Hello my school counseling heroes. I know that you are all working hard right now to support your students, staff, and families during the COVID-19 crisis. Our work is always hard and now it's been made harder. One of my colleagues said "it's like our muse is gone." Couldn't agree more, without the kids, it's like the best parts of our jobs are whittled down to the notsofun parts. Hang in there, this too shall pass. 

My co-author, Alicia Oglesby, and I had the opportunity to host a #scchat with ASCA School Counselor of the Year extraordinaire Laura Ross. I feel like Laura was there from the beginning chatting with us and supporting our work. Thanks Laura!  We chatted all things interrupting racism when it comes to being a school counselor during school closures. 

So many people came to the chat and, let me tell you, y'all showed up. I could barely keep up. Here's the transcript, in case you want to take a look at some of the amazing thoughts of our school counselor colleagues. What kinds of things are you thinking through right now? My brain is currently spinning on return to school. Stay tuned for more thoughts!

I am about to head to Boston for #ASCA19 and am preparing for my presentation with Alicia Oglesby (co-author), Ignite Change for Equity and Inclusion. As I prepare, I am particularly reflecting on the ethical mandate for school counselors to interrupt systems and lead the way for systemic change when it is the very system itself that is preventing students of color from accessing rigor and achieving. 

As a white woman, I am particularly responsible for using my white privilege and my power as a school employee, to speak up and interrupt racism when I see it. I pulled heavily from the article on white silence from Robin DiAngelo, Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussion. If you are a white person, I highly recommend that you read this article and then her book, White Fragility. In our presentation Saturday and in this post, I want to discuss the role of the school counselor specifically. 

Have you ever not said something when you see or hear racism? I have. I strongly believe in equity and inclusion for all students but I know that I have chosen to let a comment slide by or to turn away when I see or hear something that makes me uncomfortable. I have to admit that to myself and to you if I am going to do better. DiAngelo states “when whites employ silence to maintain some degree of comfort, that silence functions (albeit seldom explicitly) as a means to regain white dominance.” Guess what? My comfort doesn’t mean more than yours. And it really doesn’t mean more than my students’.

If the cause of white silence is that keeping racial perspectives hidden protects us from being challenged. If we see race as “not something you bring up in polite society,” then what are the effects? DiAngelo shares these: leaving others to carry the weight of the discussion, no learning occurring, implying agreement with resistant participants, and invalidating the stories of others who do share. Let’s look particularly at this implicit agreement with resistant participants or racist comments/actions. I think this is even more important when we are a staff member who doesn’t speak up. Particularly in front of students. Let’s say that you overhear another adult make a comment about “those kids that ride that bus.” Students hear this comment and then see you say nothing. What message does that send to students? I would assume that you agree with the speaker or you didn’t think it was out of line. I always want my students to see me as their number one supporter, and I bet you do too. If speaking up is hard, or you want some great tips, check out Teaching Tolerance’s guide, Speak Up at School. 

There are also times when white people shouldn’t speak up. DiAngelo gives these highlights: When you are intentionally trying not to speak first and most. When a person of color has spoken and you feel drawn to re-explain, clarify, or add to their point. When people of color are discussing the sensitive issue of internalized racial oppression. Because sometimes as a white woman, I have nothing of value to add to the conversation. I can stop talking and listen, showing my support by using my active listening skills, and hear the truth that another person is telling me.

It’s time for me, as a white woman, to speak up more. To be a voice alongside. To be an active ally. Because ally is a verb. 

We hope to see you at our presentation on Saturday if you are going to be at #ASCA19. We will also have an informal lunch chat on Sunday in the exhibit hall. If you’re #notatASCA19 then you can check out our presentation here and read in more detail in our book. ​

Each meeting has a similar flow that allows for some learning by students and ample opportunity for them to talk and share. Before the meeting, students are given an article related to the topic of each meeting. In our first meeting, we read the article: Lives Turned Upside Down: Homeless Children in Their Own Words and Photographs

Here is an example agenda:

• Introduction/Greetings
• Warm Up Activity
• Team Norms
• Discussion: What were your thoughts or feelings about the article? ​
  • Brian says that he lives in a house with his family but has no electricity. How do you think this affects Brian?
  • What do you think some of Brian’s biggest worries or struggles would  be?
  • If Brian was a friend of yours, what questions would you want to ask him?
  • What do you think would help Brian feel comfortable and relaxed at school?
  • If Brian was a student at our school, would he be successful here?
• ​Ideas for action: How can we take what we've learned and make our school more inclusive for all students?

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It's been such a pleasure to see the conversations that students have! Other topics to include: Disability, Race, and Bullying. 

Next, I'd like to think more about how we can leave time and intention for action. We fill our entire time together with discussion and I'd like to add sessions for action or activities between meetings. Have you ever led a Student Voice Group? What topics did you discuss? I'd love to hear all about it!

Social emotional learning is making a big move right now in education. For counselors, we're nodding our heads and (perhaps) whisper-shouting "I told you so." Hey, let's just appreciate that we were ahead of the game. Where I work, schools are being required to include social emotional learning components in their school improvement plans and several districts in my area are hiring social emotional learning central services staff. I'm thrilled that this whole child approach is getting the spotlight.

At the same time, there's a lot of pressure for counselors to do this right. We may be one of the only people in the building with deep knowledge of social emotional learning best practices. I use the analogy of technology in the classrooms. When we started getting more computers, smart boards, and then iPads (I'm old, don't remind me), the entire staff turned and looked at the technology teacher. Great, they thought, our students can learn technology from that person and I can keep on with my usual. Now, we wouldn't dream of only one person in the building teaching technology as a separate entity from core instruction. I think the same will happen with SEL. It's a heavy lift for counselors right now but eventually we can build the capacity of our whole staff to not just teach SEL but to incorporate social emotional learning into the curriculum as a whole. 

CASEL, the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning, are the gurus on SEL right now. I look to them first when I am working on SEL. They look at SEL implementation in four parts:

• SEL lessons with explicit instruction: counselors teach these in their curriculum but teachers do too! When a teacher introduces a project based learning activity to students, they often go over expected behaviors and organizational strategies. That's explicit step-by-step instruction.
• Teaching practices that create positive conditions that support social and emotional development in students: students have to feel emotional and socially safe at school in order to learn social and emotional skills. Culturally responsive instruction is going to be a huge part of this. Schoolwide expectations and tier one practices like PBIS are in this tier as well.
• Integration of instruction and practice of SEL in the academic curriculum: This is more than teaching expected behaviors. This involves actually incorporating SEL competencies into instruction in a meaningful way.
• Policies and organizational structures: When we have policies and structures in place that support SEL as a clear priority for the school they are much more likely to happen.

CASEL has identified 5 core competencies for social emotional learning. They have a great handout that breaks down all of the competencies into skills. What I love about the skills highlighted by CASEL is their broad application. Students must actually have these skills in order to be successful in academics. This isn't fluff. It isn't something nice to "add on." 

I recently led a professional development for a full staff on social emotional learning. Social Emotional Learning is something that all educators can quickly understand and apply if they are given the opportunity to personally reflect and reflect on their classroom practices. After completing a culturally responsive classroom checklist and discussing the components of SEL, the teachers worked in cross grade level teams to complete a "cheat sheet" for each of the competencies. In this activity, the staff answered:

• What competencies/skills are listed under the core competency?
  
• Why it matters - why do students need to have this skills to be successful?
  
• Students will - a list of observable behaviors for students at each grade level.
  
• Teachers will - a list of observable strategies that teachers can implement. This is a great resource for ideas.

Overall it went really well and I think the staff walked away with new learning and reflection. If you'd like to snag the entire presentation and materials, you can find it here.