Venting the Anger: counseling students

Ahhh counseling students. Something that we teachers hear all the time. Sit down and try to reason with kids whose brains won't fully develop for a few years after high school. But that's the age we are in. Don't jump the gun, try talking first. The reason I bring this up is because of an incident at my wife's work...not mine. Although I have had some run in's with the dreaded "counseled student" comment on a referral.

My wife's school gets broken into a lot. Last year, when she was on maternity leave her portable was broken into and her school lap top was stolen and some other items. Fortunately, she didn't have anything important there (mainly because she was on leave). So the district decides to put up security cameras outside and in the school. Her school is open concept which means that there are no rooms. Just one or two moveable walls separating teachers. In other words, once you get in the school, you can go to any room you want.

So they have the cameras and a couple weeks later another break in. No biggie, they have cameras right? No, the cameras were installed, but never turned on. They were for decorative purposes only I guess.

So last week, my wife's teaching partner (they share 40 kids in a portable) is in the room working on grades with the lights out (thank you daylight savings time). She had a trash can holding the door open just a bit. She then hears a student walking by say "yeah it's open, let's go jack some stuff." She sitting in the back of her room watching this kid (4 or 5th grader) walk into her room. He turns towards her says I didn't mean it and runs out. She goes and tells the principal and tells her what happened. Her response "that's too bad. We have to be sure to get him some counseling." Nice huh?