No one dreams of becoming a guidance counselor? Well, not exactly. But some people are naturally good at it. Most of these people are not guidance counselors.
At my high school, we had three guidance counselors - the head counselor was full-time and the other two were 0.8 FTE (part-time). The part-timers had no idea what they were doing; one was a Spanish teacher who was grossly incompetent, and the other was never in her office, EVER, when I was there (and of course she was my assigned counselor), which meant I mostly just dealt with the head honcho of the department.
Ms. Joy, my de facto counselor, was an amazing counselor. She's retired now, along with probably 90% of my favorite teachers from high school, but she was the one you wanted to go to with any problem, scheduling or personal or whatever.
Even now, at community college, the counselors are completely unhelpful. I spent an hour looking at a website for transfer information, then went to the counseling office - and was referred to the same website with no new information. Thanks for wasting my time, guys.
So what's the point of all this? I'm slowly learning that the problems people have with their high school and community college counselors are, at least to some extent, universal.
Your mileage may vary, after all. But that's what's made me decide to be a guidance counselor rather than a teacher. Sure, it's a rough gig and it gets a bum rap. And of course there are reasons
why you shouldn't listen to high school guidance counselors and why people say things like
those who have abandoned their dreams will discourage yours. But I want to be the exception to the rule and make some kids actually think back and remember me as the "good" counselor. We'll see.