Abstract
The main objective of this chapter is to explore the integral partnership between school counselors and classroom teachers when benefitting students with backgrounds faced with adversity. The role of communication in stabilizing students' supports and bolstering relationships between teachers and counselors is delineated, along with other counselor-related classroom concerns. Direct counselor support benefits students, but counselor support of teachers as a means of self-care practice secondarily supports students as well. Anecdotal evidence from the author's experience as an elementary classroom teacher helps to contextualize the understandings presented from the research literature.
TopMain Focus Of The Chapter
This chapter intends to provide insight into the powerful relationship between classroom teachers and school counselors. An emotionally distressed student is not a student who can put forth their best effort in the classroom (Garner, 2010). As teachers and school counselors both learn more about each student, each professional may be privy to different facets of each student’s life. Professional communication allows for teachers and school counselors to work together to all have a clearer understanding of who the student is and from what context they are coming. The more that teachers and school counselors learn about students, the better they can do their jobs. If teachers and school counselors work together to ensure all students who could benefit from counseling receive such services, then counseling may shift as an even more normalized facet of routine self-care. The more normalized such practices become, the more people may partake in these supports. Teachers could then be more apt to utilize counseling as a form of self-care to diminish the teacher burn-out rate.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Racism: The social-construct that one race is superior to another. The result is that one race treats the other race as a subordinate.
Special Education: The department of a school that is responsible for initiating and maintaining the documentation and implementation of supports for students diagnosed with learning disabilities. This department works with IEPs and 504 paperwork.
Bullying: When one person mistreats another person, usually marked by an imbalance of power.
Burn-Out: When a person feels exhausted and no longer motivated to do an activity that they once enjoyed. In this case, teacher burn-out is when a teacher feels so mistreated, disrespected, and exhausted from the teaching profession, that they no longer wishes to be a teacher.
School Counselor: Also known as an adjustment counselor. Works with students and families with a focus on social-emotional health, academic support and planning, and future planning for careers and college.
Classroom Teacher: An educator who teaches an academic discipline with the general student population. In elementary schools, these are the grade-level teachers. In secondary schools, these are the academic subject-area teachers.
Poverty: The state of living in extremely poor condition. In the US as of 2019, this refers to individuals who make less than $34 per day or a family who makes less than $69 per day.
Underserved Students: These students are often categorized as “at-risk” and face obstacles and challenges like financial stress, languages barriers, discrimination, and more.
Individualized Education Plan (IEP): A formal, written, legal document that outlines the accommodations and/or modifications that a student is supposed to receive to support their learning disability. A special education team works together using a myriad of evidence to create a well-rounded IEP. After the age of 16, the student is invited to be a part of the process with increased self-advocacy.