Welcome to all helpers in the education world! Your questions, concerns and topics of interest are all unique from others in the education setting. Let's start sharing and learning from one another by discussing Student Assistance Teams, guidance plans and other topics. Remember the first step to being a great helper is by supporting yourself! We hope this is a great place to start doing that! Join us!
As educators, we see students sometimes more than their parents/guardians do. We have a unique opportunity to help them, as well as be frustrated by concerns of how best to support them. Let's share ideas on how to encourage students to do their homework, explore various topics of concern such as self-harm, depression, ADHD, bullying and more. Share anonymous case studies by emailing the moderator your story without names and we'll re-post the story to hopefully gather feedback from peers. Let's start sharing!
Topic Lead - Ms. Angela Fiandaca, M.Ed. - Guidance Counselor- Biddeford Middle School

WELCOME!
My name is Angela Fiandaca, M.Ed. I am a guidance counselor at Biddeford Middle School in Biddeford, Maine. I am by no means an expert, as I am new to this wonderful field of education. However, I have volunteered to be the facilitator of this discussion group, "Help for the Helpers & the ABCs of Student Issues." I hope we can learn together how this discussion board will work!

EXPECTATIONS
I ask that you be first and foremost respectful toward all colleagues who post to this discussion board. Respect different opinions. Post with appropriate language and topics. Adhere to confidentiality rules. Do not ever use actual student, staff, parent, etc. names or details of stories that may give away personal information. Other expectations? Please post here if you have more rules we should remember. Most importantly, please have fun and hopefully gain something valuable from your participation in this group.

TOPIC #1 - Getting to Know You...
I'd like to start us off by introducing ourselves - name, job title, place of work, background, experience, etc. Anything you really want to share! Also, please share what you hope to gain from this discussion group.

Hi!

I am Bill Ivey, the Middle School Dean at Stoneleigh-Burnham School, which is an independent all-girls school (boarding and day). I help facilitate our twice-weekly team meetings, one of which focuses predominantly on social development (the other on academic development). I am always on the lookout for ways to help kids, and strongly believe that it can't help but benefit them whenever educators build associations and put their heads together.

Take care,
Bill

Hello.
I am the Coordinator of Guidance in a public school system and am interested in learning whether anyone has specific information about the plannin, development and evaluation????Regards, Sue

Edited by author 10-24-2007 01:55 PM
I'm Coordinator of Guidance and am seeking information about the planning, development and implementation of a Career Day for middle school students, please.

Sue,
I am the assistant principal at Dodd Middle School in Cheshire, CT. We hold an 8th grade career day on the 1/2 day before Thanksgiving every year. Students are placed in five 45 minute sessions with different career speakers throughout the day. They also see two 30 minute presentations from the local vocational high schools. I also used to run a career day in my days as a counselor in a different middle school. During that career day, students saw three speakers for 45 minutes each, but they chose who they saw. They culminated with a career day keynote speaker. That takes an incredible amount of recruiting. I am happy to discuss this with you or provide you with more information if you would like to call me at 203-272-3249.

Career Day is a great topic to discuss here. Thanks for bringing it up! I worked at a middle school last year where I taught a Career Prep. course to all 7th and 8th grade students. One class period was devoted to choosing the different careers the students wanted to learn more about. I then spent some time talking to teachers in the building who knew of valuable resources in the community who would serve as speakers on a career panel in our classroom. The students then brainstormed questions for the speakers. The speakers came in to the classroom, sat up front all together, introduced themselves and their work, then opened it up for questions. We made comparisons between jobs, discussing similarties and differences. The students really seemed to enjoy the panel. It was a quick way to get in some career information, very helpful to schools that perhaps are unable to coordinate a large-scale career day event.

Hi!
My name is Erin Pimental and I am an 8th grade special education teacher at Roosevelt Middle School, an urban school located in New Bedford, MA. I have taught special education for five years, and am working towards becoming licensed in Educational Leadership. I look forward to sharing ideas about how to best help and support our students both academically and socially.

My name is Tom Bousquet. I'm a guidance counselor at Mystic Middle School in Mystic, Connecticut. I work with students in grades 5-8. Prior to working in Mystic, I spend four years as a special education teacher, guidance counselor, and track coach in Chicopee, Massachusetts.
I think this will be a great forum to share ideas, discuss student issues that arise, and improve our schools. Currently, I am seeking new ideas on some strategies to motivate reluctant learners.

Great, thanks for joining, Tom and Erin! Tom, you mentioned seeking ideas for encouraging reluctant learners. I am curious about other people's thoughts on this. I have several students on my caseload right now who seem to just not respond to any intervention myself, the assistant principal and a handful of teachers have devised as the plan to support them.

We try offering team homework clubs after school, referrals to SAT, different plans, such as alternative education, yet sometimes all of the above do not work. One such case that has been a success is with a student who we realize school just does not fit well with her, our assistant principal set it up that she works at a local horse farm and then she returns to school for the second half of the day. She has attended each day since we put this program in place! I suppose the answer is that we must think outside the box. However, sometimes that's easier said than done!

Any strategies that have really worked to help students become more interested in academics?

Thinking outside of the box is definitely the key. Being creative and thinking about what motivates kids can definitely help a student achieve success. In regards to interest in academics, I think we need to make a conscious effort to relate curriculum and the whole school experience to student interests. Constantly informing students how school and specific curriculum impact them is an important way to get students to connect.
Relating personal experiences can also be helpful to get students to put more value into their academics. Many students that I have dealt with often get frustrutrated when they struggle and feel like the best thing to do is give up. By relating personal experiences, teachers will not only communicate that they are human, but also that everything wasn't always easy for them either. The key message is to persevere. The only way to fail is to give up--this message needs to be constantly communicated to all students.

I am looking into ideas for career education. I find it easier to develop developmentally appropriate activities for 8th grade, but am trying to come up with some ideas for 5th, 6th, and 7th. I'd like to implement activities that would not overlap through the years. If anyone has a successful program or idea, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks.

I cannot take credit for coming up with all of these lessons myself, but I filled in for a guidance counselor who taught a Career Prep class. I think the emphasis for the seventh graders in this class was on teamwork, which is a huge component of having a job. I suggest for the lower grades, this theme would be helpful for them also with respect to career lessons.

These are some of the ideas from the seventh grade career class:
-Students form teams and design their own company or business organization. They make business cards (learn what is important to include on business cards); a company logo and slogan; positions (manager, CEO, etc.); a product or service they can provide (and talk about the differences between the two); etc. They work together, but are each responsible for taking a part of the project to do individually also, thus teaching them teamwork that is applied in the real job setting.

-Job interviews- Students interview one another for positions in their companies they designed themselves.

-Formed a town based on the Real Deal Game (excellent career resource). Students designed the parts of the town, named the town, chose the businesses within the town and the employees and positions for working there, etc.

-Career/Personality Surveys- to show them which category they fall into and how their personality matches certain jobs that may be of interest to them.

-Career Research Paper- they need to research a career of their choice and present the information to the class.

-Career Autobiography- Each student made a poster, podcast, TV or radio commercial, etc. for a career of their choice, particularly something they thought they would NOT be interestedin doing. The requirements were to sell and promote that career, including the pros and cons of the career, the salary, education or training needed for it, whether they could do the career in this state, etc.

We use a curriculum called The Real Game for career ed. It is excellent!
(Brattleboro Area Middle School)