Engaging Students in Classroom Guidance: Management Strategies for Middle School Counselors

Geltner, Jill A., Clark, Mary Ann, Professional School Counseling

Classroom guidance for all students is an important element of the program delivery system for middle school counselors. Effective classroom management is essential to implementing classroom guidance and may be challenging at times. This article presents strategies and management techniques to facilitate middle school counselors' planning and implementation of classroom guidance to meet the unique needs of middle school students.

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School counselors have the opportunity to communicate developmental information and guidance to many students in middle school classrooms (Wittmer, 2000). According to the ASCA National Model[R] (American School Counselor Association, 2003), classroom guidance is an important part of the delivery system for counseling programs, and it is recommended that middle school counselors spend 25% to 35% of their time in delivery of the guidance curriculum.

ASCA (2003) and Campbell and Dahir (1997) have emphasized a partnership between counselors and teachers to provide a proactive and preventative guidance curriculum addressing topics that every adolescent may face and teaching healthy skills to cope with these experiences. The original middle school philosophy (George & Alexander, 2003) included a teacher-as-adviser approach with groups of students meeting weekly with teachers to address developmental issues within the peer group. Many middle schools have removed this advisee time to fulfill requirements for more academic content (Myrick, 2003). In today's middle schools, counselors may be the sole presenter of the guidance curriculum in the classroom.

Unfortunately, school counselors may be uncomfortable in the classroom because of a lack of experience in classroom management. The ASCA National Model (2003) includes the following statement: "Although teaching experience is not required in some states, it is important for school counselors to receive training in ... classroom behavior management" (p. 16). This article presents strategies to assist middle school counselors in effectively …

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Publication information: Article title: Engaging Students in Classroom Guidance: Management Strategies for Middle School Counselors. Contributors: Geltner, Jill A. - Author, Clark, Mary Ann - Author. Journal title: Professional School Counseling. Volume: 9. Issue: 2 Publication date: December 2005. Page number: 164+. © 2009 American School Counselor Association. COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group.

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