Good afternoon.

It was nice to meet all of you last night! I was really nervous about coming back to school after so many years but you all seem so friendly and warm.

I was struck by the title of our text "I Never Knew I Had A Choice." It sounds very simple but what a profound title. So often we go through life not realizing our potentials and forgetting we have choices. I am anxious to read beyond chapter 1 and explore the text further.

I teach 8th grade ESL in the School District of Lancaster. Over the last five years I have been lucky enough to enter the worlds of many students- local ones and students from as far away as countries like Nepal and Vietnam. I see my kids fight difficult battles everyday and come out stronger than before.
Our text does a nice job of introducing major figures in psychology and emphasizing their significant contributions. For instance, "According to Jung, humans are not merely shaped by past events but strive for growth as well." (Corey  11) I can't help but think of my students. Especially one. Two years ago I taught "Tony"( I will call him Tony for the sake of confidentiality.) His mother was brutally murdered in a way I could not even imagine. I was not sure what would happen Monday morning when he walked into my room. I felt tense with fear. How could I possibly help this child move forward? I tried to imagine being 13 and dealing with something of this magnitude. How was that possible? When Tony arrived to my room he was quiet. He wasn't talking about his X-Box or his BMX bike or his beloved I-Touch. Instead, he sat down with his hoodie on, pulled out his I-Touch(I couldn't possibly yell at him for this) and stared at a picture of his mother. I looked over and saw a puddle of tears on the paper I had given him. The rest of the class was quiet. I went over to Tony and told him he could step outside if he needed to and that I would stay with him. I patted his back and in a minute the whole class was by his side. Every student was gathered around him. Crying. Listening. Holding him. I had never seen such compassion in my life. Kind of destroys the stereotypes of middle school kids, huh?

Tony didn't let his mother's murder rule his life. I saw him a week before Christmas of this past year. He said he wants to go to college and maybe become a police officer. He loves being at McCaskey High School. Somehow, the desire to grow did not die that night his mother did. Human resiliency never ceases to amaze me. This is one of the reasons I can't wait to learn and explore with all of you!

Anyway, I appreciate learning from each of you and I look forward to getting to know you all better.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

Holly

Blog 1

Before I even began reading the chapter or the article, I read through the list of 22 tenets for successful group counseling that Dr. Baker showed us in class. The ones that I believe will be the most difficult were the ones involving interacting with other, such as letting them know that their actions are affecting me and trying not to label people during feedback. I realize that makes me sound pretty conceited, and I, of course, don’t like to think that about myself, so I delved deeper into why those guidelines would be difficult for me to follow. First, I found my answer at the top of our syllabus in the quote by Carl Jung. I am pretty positive that my tendency to label others or allow their actions to affect me (then subsequently bottling my feelings about it) says a lot more about me than it does about who I am working with. I discovered even more about myself when beginning to read the chapter in our textbook. Corey & Corey (2008) talked about “other-esteem” and how relating to others and allowing them to have a respectful part of our lives will bring us as much joy as feeling confident in our own contributions to life (pg. 5). This was really significant to me because I understood that sometimes I lack in other-esteem and I will need to take this semester to work on that about myself. Powerful stuff!

                I know we have only had one class, but this (above) experience paired with our group introductions last night would both be categorized as critical incidents, as described by Furr & Carroll (2003). When we wrote our questions in the beginning of class, I was not prepared to have them asked of me right away, let alone in the entire group setting. This was uncomfortable for me, not because I am ashamed of or embarrassed by my past experiences, but because I am wary of over-sharing to people I don’t know very well. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone tells their entire life story to everyone they meet, because I feel that it cheapens the depth of the experience. This came to light in Furr & Carroll’s article when they discussed student-faculty relationships (2003, pg. 484). I believe that it will be important for our class to have the comfort level with each other that is necessary for us all to grow as counselors and people. I feel optimistic that this experience will allow me to put away any judgments, pet peeves, and reservations in order to become the counselor I want to eventually be.

Corey, G. , & Corey, M.S. (2008). I never knew I had a choice: Explorations in personal growth (9^th ed.). Belmont, California: Thompson Brooks/Cole. ISBN: 9780495602293.

Furr, S. R., & Carroll, J. J. (2003). Critical Incidents in Student Counselor Development. Journal Of               Counseling & Development, 81(4), 483-489.