Perspectives on the Evolution of School Counseling

As society has changed - - and education evolved, school counselors have been asked to apply various paradigms in their work. Among the most recent paradigms are: The ASCA National Model for School Counseling Programs, The Transforming School Counseling Initiative, and The School-Community Collaboration Model.

We recently discussed these paradigms (in the context of school counseling’s history) with a group of school counseling graduate students. One of our most diligent students, (who was browsing in the university library) happened upon Gilbert Wrenn’s (1962) classic book, The Counselor in a Changing World. After quickly reviewing the book’s table of contents and leafing through the book, she commented: "Except for a few changes in terminology, much of Wrenn’s book could be applied to school counseling in the 21 st century; so, why all the rush for new paradigms?"