I don’t think I’ve ever spelled the word “dilemma” properly
the first attempt ever in my life. I’ll
have to work on that.
In other news, I had an interesting conversation with my
cousin yesterday. Before I go on, I must
say that I adore the stuffins out of this woman. She is one of my favorite family members and
I just can’t get enough of her. It
really makes me sad, sometimes, how far we live apart from each other and how
rarely we get to see each other. For
years we have been more like friends than “just” cousins. And I have to say, she is the most beautiful
woman I have ever seen. Seriously. She’s just crazy gorgeous, inside and
out. She has a heart of gold. Since we’re only three months apart, and we
grew up just a few blocks away from each other, we have spent a lot of our
lives together. It was pretty special
having her close by. So these days when
we get to see each other, we usually have months (at least!) of time to catch
up on. Yesterday was no different. At one point, she asked me about school. I told her something that I haven’t really
talked much about yet. Whether I would
want to work in a Christian school or not.
I have thought about that, in great detail sometimes. Part of me says there is no chance that I
would want to. Having been a student in
them for most of my education, and being fairly close to some of the teachers
who are open-minded about things, I have come to the conclusion that no matter
my beliefs, my personality and attitude wouldn’t fly there very well. And in the big picture, it’s apparent that
one’s beliefs don’t ultimately matter.
It is all about the actions & attitude. Now that said, my beliefs are pretty
strong. I think God is pretty ok and I
think that it’s acceptable to believe that.
I am not a huge fan of the separation of church & state to the level
it has become. I don’t think that God
should have been removed from public schools. I don’t think that we should be prohibited
from talking about religion with students, especially with those who are
inquiring. That has potential to be a
big problem. Not because I intend to
break the rules—I don’t want to get sued, I want to keep my job, and I want to
be able to help a s many children as I possibly can in my career. The problem is that I will have a very huge
internal conflict if a student inquires about religion and I have to deny him
or her of information or of even talking about it. Children are funny—if you tell them that it’s
not okay to talk about something, they’re going to see it as a bad thing. We have to be all hush-hush about these taboo
topics because they’re not okay for normal people. Is that what we should be teaching children
about religion? About God? About expanding their knowledge?
I have been ordering most of my books online, either renting
them or getting used books. With that
setup come a lot of other students’ notes, comments, & highlighting. One of my books is about ethics and
counseling. Law too. Ethics & law of counseling. Something like that. I just don’t have it in me to look it up
right now. Though I’ll have to in order
to properly cite what I’m about to say.
Eh. So the author (Stone, 2009)
(funny that I can remember that part of it, is it not?) cited an incident where
two students approached a school counselor.
They were upset about something and the counselor prayed with them. Guess who lost her job. Yeah, the counselor. So a previous user of this book wrote
something in the sidelines of the page next to that along the lines of “Would I
ever pray with a student?” Based on
other comments throughout the book, she was religious in some form or
another. She alluded to it in a few ways
at different points, so I’m thinking that she was wondering the same thing I
was with a similar mindset. Would I ever
pray with a student?
If I worked in a Christian school, it would probably be
assumed that I would pray with students.
I had plenty of teachers throughout my schooling career pray with
me. Some even talked with me like a real
person. I adored those teachers. In fact, my BFF & I were just talking
about some of them the other day. The
straight-shooters. The ones who tell it
like it is. None of them work there
anymore. Not saying that any of them
were fired, it is likely just that they decided to move on for their own
reasons or because the school moved, but still.
That would be me. I wouldn’t
last. But then children in an
environment like that need someone who is open-minded and non-judgmental.
One of my professors in college (I wish I could remember
which one, but I can’t pick between two that it could have been) talked about a
student approaching him because she wanted an abortion. Had I been in her situation, both of the two
I’m thinking of would be people I would approach. They would not judge. They might not be able to help, but they
wouldn’t cause further harm. See, that’s
one of the moral principles that counselors are to abide by. Do not do harm. First do no harm. Don’t make a bad situation worse. If you can’t do anything to make it better,
don’t make it worse. It’s not just
counselors who are held to that standard.
Ever hear that for doctors? The Hippocratic
Oath—“abstain from doing harm”? So when
a young girl who is just admitting that she’s a lesbian comes to me and admits
this huge secret to me, am I to try to help her be comfortable with herself or
throw a bible at her and tell her it’s wrong?
Public school versus Christian school.
And I’m not including all private schools into this category just
because I’m only familiar with Christian schools. I can’t even begin to guess what a Catholic
school policy would be so I’m not going to.
One of my classmates posted something about dealing with a
student, female, whose grades had been slipping drastically. It may be a hypothetical situation—the
assignment said that if they were real cases to change names and protect
identities, so who knows, but it is pretty darn common. The counselor in this scenario talks to the
student to find out what’s been going on.
Turns out, the girl is gay and her parents are not accepting this
because of their religion. My classmate
later went on to talk about how difficult a situation that is when students
need acceptance and don’t get it from the people who are most expected to
provide it. What is a counselor to do in
a situation like that? Make the student
feel even worse? “Yeah, kiddo, it’s
against your religion. You’re really
screwed now, arencha?” What would that
student do in a Christian school? My
experiences with some of my gay friends have shown me that those schools aren’t
too willing to accept these students with open arms. Nope, you’re bad, go away. What an example.
I should stop now.
This might get into a self-debate far greater than I have time for right
now. I have two assignments that are due
tonight and haven’t even started either.
Perhaps I should be doing that.
Reference
Stone, C. (2009). School counseling principles: Ethics and law.
Alexandria, VA: American School Counselor Association.
