Strategies with underachieving students --Guest Speaker

Charles Bowman's (this week's guest speaker) style was confrontational, belligerent and definitely off-putting, but I can see how this style might be effective in his work as a counselor for underachieving boys. Bowman made the distinction between learners and students, pointing out that learners rarely come for counseling; it's mostly (male) detached and underachieving students who are sent to counseling. Bowman's general advice to the beginning counselor is to do less, listen more. His question for the resistant student is "How much does it suck to come here?" He also had a question for the counselor to ask himself/herself: " Do I have a client?.. Does the client want to change?, pointing out that sometimes it has to get worse to get better, i.e. the client has to hit rock bottom before he/she is ready to to pull himself/herself out. Focus attention on people who want to change, check in on those who don't. Is the problem "in the room?" (What is the real problem and does the client acknowledge it.) One way to get the problem "in the room' is to involve relatives, friends, peers.
Bowman listed 5 most common errors that beginning counselors make:
5)Counselor believes student's side of the story (Counselor becomes "true believer").
4)Counselor gets emotionally invested in student's problems (personalization)
3)Counselor invests more energy in student's problems that student does, leading to dependence (Bowman's theorem: Make sure student invests more energy in their own problems.
2)Codependency (Bowman call's this the Woman's Curse since females are socialized to be helpers , to define themselves through others).
1)Counselor becomes student savior -- remember the counselor's job is not to solve problems, but to give the student skills to solve problems).
Charles Bowman went on to talk more about gender socialization and learning styles, Childhood development and adolescent relational patterns and fostering the change process. He had some good points to ponder.