Guidance Anyone?

This pathetic excuse for a school year, is entering its sixth week, but no student will ever forget the chaos of the first several days. With one teacher’s demotion/promotion to counsellor, and the ineptitude that the new member brought to the system, the already limited capabilities of our counselling department were diminished to almost nothingness. One begins to realize that the Guidance staff, themselves, are the ones most in need of guidance. For the nth time in my high school career, I wonder whether or not I should’ve left this place after four years. And the teachers continue to complain about how they aren’t given enough time to do everything they need or want to do. I won’t dwell on this topic for too long, because it’ll all be just a rehash of what everybody already knows. All the arguments have long ago been exhausted. But now that they’ve withdrawn their voluntary services, teachers should have a pile of free time on their hands. I know many teachers spend a lot of time with their voluntary organizations, so I ask: where’s this extra time going? Our counselling department has fallen behind their schedule miserably. Around the 21st of September, I heard that one OAC class was cancelled due to lack of student enrollment. Yeah, that’s right: after two weeks of classes have already gone by, they still haven’t got everything sorted out yet. I pity those students who have been thrust into such a jam. What if they needed that course for university, as most probably did? They’d be up the river without a paddle, with no choice but to approach Guidance one more time and have their schedules tweaked again. But if a switch can’t be made, their asses are fried. The question remains: Why the hell did Guidance wait so long to pull the plug? Couldn’t they have done it a bit sooner, to give these unfortunate students a decent chance at joining another class? Or so they could figure out some other plan of action? I don’t know how these students are going to handle their dilemma, but I’d bet my bacon that they aren’t too happy about it. And has anyone else noticed the massive abundance of bodies around the school? It appears that this year is more crowded that ever. I won’t even consider trying to count all the times I’ve seen people with fucked up timetables: four-two splits, and even some five-three splits. If you came to the school on any of the days before September 8, you’d have noticed (even if you weren’t here, you’ve probably heard it all from your pissed off friends) the huge mob of people waiting outside Guidance to get in and make course corrections. The whole scene was painfully reminiscent of the TSE. People pushed and shoved to get the best numbers, and be served by the counsellors. There was no order. There were no rules. It was everyone for him/herself. I’m truly shocked that there wasn’t a riot, but if there was, I’d be the first to join in the rumble. It was like a fucking business was right inside our school! All that the recipe needed were number scalpers and some live media coverage. Frustrated students waited for hours on end without gaining much ground. Students were admitted entrance at the rate of three per fifteen minutes. With so many counsellors, why the hell did it take so long? Makes you wonder what they’re actually doing in there . . . Then, when they were told to leave because the counsellors were retiring for the night, dejected students had no choice but to give up, returning the next day to try their luck again. I tell you, the horde of infuriated faces I saw storming out of there, I thought I was in the middle of a pro-Harris government rally. If looks could kill, the Guidance department would be dead a hundred times over. Even into the second week of classes, students were being called down to the Guidance Office for course corrections. But by that time, don’t you think that it’s a little late to switch courses? It’s bad enough that we’ve been denied our extra-curricular activities, but is a working timetable too much to ask? We don’t care what kind of technical problems the admin is experiencing. If they can’t handle it, then get somebody who can. People displayed some unique behaviour during those few days. While some students were fighting for those orange slips of paper, there were other students who weren’t at each other’s throats, but instead, were complaining about the situation at hand. But one constant united the usually distinct voices among the student population. During those few days, I felt a n odd sense of bonding with my fellow students. It was the united student body versus the system. To the teachers, you can ask any student in the halls, and if they’re not afraid of speaking the truth, they’ll tell you that your counselling department is fucked. Maybe not in those precise terms, but you never know. We learn such colourful language in our English classes. Even now, there are still big problems with the Guidance department, and the Woodlands School. I’d offer anyone ten dollars if they could find me the orange slip with the number ‘1' on it. I’d keep it as a reminder for myself, evidence of the 1998 fall of Guidance. It might be worth something one day.