Would you (or anyone else who happens to be cheering on this young woman) feel the same if it turned out that the counselor she called out had to cut some of the attention she otherwise would have given this student to spend more time helping another student who was being abused? Or if she was honestly doing her best to help but was having a hard time dealing with the death of her own child and just wasn’t able to do everything she otherwise would?
I mean, maybe this counselor sucks, I dunno. But jeez, the lack of empathy when we decide that someone’s narrative is the whole, righteous truth is remarkable sometimes. It’s so easy to forget that the people on the receiving end of this are, you know, people.
That’s definitely the expectation in wealthier school districts, although it should be the standard in all of them. It’s especially important in lower-income schools where high-achieving students may also be the first in their families to attend college and need that … well, guidance.
Somebody a year ahead of me was convicted of murder slightly after his graduation. By the time my graduation rolled around, if you asked any of the school administrators, or walked around looking at pictures, trophies, etc., you would have a hard time knowing he’d ever existed. His grad party was referred to as his brother’s grad party, despite his brother being in my year, making his having a party the previous year a little ridiculous.
I am well familiar with the gaslighting and cover-up machine that is public school administration. Hell, I had it try to smear my entire grad class – were it not for one sympathetic teacher and a rather blatant internal memo, they might have succeeded.
I’m sorry that was your experience, but I’m also curious - why doesn’t your experience make you sympathize with her?
Guidance counselors should be working with every student under their care. While the high-performing students may need less help through much of their high school career, they need a lot of help in the latter stages. There are simply things that are required now that they absolutely cannot do self-service. There are colleges and scholarships that require recommendations that the student never sees. For a valedictorian of a big school like this, you could expect a minimum of 3 and as many as 7 separate confidential recommendations required. The student cannot see them. Someone at the school has to collect them and certify them. That is usually the student’s guidance counselor.
The result of a bad counselor could easily be a kid who has earned a place at a strong academic university and a bunch of scholarships instead going to the local community college. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, but there are kids who would thrive at the former environment who will not reach their potential at the latter.
I did a little bit more reading down the thread responding to U/blaqoptic’s comment about her counselor losing a child a year ago and other factors, but was there something in particular that you wanted to highlight responding to U/blaqoptic?
I saw my guidance councilor exactly twice in high school. Once, for a the mandatory “you have to go see your guidance councilor” orientation thing in 9th, then again in 12th when it was “hi. I need someone to sign these college application forms.” So, my mileage on that may vary, but while I didn’t need the GC, it 1) doesn’t mean other people don’t, and 2) I’m not going to complain about them, either.
It’s not the students job to support the counsellor - that’s on the school. If the counsellor can’t support the kids (you know: do their job) because of stuff they’re dealing with outside of work, then they have my empathy for what they’re going through. The kids have my sympathy because the they’re at the bottom of the hill - the counsellor failed them and the school failed the counsellor, and the kids are the ones who end up wearing it.
Thank you for posting this link. Every time one of these commencement speech truth-to-power episodes gets discussed on BB, my immediate reaction is to wonder in which parallel universe teachers have actual power.
I agree with @jandrese that while the guidance counselors serve all students, when you have 350 students assigned to you, and 80% of them are socioeconomically disadvantaged (from the SYH demographic data “score card”) and 43% of them have English reading issues, probably your time is best prioritized to getting the marginal students through school rather than helping the best student with their college essay.
Except that’s not how it works. Even most average state universities now require confidential recommendations. Without guidance counselor assistance, the valedictorian of this class might not even get into a 4-year college. And that would be shit.
In California state universities she would not need a letter from the counselor, and as valedictorian the California “Eligibility in the Local Context” criterion would guarantee her a spot at either a UC or a CSU campus. If she’s applying to Stanford or USC then that’s a different thing.
I’m Canadian so I’m sure it’s different up here but there was never any suggestion that a guidance counsellor would have anything to do with my university applications. I don’t think I even knew who my guidance counsellor was.
Scholarship information is available online. You read them, see if you’re eligible, and follow the instructions to apply. Same situation with any university application requirements. Admittedly I understand that in the US there are some things the school is supposed to submit for you while here we just get copies of our transcripts from the school office and send them along.
What are counsellors supposed to do with your essays?
I just went through this with one of my children. I was surprised that some of the college applications and many of the scholarship applications now require confidential recommendations. That means that the student requests them from a teacher or advisor, but the student cannot see the recommendation. Either the recommender submits them directly through a web portal or a school administrator needs to submit a group of recommendations and certify that they are legitimate and that the student was not in the loop after the request. I am not sure if they have to submit that online or by mail.
The two-edged sword of YouTube… encouragement and enculturation of expansive and far-reaching displays. This is one of the great ones, though. Brava, Nataly!!
