Picture yourself sitting in a faculty meeting when someone gets a big shout-out for going above and beyond for a student. They stepped in when things got difficult, took the student for a walk, helped them calm down, listened to what was going on, and eventually got them back to class.

Everyone applauds, and honestly, you’re glad that student had someone there to help.

At the same time, you can’t help thinking about how this is the same student who’s been sent out of class 14 times. You’ve spent weeks observing patterns, consulting with teachers, making recommendations, and trying to get meaningful supports in place so the same situation doesn’t keep happening.

Yet somehow, there’s never enough time for that work.

It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it? You’re not upset that someone helped the student. You’re wondering why everyone seems so satisfied with a response that hasn’t changed the underlying problem.

That’s the gold star problem.

Sometimes schools celebrate the people who repeatedly rescue students while overlooking the people working to help students need less rescuing. Those are two very different kinds of work. We need to be willing to talk about the difference.

Immediate Relief Isn’t the Same as Student Progress

Let’s be clear. Helping a student through a difficult moment matters. Sometimes a walk with a trusted adult is exactly what a student needs. Sometimes getting out of an overwhelming situation IS the right response and there’s nothing wrong with providing that support.

The question is what happens next… Are we seeing improvement in the student’s ability to participate in class, regulate emotions, manage difficult situations, or access learning? Or have we simply become very efficient at responding when the same problem occurs?

Helping a student feel better in the moment and helping that student experience fewer difficult moments are not necessarily the same thing. One provides immediate relief and the other requires us to examine what’s contributing to the pattern and make changes that support longer-term progress. That second kind of work often involves observation, consultation, planning, follow-through, and sometimes asking adults to do things differently.

It’s not always glamorous. It isn’t always popular. It rarely produces the same immediate satisfaction as swooping in and saving the day. That brings us to the real problem.

We’re Rewarding What We Can See

There’s a concept in behavioral economics called warm glow giving. Economist James Andreoni used the term to describe the personal satisfaction people experience from helping others. And let’s be honest… helping feels good. You walk into a difficult situation, support a struggling student, and watch things settle down. The teacher gives you that look of relief. Someone says, “I don’t know what we’d do without you.” You feel useful. You feel appreciated. You know you made a difference in that moment.

Public recognition adds another layer. Suddenly, the behavior isn’t just personally rewarding, it’s something the organization celebrates. In a 1975 paper titled “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B,” organizational researcher Steven Kerr described how organizations can reward behaviors that don’t actually produce the outcomes they say they want. That idea is worth considering in schools.

We say we want students to become more independent, participate more consistently, develop stronger regulation skills, and experience greater success in the classroom.

Yet what gets celebrated?

The person who repeatedly removes a student from a difficult classroom situation? Or the team that identifies what’s contributing to the difficulty and changes the conditions?

The person who responds to every escalation? Or the teacher who follows through with a support plan for six weeks?

The quick rescue? Or the less visible work that eventually makes the rescue less necessary?

We keep rewarding behavior we can see while hoping for outcomes nobody is consistently checking. This doesn’t mean the person getting the shout-out is doing anything wrong. It means we need to examine what our systems reinforce. When the same response gets celebrated over and over, people learn what the school values. Eventually, the campus can become very good at responding to problems without getting any better at preventing them.

The Gold Star Problem Can Become a Counselor Problem, Too

Here’s where this gets uncomfortable: School counselors can become just as attached to the immediate reward of helping as anyone else. We know how to swoop in. We know how to calm a student, talk through a problem, and get someone back to class. We’re often good at it. Plus, people appreciate us for it.

The trouble starts when being the person everyone calls becomes the organizing principle of our entire workday. The consultation we needed to complete gets postponed. The intervention data we meant to examine gets pushed to tomorrow. The proactive support we wanted to develop gets bumped to next week. Meanwhile, we’re answering every call, responding to every crisis, and becoming increasingly exhausted.

This is one way school counselors end up burned out and overwhelmed. We’re so busy being helpful in the ways people immediately recognize that we lose the time and space to do the work that might actually change something. Moving toward more comprehensive support can also make us less popular.

Instead of simply taking the student, we’re asking what keeps happening. We’re recommending changes to classroom practices, expectations, structures, or adult responses. We’re asking other people to participate in the solution. That’s harder.

Sometimes the response is, “We don’t have time for that. Can’t you just talk to him?” It can be tempting to question our recommendations when people are clearly more enthusiastic about the quick fix. Yet the fact that someone prefers your immediate response doesn’t automatically make it your best professional recommendation.

Sometimes the Work That Matters Most Doesn’t Get Applause

I’ll share something personal. At my school, we have staff shout-outs. We even give out little gold star pens that people can wear on their lanyards.

I’ve been there almost a decade and I’ve never received one. Not once. Now, I don’t need a gold star to know whether I’m good at my job. I do, however, understand what it feels like to sit in a faculty meeting and watch someone get celebrated for doing something you’ve spent weeks trying to help a student move beyond.

Knowing your professional value doesn’t make you immune to feeling overlooked. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the lack of recognition. It’s realizing that the people you’re working so hard to help may not understand why you’re recommending something different.

You can start second-guessing yourself. Am I making this too complicated? Was that really the right recommendation? Would it have been easier to just take the student and handle it myself? Maybe. It probably would have been easier in that moment, but it wouldn’t necessarily have been better for the student.

There’s a difference between being thanked for being helpful and having another professional recognize the quality of your judgment. Both kinds of recognition matter. They just aren’t interchangeable.

Who Benefits From the Rescue?

Think again about that student who’s repeatedly sent out of class. The teacher gets relief. The person who steps in gets to feel helpful. The administrator gets one less immediate problem to manage. Everybody gets something, except, potentially, the student.

That’s an uncomfortable possibility, but it’s worth considering. Sometimes the reason a more comprehensive recommendation is unwelcome isn’t that people don’t understand what you’re asking. It’s that you’re asking them to give up an arrangement that’s already working pretty well for them.

You’re asking for more than a quick rescue. You’re asking for changes, follow-through, and shared responsibility. That work may not earn a standing ovation at the next faculty meeting. It may not get you a gold star pen. It may, however, help a student participate more successfully, experience fewer disruptions, and build skills that last beyond the next difficult afternoon. Those outcomes deserve our attention, even when they’re harder to see.

You Deserve the Gold Star

If you’re doing the difficult, behind-the-scenes work of helping students experience meaningful progress, I hope you don’t mistake the lack of applause for a lack of impact. You don’t have to be the campus hero every day. You don’t have to make every immediate problem disappear. You don’t have to organize your entire professional identity around being the person everyone calls when things go wrong.

You do need opportunities to think through difficult situations, examine your reasoning, and get meaningful professional consultation.

That’s one of the reasons the S4SC Mastermind makes space every week for real campus situations. Not just quick suggestions or another worksheet to try, but actual consultation about what’s happening, what you’ve considered, what the evidence suggests, and what makes sense next.

The S4SC Hub and Blog offer additional resources and support as you continue developing your professional judgment and navigating the realities of school counseling.

If nobody has handed you a gold star lately, let this be your reminder: you deserve recognition for the work that helps students move forward, not just the work that makes today’s problem go away.

Stay skeptical. Check your sources. Take care.