I absolutely agree. As a Director of Education (Dean of Faculty and Students) I spend more than 50 percent of my time 'motivating' my instructors and my students. In particularly, I am continually encouraging my instructors to take ownership of their classroom and the success of their students and encouraging my students to take ownership of their education and by doing so, their future.
I agree. Since my position is to do whatever it takes to help the students attain their educational goals, I listen to their problems, issues, etc. I keep a resource file that has information about agencies that can help the students who may need counseling, housing, childcare, medication, food, and anything else that the student may need. I do a lot of listening and suggest ways of overcoming some of the obstables they are facing that interfere with their ability to attend classes. I guess you can say I am a mother, counselor, brother, sister, etc. Whatever I need to be for the student, I will be. At graduation time, the students seek me out to thank me for being there for them. So yes, definitely we are in more than one business.
We have to be in the mental health business to be successful. Our students often come to us with very low confidence and self esteem. In order for us to give them the academic experiences they need, they have to be complete our programs. They can only do that if we intentionally address things like confidence, self esteem, positive self talk and winning HABEs.
Absolutely we are in more than one business! We've trained our staff to look for those "at risk" students. How do you do that? By looking at factors that might cause one to not be successful in their course. You not only have to deliver a great student experience, but you have to know your students and when you notice that there is a "red flag" in your mind stop and ask questions to determine their issue and help resolve it.
Thank you for the post, Keith.
What are some of the "red flags" that your team looks for?
We ask our instructors that as they monitor their students performance to look for students who: 1. Fails a test early, 2. Misses more than 6 hours of class, 3. Recieves several professionalism infractions, 4. Hears through the student grapevine that a student is having issues. Our instructors are not necessarily counselors but they are empowered to engage the students in conversations to gain information as to how we can assist them better. If there is an issue the instructor either sends the student to see one of our counselors or an Education Manager. Many times we find that there are circumstances going on in the student's life that we can help them through as long as we catch it early enough.
Thank you Keith. It sounds like your team is really listening and staying aware of what is happening with your students.
You're observation that we are not counselors is a good one. We serve as advisors and mentors to our students and leave couseling up to those trained in that profession.
No matter what we call it, this interaction is the key to successful academic teams. I look forward to your postes in the remaining forums.
I completely agree with this statement. I know from my experience getting to something about each one of students builds a special bond. By building this bond it makes the students feel comfortable coming to me with any difficulties in their lives whether in their education or personal. A happy healthy student is much more eager to learn.
Christina,
How do you get students to open up and share personal things with you, especially if they have never had you as a teacher before?
Educators are not in the mental health business. We are in the mental health "referral" business. Educators should know basic concepts in physiology and should notice if students show signs of depression or abuse. Educators have a responsibility to refer students who are troubled to the campus counselor or to local agencies who can direct the student to qualified mental health professionals. Our school pays for a 24/7 helpline service called Students Resource Center (www.studentlifetools.com) which is an outside contractor that provides our students with some free mental health counseling and referrals to agencies that will assist them with finding affordable childcare, legal advice, finical assistance, and transportation.
I do agree. As I stated in Forum 1, most of the students that attend my University are "at-risk" in some sense of the word. We have to detect the reason(s) that place them at-risk and assist when and where we can. Without the students/customers, the University is nothing.
Looking at “mentality health” (instead of the traditional connotation of “mental health”) the college is in the business to promote mental capacity, power and activity of the mind and provide an environment that nurtures and reinforces a positive mental outlook and attitude toward academic achievement and degree completion/success.
totally disagree- we are not qualified.
Again, I disagree - we are not mental health providers. Some students suffer from depression, anxiety, ect - If we recognize such conditions we should immediately notify qualify people to treat them properly.
We are not mental health providers. (Altho I have worked as an academic advisor and tutor for both academically at-risk and students with accommodations, where the position and interview was heavily weighted with whether the candidate had experience working with students who had panic disorder, anxiety attacks, depression, etc.) // My post here did not say we were mental health providers or that we were in that business. It was a "creative" look at the word MENTALITY, and being in the Mentality Business --with mentality defined as: "mental capacity, power, or activity; the mind; mental attitude or outlook; state of mind." Learning is the acquiring of knowledge and uses the mind...or mental capacities. Education, by definition, is the process of training and developing the knowledge, skill, MIND, character etc. especially by formal schooling, teaching, training. Figuratively or euphemistically it could be said we are in the Mentality Business, but absolutely not the mental health business.
On above post from me, I meant to say that per my original post on this topic, we are definitely in the Mentality "Health" Business...which includes being aware of the many interesting issues this forum has brought to light on this topic.
I agree that the education business is also in the mental health business. The Education industry is multi-faceted. It requires excellent people skills, understanding, compassion, empathy, tough love, and hand-holding. Students are customers and they are buying an education for use towards their career. Education also involves cheerleading, being a true motivator, and a visionary. Each staff person is responsible for educating the student.
Absolutely I find this to be the case. As a small trade school, we are not educating the "traditional" student population. Most of our students are adults with children, many returning to school after long absence. When counseling students there is an ongoing evaluation of their confidence and outlook as well as their academic status and study skills. I often find myself discussing positive self talk and boundaries more often than time management!
I too work with a non traditional students so treating these students as adults, customers, and fellow learners is essential. Once a non traditional student gets past the orginal nervousness of going back to school, they are willing to explore past class goals to application.
Kaitlin,
You are on to something here. Most non-traditional students have the capacity to be successful academically once they have internalized the belief that they can do it. As instructors, we need to be sure to provide positive experiences to inspire the positve self talk.
