Lesson gone wrong…

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I should have learned my lesson the first time.

One activity I’ve done in the past for “Appreciating Individuality” is the “Pass It On” lesson where you have each kid write their name on a big piece of paper and then you pass the paper around the room and let each student write something nice about that person.  I emphasize the word nice. 

Four years ago I did this lesson and I had a few kids write something really mean on another student’s paper.  So, like any good school counselor, I became frustrated and gave up on the lesson…

I stumbled upon an idea on Pinterest of a “self-esteem portrait”

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And part of it was to have other students write “really nice things” around the picture.  So I gave it a shot.

The first class of 30 6th graders did beautifully.  Really sweet things written down.  Kind words.  Words that impressed me.  Words that I hope really made a kids’ day.

The second round was a different story.  One kid was writing ” very ‘special’” on several kids’ papers and one had “likes nips” on it.  Now I would not have even noticed the “likes nips” comment if the boys in the back of the room hadn’t been snickering about it and the boy whose paper it was had been awkwardly trying to cover it up when I walked by.

Maybe it was wrong of me, but I addressed the entire group and asked that the students who wrote “very ‘special’” and the “other inappropriate comment” to see me after class.  One boy confessed.  He told me that he was referring to Nips, the candy.  Image

I wasn’t born yesterday.  And those boys snickering sure didn’t think he was referring to the candy.

Ugh.

So another lesson to put on the shelf for a while.  Until I feel like Pollyanna again and give it a whirl :)

Baby Counselors

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When I did my practicum experience, my high school supervisor used to refer to new teachers as “baby teachers” and she ever so lovingly called me a “baby counselor”.  She also threw me into completely uncomfortable situations as a “sink-or-swim” technique, like giving me a pamphlet on sexual harassment on my 1st day with her and having me discuss what that meant to a boy who had allegedly been harassing a girl.  Graduate school doesn’t exactly prepare you for that – hence the whole purpose of a practicum.  Part of me felt like we could do away with a good one or two semesters of class and just jump into the practicum experience.  I would have learned more anyway…

So six years in, I’m now getting a “baby counselor” of my own in a week.  While the experience is great for the counselor-in-training, it never occurred to me just how great it is for the counselor.  I’m only 6 years in, but starting to run on auto-pilot sometimes and having someone here to explain things to will bring it to a more conscious level.

I was so annoying as a baby counselor.  Ever eager.  Thought I knew everything.  Perky and on fire for the profession.  I’m sure my supervisor (who retired three years later) went home and told her husband how “cute” it was that I was so excited and perhaps rolled her eyes a few times at my naive chatterings about the world.  :)  And sometimes I still feel like the baby counselor – in situations I was never trained to handle, blindly walking through it and “faking it until making it”.  But that is what keeps this job interesting, right?

Sneetches, Beaches, and 5th grade

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Dr. Suess sure was brilliant, wasn’t he?  His bizzare creatures, the way he rhymed words that weren’t really words and got away with it, and he threw in some social and historical twists in his messages that usually taught us a lesson.

The Sneetches has got to be one of my favorites.  It’s that blue book with the additional stories of “The Zacks” and “Too Many Daves” and those creepy pants with no body inside them finish the book of stories.  First he taught us how to accept each other, then how stubbornness will lead to chaos around us, then the importance of taking the time to name each of your children, and finally, creepy pants that walk around in the dark hanging out in snide trees (or whatever those were) can become your friends.

I teach the Sneetches during my “Accepting Individuality” unit although it would also tie in well to any bullying curriculum.  The neat thing about this book, as I learned after doing some research, is that Dr. Suess wrote this after the conclusion of World War II – just as the Holocaust was being exposed for what it really was.  And the guy used stars on the Sneetches bellies – just as Nazi’s used those stars to identify the Jews.  Those are the details my nerdy, historical loving self gets intrigued by.  Brilliant again, Doctor.

I used to read the book and walk around, which I know is probably best because how often are 5th graders really read to?  But I recently found a clip while scouring Pinterest that throws some song and dance in to the mix and captivates my audience a bit more than my voices would have!

Most kids have read this book, but it is a great reminder that we tend to judge people based on what we see and seldom take the time to really think about why that “star” is such a big deal.  Or that UnderArmor sweatshirt.  Or that hairstyle.  Or those jeans.  Or that skin color.  Or the way someone walks.

We ridicule because it makes us feel secure.  When we judge someone else, we put ourselves on a higher ground than them automatically.  The star belly sneetches were that “cool clique” of girls you knew back in middle school who basically thought if you weren’t wearing the latest trend you automatically weren’t that great to hang out with.

I love Dr. Suess and if I could teach him every lesson I would.  I think this is one of those lessons every guidance counselor has in their bag of tricks and it is one that a small part of nostalgically appreciates as well.

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One of the Best (and worst) Lessons I Teach…

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One of the lessons in my bully unit for 5th grade makes me, well, a bully.  It was part of the curriculum given to me by our CESA 11 Anti-Bullying program and has been quite effective.  As in, kids in the high school can still tell you the day their middle school counselor ripped their poster.

After discussing bullying for several weeks, including discussing the definition, the four main types, and how to ACT (take Action, Care for the bully and victim, and Tell a trusted adult), the students are asked to make a poster to demonstrate what we’ve learned.  Something we do in most classes, right?  I give them only 15 minutes to work on this – they panic, wanting more time – and then put them up in the front of the class to share and discuss.

At that point, I begin to rip them.  Toss the pieces on the ground.  Judge the coloring, the content, the pictures.  They gasp.  Some laugh.  Some get really quiet and really mad.  Some get the point right away.  Others need some time to process what they just witnessed.  It isn’t every day that a school counselor destroys a kids’ creation.

Then I apologize and use clear tape to tape back the pieces.  We discuss how even though I’m taping them back together, the rip is still there and is impossible to completely eliminate.  This is similar to the whole “cramming-toothpaste-back-in” analogy.  I hang these posters up in the room or the hallway and it becomes a conversation starter for all of the kids that see them.  poster2 poster1

My stomach is always in knots just before I rip them up.  I feel terrible doing it, but it is such a great way for every kid in that classroom to feel violated.  It is on a very small scale compared to actually being bullied, but it makes a point – a very vivid point.

Thank you, but actually I am not omnipotent

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As a counselor, I feel like I’m supposed to have this ever-Pollyanna outlook on every situation and I should feel like there isn’t a single kid I can’t fix.

How I wish I could.

Fast forward after five years of working as a school counselor, a year as a primary counselor at an assessment center, a year as a special education aide in an inner city school, and you’ll find a cynic sitting in my chair.  Which is heartbreaking, but the truth of the matter is, I cannot fix every kid.  I would be a narcissist if I did believe that.  I belong to the “nurture” camp when it comes to what creates personality… nature gives you the tools, but it is the nurturing, or lack thereof, that will determine much of how you turn out.

So when a teacher pulls me aside in the hall and tells me she is, “concerned with Johanna* and the boys she hangs out with… I just see trouble for her if she continues to hang out with those boys” I get slightly irritated whether I’m allowed to or not.  Johanna comes from an extremely sad situation and there is no amount of counseling that will ever change the fact that she is starving for attention from boys. Her father and the male role models in her family have screwed that up.  I can’t fix that.  I can try to connect with Johanna in class.  I can be a strong female role model.  I can encourage her to follow her dreams of being a fashion designer.  I can ask her to please stop with the PDA out on the playground when I see it.

As all parents know, you can’t really control who your kids hang out with after the age of 10 or so.  You control who they hang out with when you are the transportation to and from play dates and slumber parties.  But after that, they ultimately choose who their friends will be in school.  Now change that scenario to a family with absent parenting going on… kids are allowed to wander around town after school without any supervision.  Those kids are going to hang out with whoever else is wandering around – and those kids will be their friends.

How do you think gangs start?

We might not have “gangs” here, but we have strong cliques.  By 8th grade you’ll be hard pressed to change a kid’s circle of friends.  Throw in a bucket of hormones, years of neglect from your father, and some cute 8th grade boys who will flirt by pulling your hair and grabbing your notebook and you’ve got yourself a Johanna.

And I do not have the resources Dr. Phil has.  I’m not buddies with someone who runs an amazing youth camp out in Colorado or the means to fly Johanna out to participate.  I can’t glue her family back together.  I cannot undo the years of neglect, possible abuse, and all the things she has seen and heard.

And perhaps I’m a horrible counselor for not stepping in and changing this.  But the truth of the matter is, there are some situations I cannot fix and the sooner I can realize that and come to terms with that, the sooner I can start connecting with a student – without expectations – and giving them positive attention.  And sometimes that is the best I can do.  And guess what?  You don’t need a degree in school counseling to do that… all it takes is a caring adult who can spend the time connecting with a kid.

“Get A Grip”

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“Get a grip!”  My father used to say this to me all the time when I was growing up and throwing a fit.  You can imagine how well that went over when I was 13, dramatic as all get-out, and pitching fits daily.

I know as a counselor you are expected to be soft, nurturing, warm, and non-judgmental.  But as a school counselor, there are times when we need to help kids “get a grip” because they need to get back to math class.  It’s these moments that I wonder if I’m really a good counselor or not.

But when you work with 10-13 year olds, part of your job is to help them compartmentalize their feelings so they can manage through the rest of the day.  As adults they will need to learn this skill… There are many days I have to apply an “emotional tourniquet” as Kristin van Ogtrop so eloquently describes it in her book “Just Let Me Lie Down.”  There are days you want to just curl up under the covers and cry – because you’re in a fight with your best friend/spouse, your grandmother died, you miss being 5 years old, or you aren’t getting along with a co-worker.  But we still have to apply that tourniquet, “get a grip”, and get to work.

I’m not advocating stuffing feelings.  We all know how that works out.  And by all means if a child has lost a loved one or even if their dog has died, I’m all for a good cry and math can take a backseat for the day.  But I’m talking about the DRAMA.  The “he said, she said” that always seems to happen to a handful of kids.  They are the same students in my office every time, “reporting” being bullied when really they  have drawn a large target on their forehead for themselves.

I have one girl in 6th grade who, through sobbing, told me that kids were “calling her a ‘vampirist’ because she had read the ‘Twilight’ series two times.”  My reply?  ”That’s awesome you read those books twice!  Those are long books!”  May I also point out that she was wearing a t-shirt that said “I love vampires”?  I’m sorry, but you need to either like vampires and own it or find another book series. Oh… and did I mention that this child also bit another student when she got mad at him for not listening to her at recess – in 6th GRADE?  So she’s not really helping her case by giving kids such great material to work with.

Or my 7th grade clique of girls who have a revolving door for “who is in” and “who is out” and most of it is based on one of them (who I won’t name) stirring the pot.  When I ask them if it is possible someone is just “stirring the pot” they have this “aha” moment and realize that maybe what they were told is completely false and meant to create some excitement for the day.

Or the 6th grade boy who is so helplessly in love with an 8th grade girl that he mopes around the playground when she is talking to another boy.  I want to offer him some relationship advice and suggest he buck up because moping is so unattractive. 

The drama.  And I shouldn’t complain.  It’s not like drama is new to middle school and I knew very well when I signed up for a middle school counseling position that I would hear the majority of it.  But there are times when I hear myself quoting my father and telling them to “get a grip” and I have to kind of smile…  he kind of knew what he was talking about…

I suck at self-care

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The one thing they brush upon during graduate school for school counselors is “self-care”.  I think they mentioned it anyway.  I might not have heard it because I was thinking about my three part-time jobs, driving 2 hours to school, trying to schedule time to tape my counseling sessions for my CPL class, maintaining a social life, and figuring out where the heck I’d do my practicum.

Self-care is one of those things that is easier said than done.

I, for one, suck at it.

For starters, I cannot meditate.  I cannot shut my brain off for a minute without some thought racing in and messing up my image of a plain white room.  Therefore, my mind is always making check lists of the million things I need to do for other people – and I don’t put “self-care” on that list.

People are attracted to this field because they enjoy giving to others.  Not necessarily items or money, but giving of themselves.  Their time.  Their emotions.  Their concern.  Their support.  We give and give and give.  And at the end of the day we’re supposed to “fill up” again so we’re ready to go the next day.

When I get home, I want to give my family my time and attention (and make dinner, feed the baby, have a conversation with my husband, get a load of laundry in, clean the kitchen, bathe the baby, pack for the next day, check my personal email, spend some quality time with my kid before she grows up before I know it, and walk the dog).  I need to be in bed by 10 if I have any prayers of waking up at 5:45 the next morning, so that gives me a solid 5 1/2 hours to get everything done – and the last on the list?  Self-care.  That bubble bath I’ve been meaning to take for the last year and a half.  That pottery wheel I used to spend hours on in college.  That long phone conversation with a friend (without a crying child in the background) that I’ve been wanting for weeks now.  That new television show I wanted to get lost in for a half hour.  All of that sounds so luxurious now.

But with work I give, and give, and give – my attention, time, patience, love, compassion, energy, sympathy, and care for 300 students in my building each day.  So when I go home, I feel as though I am scraping the barrel of myself to give to my family.  How can I possibly give to myself?

The ironic part of it is, counselors go into this profession because  for the most part it is our nature to give to the point of imploding.  It is what makes us good at it.  But it is also what makes us burn out of it.

I often think how long I will last in public education.  When will it be too much.  When will I no longer replenish my energy each night; each weekend; each summer.  When should I take a step back?  There have been nights I’ve come home after a day on the phone with social services, handling a tough parent, or dealing with a crazy schedule sobbing, telling my husband that my next job I just want to address envelopes and lick stamps.  I want a completely un-emotional job.  One without drama, pain, and people-work.  One I won’t feel so strongly about.  So I can have the energy I want to have for my family and myself.

I don’t have the answer.  I’m still searching for it.  And I’m a huge hypocrite.  I do a guidance lesson about “handling stress” and yet I don’t follow One. Single. Tip. So if you have found this miraculous fix for the fixers of the world (preferably an easy one-time application that doesn’t involve meditation), I think you should package it up and sell it on Amazon.  And I’ll take a few shares in your stock :)

“Am I in trouble?”

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I can’t tell you how often I have kids ask me that when I have them sitting in my office.  The school set up my office far away from the principal’s and yet they still wonder if they are in trouble.

My favorite thing to do is ask them what they think I’ve called them down for.  I typically get a 10 minute run-on sentence about some recess drama that involved Laisha telling Miranda that she thought she was stealing Sonia away from her and how they’d been friends since Kindergarten ever since Laisha moved next door, but then her mom got remarried and they moved and then Sonia moved in and one time they went ice skating for their 8th birthday but Sonia had a cold and missed that party and then they wanted to play four-square at recess but Miranda didn’t want to and…

And what I really needed to talk to them about what the fact that Jimmy overheard them saying they wanted to commit suicide.

Gulp.

They were just kidding.  One of the girls even told me that they would never hurt someone like that and I had to clarify that suicide meant seriously harming themselves…  so they were using the term without even knowing what it was!  Then we have the talk about how we can’t be so dramatic with our words because people can hear us say things like that and be really worried.

I’ve even said myself “I just want to die” when what I really mean is, “I really want to lay down and have a good solid 8 hours of sleep right now”, or “I want to hide because I’m so embarrassed right now and don’t want to be seen.”  But when we’re emotional, immature, and lacking the pre-frontal cortex function between the ages of 10-18, “I want to die!” is what comes out, ready or not.

My little 5th grader skipped down the hall after our conversation, happily explaining they were studying the ocean floor… Oh, the innocence…

 

 

 

When homework makes you want to throw up….

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Trevor Romaine has a DVD called “How to Do Homework Without Throwing Up.”  I love that title.  And to most kids, that is exactly what homework makes them feel like doing.  Hence the 25+ kids I have on my list getting an F in a class simply because they haven’t turned something in or done the homework.

If you haven’t heard of Trevor Romaine, you need to look the dude up.  Not only is he great at using language kids relate to, but he’s also a humanitarian helping kids around the world.  He is a motivational speaker and has DVDs that seem as if they were made for school counselors to use – His movies touch on a myriad of issues that affect kids – homework, divorce, bullies, cliques, and how to be healthy.  He’s an artist who draws his main characters, Jack and Skye, and he talks them through some tough situations adding humor and creative twists along the way that will have your class singing or repeating the lines after guidance class is over.

I sound like a commercial, don’t I?  But as a counselor you know it is tough to find REALLY GOOD stuff that kids relate to while also driving home a good message.  And it doesn’t hurt that it’s a colorful, engaging DVD that has all of my students paying attention…

“How to Do Homework Without Throwing Up” has Jack freaking out about doing homework and Trevor helps him through it by leading them on an adventure in the Amazon jungle and there’s a “Golden Goat” that for some reason or another my 5th graders remember months later.

I also use the “Bullies are a Pain in the Brain” DVD during my unit about bullying.  It has poor Jack dealing with a bully (Henry) and he tries a few strategies to fend off the bully.  What I really like about this is that it ties in with the ACT model I teach kids – A: Take Action, C: Care for the victim AND bully and T: Tell a trusted adult – with emphasis on the “telling an adult” when it gets to be too much.  Far too often I have kids running to my office to tell on a kid without first handling the situation themselves.  Although Jack deals with some pretty abusive physical bullying which I point out an adult should be consulted on…

But in the end, Jack ends up being nice to Henry – something that my kids have a hard time understanding when I go over the “C” of caring with.  How difficult is it to be nice to someone who has made your life miserable?  Jack demonstrates just how this can look and it just fits so nicely into what I go over with them.

Too bad he doesn’t have a film “How to Pay Your Bills Without Throwing Up”…..

Check it out!  http://www.trevorromain.com/