Athena: Counseling

Dear Augustine,

So...the second Master's program (which, if I complete all of this would actually be my third Master's degree) is in Student Counseling. Which blends a lot of cool Psych courses from an Ed perspective, with a very practical bent.

In some ways, this feels like a culmination of the past...almost 20 years of my life. I hit middle school right around when my parents divorced. In a matter of 18 months, we moved away from all my family all the way down the East Coast, my grandfather passed away, my Dad had an affair and left my mom, they divorced, then we moved back "home". Plus, I was 12, so in additional to some pretty serious emotional upheaval, everything was just confusing and moody anyways.

School was always always my safe space. But even more so during my middle school years--it literally felt like the world was crumbling around me, and I honestly almost didn't make it. Thankfully, I was back with my network of extended family, reconnected with the friends I'd recently left, and had really wonderful teachers at the school. But more importantly, there was this one guidance counselor who I just loved. It took me awhile to figure out how to talk to her and actually deal with some of my shit, but I did. She poured into me a lot, and continued to support me when I was in high school--encouraging me when I had ideas for connecting high school students with middle schoolers.

I remember that one of the last times I saw her (she retired around the time I graduated high school), I told her that I was planning to go to college and become a math teacher. She reminded me again that she thought I'd make a good guidance counselor myself someday...and let me know that she had actually started out as a math teacher originally too (something I hadn't known before). I laughed and told her that I appreciated the sentiment, but I was pretty sure that I was going to stick with the math. At the time I couldn't see myself wanting anything else.

So it seems that she was not only a powerful force of good in my life, but somebody who saw things that I wasn't yet able to see for myself. She saw those things in my darkest and saddest moments, as well as in my happier ones.

I hope that I do some of that for my own students even now. And that perhaps with a little more formal training, I might be able to do that more fully.

+Athena