for “What do you KNOW?” –> The K allows students to share knowledge they already have about a topic.
- W stands for “What do you WANT to know?”–> In the W column, students can list the questions they have about the topic and what they want to learn.
- L stands for “What did you LEARN?” –> After the lesson, students can write down some the things they learned.
I enjoyed using the KWL charts for a few reasons. First, asking students what they already knew about school counselors helped us tailor the lesson to the students’ needs. Using the KWL charts, we could differentiate our lessons on the spot. If one class has a pretty clear understanding of how counselors help with personal/social issues such as bullying, we spent more time talking about supporting their academic and career needs. If another class saw school counselors as disciplinarians, we spent more time dispelling that belief. Asking students to share what they already knew helped us be more effective.
When students told us what they wanted to know about school counselors, they showed ownership over their learning. We wrote down their questions, essentially allowing them to guide the direction of the lesson (with boundaries, of course). This strategy had an unexpected benefit. My co-counselor and I are both new to the school and many students are curious about who we are and where we came from. They asked questions like, “Why do you want to helps us?” “What school did you work at before you came here?” and “What are your hobbies?” Our lessons became a way for us to introduce ourselves as both people and school counselors. Sharing a little of ourselves with them was the first step in building relationships with a very large student population.
Finally, using the KWL charts meant we had immediate DATA! Having the students tell us what they learned was a great way to evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson. After the first set of lessons, I spent a few minutes looking through the “L” responses. I was hoping to see things like: “I can see the counselor in the classroom, in a small group, or one-on-one.” Instead, what I read was humbling. In the very first lesson, one of the most common responses was “It is hard being a school counselor.” This was not the message we wanted our students to take away. We were not effective, and something needed to change. We regrouped and brainstormed different ways to talk about our job. By the next lesson, student responses where more encouraging:
“They help children when they have a problem”
“They do not suspend people”
“Their offices are in the main office.”
“You can tell them if they you had a good day or a bad day.”
“They can help you with bullying or school work.”
“They had to go to college”
Our first round of “Meet the School Counselors” lessons were a great learning experience. Students learned from us, we learned from them, and they learned from each other. In a fourth grade class, one of the most common responses under “L” was “School counselors support you.” A student made that statement when she was sharing what she already knew about school counselors. I was amazed by how much her words resonated with the other students. Using the KWL charts, we established our classroom as a supportive learning community.
You can find a copy of the KWL charts HERE.
New School Counselor 