November: Wellness
My November Bulletin Board:

November Bulletin Board/Full View

November's monthly counseling theme was wellness.  During November, I partnered with our school's 2nd grade music teacher to conduct anger management lessons. Each of us were able to utilize our areas of expertise to co-teach the lesson.  The instruction began with a review of anger.  I described anger as a secondary emotion because people become angry as a result of experiencing such feelings as frustration, anxiety, fear, or jealousy.  Anger is important to understand because students are at risk of getting hurt, hurting another student, or getting into trouble when they lose control of their thoughts and actions.

November Bulletin Board: Wellness

The key to controlling anger is stopping the emotion before it escalates.  Students were taught to recognize their body's anger clues, such as becoming hot, clenching their fists, or getting a belly ache, so that they will know when to start using calm down techniques. Many calm down techniques were discussed, including counting to ten, imagining relaxing place, or taking a deep breath.  At this point our music teacher started to discuss the role music can have in the calm down process.  The 2nd grade students were taught the Mr. Rogers' song, "What Do You Do With The Mad That You Feel?" The song not only has a calming rhythm, it also includes helpful cool down strategies within the song's words.

At the end of the lesson students also discovered how movement and music can help relieve stress and anger with the help of boom whackers.  The release of anger can be made by safely hitting the boom whackers to make music.  Music can therapeutically release anger in multiple ways; by thinking and paying attention to music lyrics, auditorily by listening to music's sound and rhythm, or kinesthetically by dancing or making music with instruments.

Song Lyrics

2nd Grade Anger Management Music Lesson PowerPoint

Grading Kids is Not Grading Eggs Herbert W. Hunt, Ed D

     Growing up on the family farm, one of the jobs I had was grading eggs. It was a rather tedious job with a lot of repetition. Eggs were graded based upon their size and color.  Large eggs went into the Grade A boxes, medium size eggs went into the medium size boxes and so on. The egg grader weighed each egg which meant there was no possibility of making a mistake.
     When I left the farm and became a teacher I was again asked to grade, this time children. I quickly learned that it was a very complicated task. Unlike eggs, which are all the same except for color and size I immediately realized that children were much more diverse.
     Educators have wrestled with how to grade children fairly and accurately for decades. Over time there have been many different approaches. One example that stands out for me was the era of the “Bell Curve”. During this time period children were graded by assigning them to a grading group, either A, B, C, D, or F. The major premise was if there were 5 children with the grade of A there must be 5 children with the grade of F. This would occur even if all students scored 85% or higher. If this happened during egg grading some of the large eggs would have to be placed in the small or medium size container. If I did this my Dad would be very unhappy.
      I do not believe that today’s schools have solved the problem of grading students. A simple example: in elementary schools, during spelling class, students are assigned a list of twenty spelling words to learn for the week. On the pretest, Susan can spell 18 of the 20 words correctly while Herbie spells 3 of the 20 words correctly. On the final test Susan spells 20 of the 20 words correctly while Herbie spells 10 of the 20 words correctly. Susan is rewarded with and A and Herbie is rewarded with an F (only 50% correct). This is important– who learned the most but got rewarded the least? The answer is obvious but troubling. The ramifications probably will be, over time, Herbie will give up because a grade of F means he has failed, especially if he has worked to his full potential.
     Grading eggs is simple, however grading children is one of the most difficult things that educators are asked to do. Educators must develop a grading system that does not discourage children but rewards children for what they have learned.

Thanks for reading and thinking about this.

Happy Trails to You–Herb

Dr. Herbert W. Hunt

Founder, HH Education Events

724-494-0968

hhevents@zoominternet.net

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How Collaboration and Communication Enriches the Work of a School Counselor

     Since reading Sean Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens during grad school, the 7 habits have been inspirational to me.  The book gave me ideas for several classroom lessons for students ages K-12.  Although my teen years are long gone, the book’s key points and stories stuck with me.  Habit 6, synergize, is most definitely my favorite.  I believe teamwork is important at every point in life, although I find collaboration to be incredibly vital in my current position. 

     The best work days are when I have a few minutes to chat with my principals and colleagues about the needs of our students.  Discussion turns into a brainstorming session about what we can do to help.  This process has led to some amazing initiatives.  When I wanted to expand our students’ knowledge of college and career opportunities, we thought of field trip experiences for our 4^th and 5^th graders.  When we were at a loss of how to help students who we felt were getting ‘lost’ in the system because their needs did not require intervention, but we knew they would prosper with additional attention, we thought of developing a group called TLC Kids.  TLC Kids is a group of kids who could benefit from extra “Tender, Love, and Care.”  The group members meet monthly to complete an activity or lesson.  I typically include high school students to serve as mentors and to help think of fun activities.

     After talking with other school counselors about their practices, collaboration took on a whole other meaning.  I learned that teaming with my co-workers does not only result in incredibly enriching lessons for the students, but also helps me with scheduling and presenting curriculum to a larger number of students.  For the past couple of years, I have been teaming with our school’s special teachers to complete lessons that correlate with our school’s monthly counseling themes.  In gym and music, I have completed anger and stress management lessons, in art we have done self-esteem lessons utilizing student self-portraits, and in library, books were used to help present bullying prevention lessons.  This team effort has been incredible. Lesson content seems to be better understood, because students are absorbing the information through more than one sense.  The lessons are presented to click with auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners.  

     I can find myself in a rut of doing the same thing each year with the students.  I enjoy routine, and I am a creature of habit.  The lesson teaming forces me to open my horizons and learn new ways of teaching social, emotional, and academic skills to students.  Technology is a big reason for the continual change, it can be overwhelming, but also exciting.  Using technology is yet another way to capture a student’s interest.  Over the next few weeks I am going to be working on a 5^th grade study skills lesson with our school’s technology coach.  When I am collaborating with a co-worker, we can each utilize our areas of expertise and synergize to create a lesson neither one of us could have created on our own.

     As I gain experience as a school counselor, I am constantly reminded to not only collaborate within my school, but also within my community and beyond.  I need to stay up-to-date with the pulse of the all the important stakeholders, including post high school educators, business leaders, and government.  I can easily become overwhelmed when I think globally, but it is the reality of our world.  Schools need to understand job market trends and the economic needs of the community so that students can be trained accordingly.  Three major barriers to economic growth and development in all regions, especially rural areas across the U.S. include; educational institutions not producing enough skilled workers, aligning student career interests to jobs that are not projected to grow, and lack of student preparedness for needed careers.  These downfalls can be combatted with collaboration and communication amongst higher education and our regional workforce. 

     Through the help of my principals I was introduced to blogging.  Connecting to other counselors and educators from all over the world has helped me enrich my school counseling program.  I enjoy reading about new lessons and counseling techniques.  On the flip side, writing posts have helped me reflect upon what I have done.  While reviewing lesson content and structure I often think of items to add or tweak to create more valuable lessons for the students.  The process also highlights gaps in skill building content.  I want my work to remain relevant.  In order to keep my blog updated, I have to continually construct and facilitate new lessons for my students. 

     Teamwork and communication has enriched my role as a school counselor leaps and bounds.  I am only one part to a student’s whole system.  In order for a student to experience success there must be teamwork amongst all stakeholders; students, families, school-staff, post high school educators, and business leaders.  Covey’s habit 6 synergize describes this phenomena perfectly, when a team works together a solution can be created that no single member could have constructed alone.  Together is better.

October: Positive Choices
My October Bulletin Board and Office Door:

Red Ribbon Week Bulletin Board

Red Ribbon Week Office Door

October's counseling theme was set to correlate with Red Ribbon Week.  Our school always celebrates Red Ribbon Week the last week of October and is a K-12 initiative.  Like most schools, each day of Red Ribbon Week has a theme.

Red Ribbon Week Dress-up Days

In the elementary, students have the opportunity to dress-up for the day's theme and receive a sticker emphasizing the daily theme's message.  We have been passing out Red Ribbon Week stickers for the past three years, and the students love it!  I think the stickers have been an inexpensive way to better promote the week's message to make healthy choices.  Student and staff excitement and participation is what makes the week successful, and I want to draw as much attention to the cause as I can.

To inform parents and families of the week's events and mission, information about Red Ribbon Week is posted on the School's Webpage, highlighted in our principal's weekly newsletter, and is displayed on my personal counseling page.  A parent letter is also send home in mid October.

Red Ribbon Week Parent Letter 2015

I have been utilizing the morning announcements to conduct school-wide lessons for many of my initiatives.  During Red Ribbon Week, the morning announcements are used to share daily Red Ribbon Week lessons and reminders.  The announcement lessons have been a great way involve the whole school, and create a supportive environment.

Red Ribbon Week Announcement Lessons

Tobacco prevention is not my area of expertise, so I enjoy contacting local mental health agencies to help me facilitate classroom lessons.  The speakers that are brought in to teach  the lessons have learning resources and equipment that I would not be able to acquire.  One cool component to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade lessons are real pig lungs.  The speaker always brings in 2 sets of pig lungs; one set is healthy, and the other set has been artificially exposed to tobacco.  The difference between the lungs are astonishing.  The "smoker" lung is full of disease, black in color, and does not hold air. The healthy lung is pink, expands to over twice it's resting size, and releases air slowly.  The students are able to see concrete evidence of how tobacco can negatively effect their quality of life.

While this lesson is awesome, it can be emotional for students who have parents or loved ones in their family who smoke.  The students that are upset are given special stickers that can be placed on cigarette or chew containers.  The sticker includes information and resources to quit using tobacco.

Tobacco Prevention Sticker 

September: RAMS Rules

     Our School-Wide Positive behavior plan, RAMS Rules, was rolled out a few years ago.  Even though I see the plan displayed in almost all of our classrooms, I wanted more than exposure, students needed to have full understanding of the concepts.

     Every school year I review the RAMS Rules to our kindergarten and Pre-K students.  The lesson is a component of my welcome agenda that introduces myself and other support staff, such as our school psychologist.  At the end of the lesson I tell the students what their job is as a ram, which is a review each RAMS Rule individually.

     Because it is hard to get into every classroom, I thought of doing mini lessons during the morning announcements, and it was a success!I wanted the mini lessons to be creative and catchy so the students would remember each element.  Because we have a whole month to review the rules, I designated each week during the month of September to one RAMS Rule.  Therefore the first week was Respect, week two was Appropriate Behavior, week three was Management of Time, and the final week of September was designated to Safety.

     Developing the content took some time, as I wanted each week to be different.  I looked at each word, and thought about what I needed to teach the student to best understand the word.  An example would be for the word “Respect,” I first defined the word, and the following days I shared antonyms of the word, and then synonyms.  The final two days of the week reviewed the “Golden Rule” to help better understand how to act respectful.  Along with the minis lesson, every day also had a song attached.  For Friday’s review of the “Golden Rule” the Beach Boys song, “All You Need is Love” was used.

      As the weeks continued, it became harder to become creative!  The week of Safety forced me to think most outside of the box.  I decided to think of the word safety in more global terms.  Throughout the week we talked about bullying, saving the environment, self-care, and having compassion for others.

The complete list of lessons is below!

Counseling Monthly Themes

       A typical school day schedule is jam packed with activities, as every minute is usually accounted for to fulfill the academic needs of students.  A few years ago my fellow counselors and I strategized to figure out a smart way to work our curriculum into the school schedule.  We developed a K-12 curriculum that focused on an important social/emotional or academic theme.  The curriculum also included a career component.  Each month we would also focus on 2 of the 16 nationally recognized career clusters.  The review of the career clusters worked perfectly because we were able to spotlight every career category before our big career-focused month in May.

South Side Elementary Monthly Counseling Themes

       This organized structure of our curriculum was then publicized to all stakeholders.  When contacting teachers about completing a lesson in their classroom, I could say something like, “This month’s counseling theme is “Wellness,” can I come into your classroom to facilitate an anger management lesson?”  The lesson then is even more purposeful, as it fulfills not only an important student need, but also one of our school-wide initiatives.

The main themes have been modified each year to best meet the needs of our students.  This year our monthly themes include:

September: RAMS Rules

Our school district’s mascot is a ram, and RAMS Rules is our school-wide positive behavior plan.  RAMS stands for Respect, Appropriate Behavior, Management of Time, and Safety.

October: Positive Choices

Positive Choices is a theme that works great with Red Ribbon Week, which is our big focus in October.  I typically partner with local agencies to provide tobacco prevention lessons for every grade level in the elementary.

November: Wellness

Wellness is an umbrella term that allows us to cover topics such as anxiety, stress, and anger management.

December: Kindness

December always is our shortest month to plan curriculum.  My plan for December is to develop a “Kindness Tree” on my bulletin board.  Students will then be able to write kindness examples on “ornaments” to be placed on the tree.  I would like to highlight how our students are making kindness a priority.

January: Bullying

Bullying is such a key terms that students need to understand.  I complete bullying prevention lessons in each grade-level.  To help with scheduling, I usually partner with special teachers.

February: Healthy Relationships

The neat aspect of healthy relationships is that it can be adapted for the needs of an elementary, middle, or high school student.  In the elementary healthy relationships can simply mean friendship, while at a high school level it can also include a dating relationship.

March: Study Skills

This theme correlates with state assessments.  Study skills lessons can help the students physically and mentally prepare for state testing.

April: Diversity/Tolerance

Diversity and Tolerance is important to my school district because the student body is not diverse.  Children in this area have a very limited perception of different ethnic groups and cultures.  As they grow and expand their horizons to college or the workforce, they need to be able to work and function alongside people who look and act differently from themselves.

May: Careers

My goal for May is to complete a career-based lesson in every elementary classroom.  The 4^th and 5^th graders participate in college and career awareness field trips where they travel to either a local college, community college or a career and technical center.  I also schedule a “Career Day” for the 5^th graders. It is a busy month!