R Lee's November 7th Blog

Last weekend, that is always good. It was a tough day today, hot and it was a day where lecture was the main delivery method of the content. Those two make it very hard for me to stay focused in the classroom. We were able to do two activities; hopeful counselor candidates came in and we got to ask them some questions regarding their jobs. It is good to see WIU's counselor department provide such a diversified curriculum for its students. I always just saw a counselor as what the presenter shared with us, someone who schedules, someone who is in charge of JH dances, someone who helps with college applications, etc.....a job that seemed to be a no brainer. But when Dr. Nickels and her associate started discussing the clinical part of the job; gave me a new perspective and appreciation for what they do. I also became informed about the ratio of students to counselors that exists in most schools. Later on we were asked by professor Closen about what we would do in a certain situation and a classmate said, "call the counselor"; when just prior to that we had heard that counselors are spread thin, upwards of 500 students to 1 counselor. It was also good that we got to come up with some interview questions for the student teachers today, I am clueless with respect to the elementary educational world so my input was not overwhelming at this task, but I did learn about what makes a good set of general questions for any level of teacher.