TPC Journal-Vol 9- Issue 2-Full-Issue

The Professional Counselor | Volume 9, Issue 2 95 as Mr. Mendez. If they prefer retaining an existing activity with the potential to build mindsets and behaviors, school counselors can unpack the big ideas underlying the activity or the knowledge and skills the activity teaches. However, school counselors should not be so tied to existing activities that they are unwilling to discard activities that are not aligned to powerful learning goals or will not lead to meaningful long-term transfer. School counselors can use Mr. Mendez’s process with any state standards in addition to the national ASCA standards explored here; they would use the same process of identifying the key concepts in state standards and writing specific statements about the big ideas that underlie them. The ASCA standards also can be unpacked into understandings and essential questions other than the ones Mr. Mendez wrote. They may vary depending on the concepts the school counselor focuses on, whether the big ideas must capture ideas presented in other standards or a school’s mission statement, and who the students are, including their developmental levels. Last, we emphasize that developing a classroom guidance curriculum is about the long-term outcomes school counselors want for their students. Mr. Mendez identified the concept of success as the unifying concept for his long-term goals. He therefore used that concept as a lens through which he made all curricular decisions, and he connected all of his transfer goals and big ideas to his program’s broader goal of making his students successful in school and careers. But other school counselors might see their programs’ long-term goals through different lenses. What matters is that a school counselor has clarity about those long-term outcomes and develops goals that match them. As counselor and teacher educators guiding our own students through this work, we often ask: If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you know if you’ve arrived? The key to high-quality classroom guidance is knowing the desired destination for students and making strategic curricular decisions to move students forward to that clear destination. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The authors reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript. References American School Counselor Association. (n.d.). Lesson plan template . Retrieved from www.schoolcounselor.org/ asca/media/asca/ASCA%20National%20Model%20Templates/LessonPlanTemplate.pdf American School Counselor Association. (2003). ASCA mindsets & behaviors: Program planning tool. Retrieved from www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/ASCA%20National%20Model%20Templates/M- BProgramPlanningTool.pdf American School Counselor Association. (2012). ASCA National Model: A framework for school counseling programs (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Author. American School Counselor Association. (2014). Mindsets & behaviors for student success: K–12 college- and career- readiness standards for every student. Retrieved from https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/ home/MindsetsBehaviors.pdf American School Counselor Association. (2016). ASCA SCENE. Retrieved from https://scene.schoolcounselor. org/home Associated Press. (2015, June 30). Muslim girls design modest sportswear . [Video file]. Retrieved from https:// www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=63&v=pA7JQonL-TE