One Foot in Childhood, Another in Adulthood

Linda C. Eby -- along with many of her colleagues -- says that middle school presents the biggest challenge for school counselors.

"The pace is fastest at middle school," said Eby, who has worked as a counselor for 23 years at Gordon Russell Middle School in Gresham, Ore. "The kids are more diverse [developmentally]. I can be talking to a kid for 20 minutes, and sometimes I am talking to a child and sometimes I am talking to an adult. To me, that is part of the excitement of the job. I get to see that awakening into adulthood."

Her job at Gordon Russell, which has two full-time counselors for 750 students, has evolved over time in many ways, including a move away from exclusively counseling individual students toward working with groups of kids, a tactic that research has proved is at least as effective as one-on-one counseling.

She said she also enjoys helping parents balance their involvement in their children's education, between doing all the work for them and setting up structures to allow the students to do the work on their own.

Eby said that teachers refer students to her but that some kids come on their own, mostly to talk about family and friendship issues. One day last week was consumed with typical middle-school conversations "about friendships that turned out to be not as reliable as someone thought." Bullying is also a problem.

A key goal of hers, she said, is to help middle school students care as much about their academic success as their parents do. That can be difficult because they don't think there are real consequences to a failure to learn study skills and time management. There are, she said, as evidenced by a growing local high school freshman failure rate. Eby said she spends a lot of time talking to kids to get them to wake up to reality.

"We ask them, 'Who cares most about your grades?' If they say their parents, then I know they still believe it is their parents' problem to help them get good grades."

*Tasks for middle school counselors include:

Academic Help students assert themselves, devise study plans, try to balance school and other activities and develop a tentative plan to get into college.

Career Development Discuss with students career planning processes; explain different resources on various careers; and talk about different jobs.

Personal/Social Development Help students develop positive health habits, develop solid communication skills, understand peer pressure, and identify and use personal strengths.