TEACHER-AS-HELPER TRAINING MANUAL, THE William Fibkins Paper, $120.00 250 pages, 8½” x 11” ISBN 0-89390-411-2 View Table of Contents View Excerpt Quantity:

As budgets tighten, counselors need all the help they can get in the fight to keep at-risk teens from going over the edge. This manual helps you enlist teachers as your allies and train them to help students effectively and safely. In the first part of the book, you’ll learn how to prepare to sell teachers on the helping concept. In the second part of the book, you’ll find all you need for a one-day in-service in which you explain the helping concept, listen to teacher concerns, admit the pitfalls and stress the importance of professional training in helping skills. In the third part of the manual, you’ll find a series of in-services that teach basic helping skills, how to help students safely, and how to apply helping skills to various problems. The author is available for “training the trainer” workshops.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One: Preparation for the Trainer

The career development of teachers
How to get teachers to believe in their role as helpers
Why teachers resist the teacher-as-helper role
Why some counselors resist teachers taking on a helper role
Why some parents resist teachers taking on a helper role
Assessing your strengths, skills, and liabilities as a trainer of teachers
Using the training sessions to model helping skills for teachers
Training cycles of the teacher-as-helper project
Purpose of the exercises used during training
Facilitating the in-service training
Overseeing the training arrangements
Building a network to support the training
Building your own personal support network
Promoting the notion of “natural allies”—counselors, teachers, and peer helpers
Promoting good self-care for teacher helpers
Clarifying your vision

Part Two: Making the Case for the Teacher-As-Helper Model (A One-Day Introductory Seminar)

Goals for your one-day introductory seminar
Schedule for your one-day introductory seminar

Training Goal 1: To give teachers data about the growing problem of troubled teenagers in our schools

Training Goal 2: To get teachers to consider the impact of this data on teachers and schools

Training Goal 3: To get teachers to say something must be done about the problem

Training Goal 4: To offer teachers a solution to the problem—training teachers as helpers

Training Goal 5: To acknowledge that teachers have legitimate arguments against the teacher-as-helper role

Training Goal 6: To get teachers to see that the teacher-as-helper role has more benefits than disadvantages

Training Goal 7: To acknowledge that the teacher-as-helper training model is controversial

Training Goal 8: To get teachers to admit that there are hazards and risks to the teacher-as-helper role and that, therefore, teachers need training

Training Goal 9: To get teachers to acknowledge the power of the teacher-as-helper role by tapping into their personal experiences as teenagers

Training Goal 10: To get teachers to sign up for teacher-as-helper training

Part Three: Training Teachers to Use Their Helping and Advisory Skills (A Two-Day In-Service)

Overview of your two-day in-service
Schedule for your two-day in-service

Unit 1: Training Teachers in the Teacher-Student Helping Relationship

• Skill 1: Making the initial contact with students
• Skill 2: Making a helping contract and setting boundaries for the helping relationship
• Skill 3: Holding a helping conversation
• Skill 4: Ending the helping relationship

• Skill 1: Getting ready and set to hear the student
• Skill 2: Being an empathetic listener

• Skill 1: Teaching students to make “I feel” statements
• Skill 2: Teaching students to send effective messages when they need help

• Skill 1: Teaching students to identify their problems
• Skill 2: Teaching students to gather information
• Skill 3: Teaching students to brainstorm alternatives
• Skill 4: Teaching students to evaluate alternatives and make a decision
• Skill 5: Teaching students to take action
• Skill 6: Teaching students to evaluate decisions

• Skill 1: Teaching students that conflict is a normal part of everyday life
• Skill 2: Teaching students how they currently resolve conflicts
• Skill 3: Teaching students to develop alternative ways to resolve conflicts
• Skill 4: Supporting students when they try out new strategies to resolve conflicts

• Skill 1: Learning when and how to refer
• Skill 2: Learning where to refer
• Skill 3: Coordinating resources for students who have been referred to outside agencies

• Skill 1: Remaining aware that there are hazards and risks involved in helping students
• Skill 2: Remaining aware that every teacher helper is at risk of crossing over professional boundaries

• Skill 1: Identifying the hazards and risks involved in the teacher helper role
• Skill 2: Avoiding the hazards and risks involved in the teacher helper role

Overview of Your One-and-a-Half-Day In-Service
Schedule for Your One-and-a-Half-Day In-Service

Unit 9: Training Teachers to Help Students with School Problems

• Skill 1: Helping students identify school problems
• Skill 2: Helping students set objectives to successfully solve school problems
• Skill 3: Helping students meet their objectives

• Skill 1: Helping students identify family problems
• Skill 2: Helping students learn from faulty family communication patterns
• Skill 3: Helping students learn to deal with family conflict

• Skill 1: Helping students identify peer problems caused by intergroup hostility
• Skill 2: Helping students resolve peer problems and learn to live together

• Skill 1: Learning how to set up a support system for students dealing with death and loss
• Skill 2: Helping students dealing with death and loss to examine their feelings and attitudes and to understand the stages of grief
• Skill 3: Encouraging students who have experienced death and loss to help peers

• Skill 1: Learning to be informed about suicide issues
• Skill 2: Learning when to intervene to help a student who may be suicidal
• Skill 3: Learning how to provide follow-up support for students who have considered suicide

• Skill 1: Learning how to identify child abuse
• Skill 2: Learning how to intervene in child abuse cases
• Skill 3: Learning the importance of taking professional responsibility in child abuse cases

• Skill 1: Learning that eating disorders are serious student health problems
• Skill 2: Identifying students with eating disorders
• Skill 3: Helping students with eating disorders

• Skill 1: Learning that tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse are serious student health problems
• Skill 2: Identifying students who have tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse problems
• Skill 3: Helping students who have tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse problems

Unit 17: Training Teachers to Train Themselves: Continuing Development As Teacher Helpers

Appendix: Sample Evaluation Form, Award Certificate, and Press Release
Bibliography
About the Author

Following is the introduction to The Teacher-As-Helper Training Manual. All rights reserved. Copyright © 1998, Resource Publications, Inc.

Introduction

Welcome to the teacher-as-helper training program.

Your situation may be something like this: You are a concerned secondary school educator—an administrator, guidance counselor or teacher leader. You have been given the task of empowering and training teachers in your high school, junior high, or middle school to take on the role of advisor and helper with their students. Your school district, like many others in America, is under siege, trying to cope with the growing number of teenagers with serious personal problems. Many parents, students, community residents, teachers and administrators are concerned that these problems are out of control and are overwhelming the resources of the district. They are alarmed. They want the problem addressed and solved. Everyone in the school community agrees that something must be done.

In response, the Board of Education and school superintendent have come up with a plan to confront the problem. The plan’s main focus is to prepare secondary teachers to become helpers for their troubled students. The superintendent will use the annual spring staff development conference to urge all secondary school teachers to volunteer to serve as helpers and advisors for their students. This coming summer, a cadre of interested teachers will be trained to be teacher helpers. When the new school year begins in September, this cadre of newly trained teacher helpers will be expected to help students with their non-academic problems as well as their academics. The school superintendent has informed secondary school administrators that empowering and training teachers to be effective helpers will be the school district’s top priority for the coming school year. The superintendent is putting the full force of his office behind the project.

You have been picked to head up the teacher helper training program. But before the training begins, you must convince the teaching staff, counselors, and parents that helping is a good idea. You know that if teachers don’t buy into the teacher helper concept, no amount of skills training will do any good. The Board of Education and superintendent can urge teachers to volunteer for the training, but it will be a wasted effort if the teachers just go through the motions and don’t make a real commitment.

As a concerned educator who is seen as an innovator in the district, you support the teacher helper project. Certainly it is controversial, but where else are the resources going to come from? You know the classroom teacher is the person best positioned to observe students headed for trouble and intervene before problems get out of hand. In your daily work, you observe more and more teenagers coming into the schools with problems related to alcohol, drug and tobacco abuse; sexual diseases; family crisis; divorce; physical and sexual abuse; neglect; eating disorders; violence; and suicide. You know these problems are having a powerful negative impact on the entire school community. Students, teachers, support staff and beleaguered administrators and counselors tell you they are alarmed and looking for new approaches that will help them to get on top of these problems. As one administrator said, “I want to return the school to being a place where teaching and learning are once again the top priority. If we don’t solve this problem, the public is going to boot us all out.”

You believe this administrator is right on target. In the community, more and more concerned citizens are questioning the ability of the schools to handle this surge in teenage problems. The guidance staff in particular is being singled out for failing to mount an effective response. The counselors, while agreeing with the concerns of these citizen groups, say they are overwhelmed and need more staff to solve these problems. But some community groups are mounting efforts to block any budget approval to hire more counselors in this time of limited resources. They want action but not at an additional cost and tax burden. Your school superintendent, like a growing number of superintendents in America, believes the way to go is to get teachers on board as helpers and train them in how to intervene when troubled students come into their classrooms. Hiring more counselors will not get the job done. There are too many students with problems. Other approaches have to be found that use the creative resources and skills of staff now in place. The superintendent believes that every teacher can be empowered and trained to be an effective helper. If every teacher gets involved, no student will fall through the cracks.

You have been given the task of training teachers in your school because you have a reputation as an education reformer. You are a person who is trusted by the teaching staff and can motivate them to change. As an ex-teacher, you are seen by teachers as one of them. Even though you are out of the classroom, many teachers believe you still understand how it feels to be a teacher “in the trenches.” You are also an effective mediator and know how to overcome resistance and get people on board the change process. But you are not naive. Changing long-held beliefs and practices, especially in this time of limited resources and mounting public criticism of the schools, will require a great deal of difficult communication and an effective presentation of the materials. You know many teachers are going to resist taking on this new role. They will tell you that they have enough to do now and that helping needy students with personal problems is not their job. They were not trained in graduate school to be helpers and no amount of training will make them feel comfortable. Getting them to buy into this new role as helper will be no easy task.

The guidance staff is not going to be overjoyed with the plan to train teachers to be helpers, either. They will say that their jobs are in jeopardy and that this plan is really a plot to send them packing. Convincing counselors that this plan will solidify their important helping role in the schools by presenting them with the opportunity to play a leadership role in training teachers as helpers will also not be easy.

Some parents will resist. They will say they don’t want teachers with a little training in helping getting involved with their kids’ personal lives.

You have got your work cut out for you. But don’t start feeling overwhelmed. It is a good thing to know the obstacles and identify the hard work that lies ahead. My research in school reform efforts has convinced me that most projects that involve a change in the way teachers’ work is organized fail in the implementation stage. Why? Because the project leaders fail to take into account the depth of teacher resistance to new approaches. They fail to mount an effective campaign to get teachers on board. When teachers fire back and resist change, most innovators and reformers run for cover. They have not been trained in how to behave in the heat of battle. The fireworks usually start when abstract ideas, such as teachers being helpers, move into the reality phase. When teachers come face to face with what is really involved and how their workday and routine might change, be prepared for resistance and mischief-making! Attending an in-service about an idea to train teachers as helpers and actually buying into the process and implementing the program are two different things. Remember, people like to talk about change as long as it doesn’t get too close to home and begin to affect their work day.

This manual will help you to prepare for this task. When teachers, counselors, and parents begin to mount resistance to this project, you will know how to meet this resistance head-on and proceed. Your job is to convince teachers that being helpers for students is an idea whose time has come and that, with proper training, they can do the job. In fact, teachers who learn how to help become more effective teachers overall.

The training program is divided as such:

• Part One: Pre-in-service self-training guide to help you prepare for the training.
• Part Two: A one-day introductory seminar to help you make the case for the teacher-as-helper model and get teachers on board for the training.
• Parts Three through Six: A five-day training for teachers to help them become effective teacher helpers.

This plan may be controversial, but it is well suited to address the current problems of students. Your ultimate goal is to get the needy students in your school the help they need. By mobilizing teachers as helpers to accomplish this goal, you will help teachers and counselors feel more effective. They will begin to have an increased pride in their ability to help their students, their school, and themselves. That is your focus. Keep your eye on that ball. This training manual is designed to help you stay focused. I show you how to proceed by leading you through the Teacher-As-Helper In-Service Training Course. I guarantee that you will be prepared to get teachers and counselors on board and train them to be effective helpers when you have completed this manual.

You are about to embark on a very important project. There are more than nineteen million teenagers currently at-risk in America. If you are successful as a trainer, your cadre of well-trained teacher helpers will be able to intervene and help many at-risk teens who now go without help.