6 Words About Administrators as Counsellors

In my January 15th post, I promised to be back to discuss my thesis statement for my research about 'Administrators as Counsellors.' After my post yesterday, where I referred to the blog about writing just six words as a way to spur creativity, I decided that I should try to write six words about administrators and their counselling role and work it into my thesis statement.

To begin, I want to engage in a bit of a brainstorm about why I think this is a crucial role for school administrators:

• Front Line: The principal is often the first person to hear the story. That means that there is often an intensity to the interactions that is not always experienced by the second and third people to hear the story. It also means that the principal's reaction often frames the way that the remainder of the individual's experience plays out. For example, if the principal is reassuring, the individual is probably more likely to go forward and feel more confident in retelling the story. Whereas if the principal is shocked or angry or disapproving, the individual's reaction might be very different. Furthermore, if the principal is able to help an individual to reframe the story more accurately, to understand and accept personal responsibility, or to relate to someone else's perspective, the individual may be more prepared to find resolution.
• Many Perspectives: I have often thought that the best metaphor to describe the school principal would be the hub of the wheel. He or she is the liaison between many, often competing, perspectives. The principal is often an individual who knows the whole story. This knowledge gives the principal tremendous potential when it comes to resolving issues. I believe that the knowledge coupled with the skills to counsel people through their own resolutions is an incredibly powerful asset to the individual and to the organization.
• The Big Story: The school principal often hears the 'big' story. I think back in my career to the grade nine boy, who found out that he had a baseball size tumor; to the grade eight boy, who had been beaten by his father; or to the grade ten girl, who considered suicide to be an acceptable option. Although in our society those might be quite common experiences, for that one person at that particular time that story feels like the biggest moment in life. As a school principal listening to those stories, I hope I said the right thing. I am pretty sure that I did the best that I could given the knowledge and experience that I had, but I know that better preparation as a counsellor would have been a powerful tool for me at the time.
• Rural Schools Lack Counsellors: Most of my career has been spent in rural schools or private schools. That means that most of the time, we did not have the luxury of having a school counsellor. In Vancouver, when I worked in a school that did have a counsellor, the principal often referred cases directly to her. So, after the initial contact, she took over. In the rural school where I was a principal, we had counsellors in the school division. They visited our school on a rotation - Tuesday morning. We also had an option of referring students to provincial counsellors, who worked in the larger neighboring community. If there was a crisis, they could usually work a child into their schedule within a day or two. However, it usually meant that the student needed to miss a full half day of school to attend a one hour counselling slot and the counsellor rarely had the opportunity to see the student in crisis. As a principal, I was available every day and I often was responsible for smoothing out and settling down issues that erupted during the day to day life of a student who needed counselling.
• All Kinds of Issues: School principals engage in counselling situations with students, with parents, and with teachers. Each one of these groups in some situations sees and understands the school principal as the 'go to' person, when in crisis. The school principal is required to use counselling skills in many different relationships.

OK, so how can I possibly sum all of that up in six words? Good question. Let's see:

#1 - Principals hear many peoples' stories first.
#2 - All issues lead people to principal.
#3 - First contact has important impact later.
#4 - First response to big stories critical.

It's hard to boil it down to six words but the bottom line is...

The school principal is often faced with hearing and responding to 'big stories' from students, parents, and teachers. To build the potential for successful resolution to these issues the principal needs to be a good counsellor.

Just 6 Words, Eh?

I am in the early stages of my career as a university professor. Needless to say, I am in a constant struggle to find time to write. Writing for at least 15 minutes every day was my New Year's Resolution! I blew it during the first week! However, rather than giving up, I modified. Writing regularly is my new New Year's Resolution and I submitted it retroactively to December 31st. I accepted a writing buddy to help me stay accountable. She shared a great post with me about how to become a regular writer. It was post #661 from Tomorrow's Professor. I was totally excited about getting started. Then, I got sick. So, I blew the next two weeks being sick and trying to recover but I haven't given up, yet.

Last weekend, I went thoroughly through my schedule and planned that I would be better off writing in the morning. I am NOT a morning person and I AM an extrovert. So, I reasoned that I would be more likely to get 'into' my writing in the morning because I am less extroverted in the morning. It seemed reasonable. On Monday morning last week, I arranged my new schedule at work and asked for my appointments to be moved to the afternoons so that my mornings would be open. On Tuesday, the Dean asked me to help with a few "other duties as determined by the Dean." Well, so much for last week.

Now, it's Monday again. I had big plans for this morning. I had a great sleep - a full 8 hours. I got ready and came to work. All morning, person after person flowed through my office. And, you guessed it, I didn't do any writing! At lunch when I was reading through my email, I noticed an email from a colleague who had sent it for "late January inspiration!" Inspiration was just what I needed so I followed the link to a blog post by Margaret Andrews that was entitled "Six Words to Boost Your Creativity." In the post, the author explains that to think creatively you just need to think differently and then goes on to suggest that one way to think differently is by putting your thoughts into six words. Of course, I seized the moment! Six words! I CAN write six words.

So, it is STILL Monday at lunch and I am keeping my writing resolution by writing six words. I have 10 minutes left until my lunch break is over and I'm going to try to squeeze out six words to describe my January experience:

Ahhh! January's frustration: many writer's blocks.

I'm going to consider that my daily 15. I have big plans for February!

Educational Administrators as Counsellors

Hello, Friends!

It has been a long time since I published a blog entry - September 25th, 2011. I have to admit that I was in a bit of a bad funk all throughout 2012. Now, it is January 2013 and I am ready to start fresh...once again. I considered whether or not it was appropriate to go back to this almost forgotten blog. I decided that it was and, that furthermore, "Springing Forward to a Brand New Me" was still an appropriate title for my work. This time, rather than being a record of my daily activity, I hope that my new blog posts will be more focused on my professional writing. Tonight, I want to start on a completely new topic - Administrators as Counsellors.

I have thought about the counselling skills that are required for someone to be a good administrator but I have NEVER considered that it would be an excellent research topic for me. It is one of the parts of the job that I truly enjoyed AND part of the job in which I felt highly successful. This fall, I had a student in my Introduction to Educational Administration class that wanted to write her essay about the administrator as counsellor. She had been observing the administrators in her school and noticed that they were dealing with a teacher whose marriage was ending, a student whose mother had passed away, and a parent who was troubled by the behaviour of her teenage son. As an Ed. Admin. student she was shocked by this observation that the administrators were actually called upon to do some fairly intense counselling sessions on a quite a regular basis. When she started to do a literature review for her paper, she was stumped. She couldn't find the literature. She called for my help and I agreed to try a library search in hopes that I could offer her some assistance with keywords or authors. Nope. The literature it seems revolves mainly around the development of good working relationships between administrators and counsellors. Although those are important, the counsellor in the school does not eliminate the need for administrators to have counselling skills. In fact, I would contend that counselling skills are not just a sideline virtue but actually an essential skill for success in administration!

I'm going to leave you with that thought tonight and I will be back tomorrow to explore my first thesis statement for my first paper about the administrator as counsellor.

Until then, I hope your world is one big classroom!
Jackie