Making Sense of Early Trends

Remember the time when you wrote the bulk of your recommendation letters and secondary-school reports in December?  The world would stop moving as you tried to encompass the academic and community careers of all of your seniors in writing, attempting to add some depth, humanity, and warmth to the cold black-and-white statistics on transcripts and standardized testing reports.  You longed for February, when the bulk of them would be done, and you would move on to the equally monumental task of advising students about course choices for the following year.

If you are like me, you have noticed that those days are long gone.  December, in fact, has, every year, become much less of a whirlwind, allowing me to even sit back and enjoy the cocoa on occasion.  Instead, trying to talk to me in October is just about impossible.  For the last two years, almost half of the seniors on my caseload have applied either early decision or early action to colleges and universities.  This means meetings with parents and students right as school begins, and then a non-stop flurry of interviews, conversations, and writing. Lots and lots of writing.

What can be a special challenge is trying to determine how best to advise these students on the early admissions process.  What students should and should not consider applying early?  What are the trends telling us?  What are the ethical standards that guide both us and our students in this process?  To answer these questions, let's play a game of "True or False":

True or False?  Early action and early decision are the same thing.

False.  Both early action and early decision applications will typically be due by November 1st, and student will usually receive a decision by mid-December.  However, early decision applicants can only apply to one school early.  They must apply to other colleges and universities using the regular admissions deadline.  Early decision is known as a binding agreement, meaning that if that student is accepted to the one school to which they applied early, they will withdraw all of their other outstanding applications and agree to attend that school.  Note that this would be in advance of seeing a financial aid offer.  Early action, however, is typically not a binding agreement (read the fine print, though, on college admissions websites, just to be clear).  Students receive notice in mid-December, just as in early decision, but they are not bound to attend the school, giving them time to receive decisions from other schools and compare financial aid packages.  Many schools have moved towards early action versus early decision for this reason.

True or False?   Any student should feel comfortable applying early decision or early action.

False, but with a lot of caveats.  The reason I wanted to do this particular post is that it seems as if the answer to this question changes each and every year, or at least I feel it does.  Even five years ago, early decision/action was really reserved for those elite students whose statistics (GPA's and test scores) were above the school's admissions pool average.  This was because the typical early application pool was full of more high-achieving (statistically speaking--numbers only) students, and in order to be competitive in that pool, students needed to be towards the top of the pack.  Then, in the last several years, the number of early applications has grown leaps and bounds.  This has increased the pool quite significantly, and we see more and more students who fit the average admissions statistics of a school applying early.  Further, in phone calls and conversations with admissions counselors in the last two years, they have stated to me that if a student has a real passion for attending their campus, they would like for them to consider applying early.  Applying early can be a sign to a school that the student is extremely interested in attending their campus next year.  However, I would still recommend that students only apply early if their statistics fall into the average or above for a given school--more on why that is important in the next section.  Additionally, any student applying early decision must be 100% sure that this is the college or university they want to attend, above all others, which means they have visited the school, have a feel for the campus, know that the campus has their major or many majors within their general area of interest, and that they feel they can reasonably afford to go to the school financially.  One very positive trend in early applications is the increase in diversity of the applicant pool.  A Forbes article discusses how colleges and universities are actively encouraging and recruiting students from minority groups and from low-income households to consider applying early, allowing a wider group of students to access this particular service.    

College Board has some excellent guidelines for students considering applying early decision or early action that I feel are a good standard by which to advise your students.  Early applicants:

• Have researched colleges extensively.
• Are 100% sure that the college is their first choice (a MUST if applying Early Decision).
• Knows the school is a strong match academically and socially.
• Meet or exceeds the average basic statistics (GPA, test scores, class rank if available) of the general applicant pool.
• Have a consistent academic record over time. (source: professionals.collegeboard.org)

Additionally, the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC) also has recommendations for students considering applying early:

• You should not feel pressured to apply early just because other students are.
• You should not apply early decision if financial aid is a large consideration and you will need to compare aid offers.
• You should not apply early if you feel your senior grades (7th semester) may be necessary to help an admissions committee decide in your favor.  (source:  www.nacacnet.org)

True or False?  Students can expect a response of accept, deny, wait list, or deferral to the regular applicant pool.

True, but this is where it can get tricky.  Students can certainly be accepted or denied through the early process, and there have been several articles discussing how some colleges and universities are admitting a larger percentage of their early applicant pool than their general pool, overall.  For example, Bucknell admitted 65% of its early applicants as opposed to 30% of its overall applicants.  This US News and World Report article points out a list of schools where applying early action helps students.  However, I would again caution people to consider that the early applicant pool may look very different than the general applicant pool, as many of those applying early tend to meet or exceed the average admissions statistics for that college, making colleges or universities more likely to accept a greater percentage of them.  I would think very carefully about recommending that a student apply early to a school on their list that is a "reach" school because their statistics are under the average for a school.

Another trend that it is important to consider is that of deferring applicants to the regular pool.  It used to be that if the college was not completely sure about an early applicant and wanted to see them as compared to the regular application pool, they would defer their decision until after the regular application deadline.  Indeed, many of my students felt pretty safe applying early, because the general feeling was that if they were not accepted, they would probably be deferred to the regular pool where they could get another review.  However, through a conversation with a parent and then an admissions counselor at one of our area colleges, I have discovered this trend may be on the wane.  Indeed, more schools are trying to make a final decision on an early applicant versus deferring them to the regular admissions pool, as discussed again in this recent Forbes article.  Thus, some schools are simply giving a decision of accept, deny, or wait list, just as they would for applicants to the regular pool.  This should serve again as a caution to advise students to take a strong look at their black-and-white statistics in order to insure that they meet that school's averages, as it may be less likely that they will get a second review in the regular applicant pool.

True or False?  There are ethical guidelines and standards to guide both us as counselors and our students through this process.  

True! For counselors, there are guidelines from College Board about advising students properly about early decision, such as letting them know they have to withdraw all of their other applications if they are accepted and that they are only allowed to apply early decision to one school.  They also discuss the process for students who apply early but do not receive the financial aid necessary to attend, but that should be part of the conversation you initially have with a student before they apply early, because if that is a major concern the early application may not be the best choice.  There are also guidelines for secondary school professionals from NACAC on page five of their Statement of Principles of Good Practice. 

For students, I would highly recommend sharing NACAC's Students' Rights and Responsibilities in the College Admission Process--it is available in both English and in Spanish.  It details what students and families have a right to expect in the college admissions process, but also gives guidelines about their ethical responsibilities in the early admissions process.

Overall, though, each college and university is going to have a unique process and a unique set of standards by which they evaluate early applicants as well as in the types of decisions they give.  If you are looking for statistics on the percentage of early applications admitted at a given school, I recommend going to College Data, entering the school, and clicking on the admissions tab, or you can try to navigate the websites of individual colleges.  If you have specific questions about the process at a school, please pick up the phone and give the admissions office a call.  I have always been met with admissions counselors, assistant deans, etc. who have taken time to answer my specific questions--it benefits my students, as they get the best guidance possible for that particular school, it benefits me, as I am able to relate up to the minute advice and information, and it benefits the colleges and universities, who are then able to receive applications from students who are well-informed about the process, their own chances, and the possible outcomes.

Ally Week

The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) sponsors a week each year for allies of LGBT students to stand up and pledge to refrain from using demeaning anti-LGBT language, intervene in situations where students are being bullied or harassed based on real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, and engage in activities that attempt to raise awareness and end bullying and harassment of all students.  (source: www.glsen.org)  This year the week will take place from October 15-19, and schools from around the country will participate in many ways.  The main website for Ally Week has information, name tag templates, and pledge cards that groups can print out as a way for students to show their commitment to creating positive school communities where all students are free from bullying and harassment.  Take a look at the video below for more information:



If you have students that are interested in participating in Ally Week, note that October is National Bullying Prevention Month and that perhaps Ally Week could be incorporated in some way into programming that may already be in place.  It does not necessarily have to be that you use cards and badges, but it is important to acknowledge that anti-LGBT slurs and bullying will be taken as seriously as all other disparaging language and actions.  As I've discussed before, programs such as Ally Week can be important to the academic success of LGBT students.  As the latest data from the 2011 School Climate Survey shares, LGBT students who have schools with supportive adults in the building have higher GPA's, are more likely to pursue higher-education after graduation, are more likely to attend school, and are more likely to feel safe when in their school building. (source: www.glsen.org).  Thus, interventions within the school that are supportive of all students' rights to be in a safe and supportive environment, including LGBT students, can have long reaching effects into your school's outcome data in addition to the health and well-being of your students.

Shepherding the Flock: Supporting New School Counselors

Think back to when you first started your job as a school counselor.  For some, that may have been 20 years ago.  For others, that may have been last week.  You would have recently finished a graduate program in school counseling, complete with an internship that provided you with real experience working in the schools.  All of this prepared you to be a rock-star school counselor.  Your education was complete--you knew it all.

Perhaps not.  If you were more like me, you sat in your first meeting with the other counselors in your school, two weeks before the students started back, being given task after task, data report after data report, having no earthly idea of a) what they were talking about and b) how to do the things they were asking of you.  I'm pretty sure I had a look of sheer panic on my face, as one of the my colleagues came up to me afterwards and reassured me that they knew how I felt and that they would sit down with me the next morning and help me work through the list.

No matter how strong our graduate programs were, and no matter how much a part of the school team we became when we did our internships, there will always be a learning curve when new school counselors start their very first job, just as there is when new teachers start teaching.  There is a huge difference between being somewhere a few hours a day or a few days a week, having a small select population of students that you work with, and then suddenly having a real case-load that is all your own, with no supervising counselor to serve as your buffer when things don't always go according to plan.  Often you are suddenly trying to map out your calendar for the whole year, learn a new student database program, and pull together the five classroom lessons, all for different grade levels, that you are required to teach the first week as part of the rotation in an elementary school.  Never mind trying to forge relationships with teachers and figure out how you and your administration are going to function as a team.  Oh, and by the way, you're in charge of the school's mentoring program.  And we're also going to need you to develop a school-wide bullying program that the Superintendent wants in place by the 2nd week of school.  And the PTSO board wants to meet with you to talk about the winter-coat drive you will be assisting with starting in October, and they need you to bring estimated numbers of students in need and expect you to have found a place for them to store the coats within the school through December.

You can barely find your office, let alone all the nooks and crannies of your school where you could store 200+ winter coats.

This weekend the Washington Post did a Q and A article with D.C. area school superintendents about everything from education reform to teacher evaluation.  Dr. Jack Dale, from Fairfax County Public Schools, was asked about the amount of training it takes to make an effective teacher.  He states:

"We have found that an effective teacher needs at least a year of well grounded practice to become minimally proficient in the classroom.  Teachers continue to learn and refine knowledge and skills through their first 5-7 years of experience.  The more that experience is with coaching, the shorter the time to become a highly skilled teacher." (source: www.washingtonpost.com)

I have to agree with this statement, not only for teachers, but for new school counselors, as well.  Our education and learning does not end with our graduate degrees.  Far from it.  Rather, we need continued education, supervision, and connection to resources as we go through our first several years, not to mention our entire careers.  Dr. Dale also mentions that if there is some sort of support in place, such as coaching, that the time for a teacher (or counselor) to become proficient is reduced.  This is because clearly defined support services can more quickly identify areas of need and growth within a new school counselor and then develop targeted interventions that will help to strengthen their skills and performance in a much shorter period of time than if they were simply left to figure things out on their own.  If you are able to get right to the heart of the matter, address it, and move on, things are bound to happen more quickly.

As part of a team, I work with all of the new secondary counselors in my school district.  Our program of support has grown and been refined over the course of many years, and we now have three key-components in place that support our school counselors in their continued professional development:

• Mentoring:  All new counselors should have a mentor, within their buildings if at all possible.  The mentor is the person who is most able to develop that strong one-on-one relationship with the new counselor and help to troubleshoot anything that may come up on a day-to-day basis.  Further, if the mentor is another counselor in the same building, they will be able to help the new counselor build relationships with the other school staff, as well as help to solve problems in a way that is congruent with the specific school culture.  Additionally, the mentor is the person best able to assess areas of strength and areas for growth in the new counselor and help them to practice and develop new skills that will assist them in becoming a stronger professional.  This component is key--new counselors have come out of graduate programs where they were receiving regular supervision of their practice within schools, and it is essential that they continue to receive supervision support within at least their first year of work.  Mentors should not be responsible for any part of the new counselor's evaluation--they should be seen as a support, not as punitive.  If it is feasible, training and support should be available for mentors to assist them in their work with new counselors.
• Connection to Resources:  No matter what school district or location the new counselors are in, they will need help learning what resources are available to them within the schools as well as in their communities for their students, and their students' families.  Within school systems, these can include alternative programs, the process for identifying and supporting students with special needs, information on the curriculum and how it is sequenced within your school system, and internal crisis procedures.  Outside of the school system, counselors need information on social-services (housing, clothing, food) as well as referral options for mental health to include those that are free or on a sliding scale.  Further, school counselors need nuts-and-bolts education on how procedures work within their schools and within their districts, everything from calling Child Protective Services (CPS) to assessing and notification for suicide risk.  This information can be disseminated in  multiple ways--we have meetings throughout the year with the new counselors where this information is presented, usually by the people in charge of or connected with the resources themselves.  How can you begin to identify what resources need to be shared and when they should be presented?  Consider giving a needs assessment to some of the newer school counselors in your district--what would they have liked to have had information on and when would it have been helpful?  You can also look at the calendar of the year and determine what topics are most needed at a given time--curriculum information is probably best before academic advising season, whereas the special needs student information specific to your district may need to be fairly early.
• Continuing Education and Skill Development:  As I wrote about above, you learn a lot in your school counseling graduate program, but every new school counselor is continuing to build their skills as a professional.  20 years ago, almost all school counselors had been teachers before they became counselors.  Now, if your district is similar to mind, about half of new school counselors have never been in the classroom.  This is not a negative--these career-switchers bring an absolute wealth of knowledge and experience from such areas as the private sector or the military.  However, they have a steeper learning curve when it comes to learning the structure of a school as well as essential skills like classroom management, lesson planning, and developing assessments for when they have to step into the classroom.  Most graduate programs do not include the topic of college advising and admissions in their curriculum, yet for high school counselors, this information and knowledge is imperative.  Additionally, in almost every district and school in the United States, school counselors are seen as leaders and are expected to facilitate team meetings, parent conferences, and serve on or lead school committees.  These types of leadership and management skills, even if they were addressed in graduate school, continue to need honing as school counselors transition into full time work in their buildings and begin to apply them to real-world situations on a regular basis.  Again, there are many ways to work this into a program of support for new counselors--we have joined forces with our program that supports new teachers, known as Great Beginnings, to teach classes after-school on a monthly basis that cover many of these topics for our new school counselors.  They work together as a cohort through a variety of activities designed to get them thinking about their practice as well as learn new skills.  Again, if you are trying to determine what some of the skills should be for a program in your district, consider doing a needs assessment of not only recent new counselors, but also from Directors of Student Services/School Counseling in schools and perhaps even administrators (in elementary schools).  As the people responsible for evaluating new counselors, they may have noticed patterns over the the last several years that a program of education could help to address, for example a need for more work on classroom management skills.

Now, many of you may be reading this and think that this is something that is unattainable in your district--lack of funding, lack of support personnel, or your school district is so small that there is only one school counselor in each school, and there are only three schools in your entire district.  How on earth do you create a full-blown program to support new counselors and their specific needs and skills (as opposed to just being lumped in with new teachers) when you have any of the constraints above?  Hopefully the tips and ideas below will help you to think of some ways to implement some of the supports I discussed:

• If there is currently nothing in place and you need to pick one thing to start with, choose mentoring.  That one-on-one connection with another school counseling professional, even if that person is in another building, is the most important thing, in my opinion.  New school counselors, especially if they are by themselves in a school, need to have someone they can pick up the phone and call to discuss the often very confidential and ethically-gray situations that we tend to run into.  They need at least one other professional in their world that understands the specific challenges of being a school counselor that they can turn to in order to problem-solve, from whom they can get a resource, or someone they can just vent to when things have not gone particularly well.  It is important, when mentoring, to maintain appropriate safeguards with regards to confidentiality, especially if you are in a smaller town or district.  Avoid names, if possible, in your discussions, and make sure that you are not having conversations about sensitive topics in public places like coffee-shops and restaurants.  Further, even if the mentor is not in their particular school, they are at least in the same school district, so they will have some knowledge of how things tend to work, in general.  Mentors automatically connect new counselors to internal and external resources, as well as help to teach new skills on an individualized basis.  Hopefully, whether formally or informally, there is already some form of this in place in your district.  If not, maybe you are the one to start it?
• We have mentoring. Where do we go from there?  You may be ready for a mentoring "extension."  Consider formalizing your mentoring program with a month-by-month list of items to cover (which, again, can include resources and skills building) and even some review of data to determine goals that fall in line with the ASCA National Model.  For an example, take a look at Delaware's school counseling mentoring program, complete with checklists of items to be covered.  If you do not have the resources or personnel to develop separate programs to share resources or continue education, build some of it into your already existing program.
• There is no one to coordinate and facilitate a separate program for school counselor development.  Further, there is no money to pay for the extra time it would take to develop such a program.  Believe me, I understand this concern.  Many districts do not have someone in their central offices devoted exclusively to school counselors, and in a challenging economy there is not a lot of "extra" floating around out there to develop new programs.  You might see if there are any grants available for your needs, but this may be hit or miss.  You have to know your own school and district and just how flexible things may be.  Perhaps you can volunteer to head up a mentoring and class effort in exchange for a reduced case-load of students.  Maybe you can negotiate one-day off a month to work at the central office to develop and manage the program.  If none of these things work, there is another currency with which schools can reimburse you for your time--continuing education units (CEU's).  Each state asks for a certain number of CEU's to re-up certification every so many years--perhaps you can more than make your quota by being reimbursed with points for developing a program for new school counselors over the course of a year, and then getting some each year as you maintain it.  Additionally, if there is a program of support for new teachers (and many districts have such a program), how is that being supported, and is there any way you might be able to garner support through that program?  None of these may ultimately work, but it may be worth asking a few questions and proposing a few ideas to see what may be possible.
• We have a strong mentoring program, but some new counselors are getting a good education when it comes to resources and some are not.  We are not going to be able to meet on a regular basis to go over them, but they are essential.  What should we do?  First, you could strengthen the mentoring program even more by working these resources into the program--if all the mentors are required to go over special needs students during the second month of school, chances are higher that there will be more consistency across the board.  Beyond that, consider creating a School Counseling Resource manual that is updated regularly with procedures, internal resources, and external referral sources.  In this world of technology, consider doing this electronically through a shared internal drive, through a school counseling Blackboard or SchoolFusion website, or on a flash drive given to new counselors.  You could also consider creating videos that walk new counselors through various resources that they can watch together with their mentors, or you can use programs such as Prezi to create presentations that will educate them on what is available in your district and make sure that everyone is getting the same message.
• We do not have the resources to develop our own curriculum for continued education and skills development.  What might be some other options?  First, check out what speakers and experts are available within your building or district.  If you are looking for some professional development on lesson-planning, you may be able to have a colleague who is a teacher lead a session on that topic.  There are probably people who already have things prepared and ready to go that would be happy to partner with you.  However, there are a lot of options out there with regards to pulling things up for free to work on with new counselors.  First of all, the ASCA webinars are free to members.  Take a look at the schedule there and pick out a few that seem relevant to your school and/or district.  Then, watch them with the new counselors and follow up with discussion and ideas for how to incorporate some of the concepts discussed into their practice.  Topics this year include classroom management, bullying, technology use, and leadership--perfect for new school counselors.  Another great website for webinars is the National Office of School Counselor Advocacy (part of College Board)--check out their events page for upcoming and past events that you can access.  Another resource would be the plethora of school counseling blogs that are out there--find some entries that get to the heart of things like classroom management, lesson planning or academic advising and discuss them as a group.  You can find a pretty complete list of blogs at the School Counselor Online Professional Exchange (SCOPE) as well as some great tech ideas.  Additionally, there are monthly school counseling chats on Twitter (1st Tuesday of the month, 8 p.m. ET) that cover a variety of topics.  A great idea might be to have all the new counselors in your district hop on together for these chats and then follow up with a discussion of the topic as it might relate to your district.  There is also ASCA Scene, the school counseling discussion board--start a thread with the new counselors in your district and see where it goes, getting input and feedback from school counselors from around the world.  Perhaps you can find some time to gather everyone together for some topics, and enrich the experience with some of these options provided by technology--get creative! 

As we have a unique role as school counselors within our schools, we need unique and tailored professional development, especially in those first years, that speak to our specific skills, needs, and challenges.  It is our ethical responsibility to "provide support, consultation, and mentoring to novice professionals." (ASCA Code of Ethics, F.2.b)  My hope is that by focusing on mentoring, connection to resources, and continuing education and skill development, you can work within your school and district to build and design a program that works for you to "shepherd" in the next generation of school counseling professionals.

I must absolutely acknowledge several people and entities that I have the privilege of collaborating with in our work with new secondary counselors in my district: Marcy Miller, Valerie Hardy, the entire FCPS Great Beginnings staff, and my partner-in-crime, Deborah McDonald.  I am able to write about this topic only because I work with such outstanding people.  

School Counseling and Rap: Two Things That Go Great Together

One of the questions we ask ourselves at the beginning of every school year is, "How can I let my community know what it is that we school counselors do?"  As I've written about before, we suffer from an identity crisis, not only from within our profession, but from without.  As the media portrays in such television shows as Glee and such movies as Easy A, the role of school counselors is often at best misunderstood and, at worst seen as something to belittled and maligned.

The school counseling staff at West Springfield High School in Springfield, Virginia, has taken on that challenge and then some.  By using technology that is readily available everywhere, they have created a rap video to share with their students, parents, teachers, and community stakeholders that explains the role of school counselors and the impact they can have on the lives of their students.  Additionally, they use this format to give some year-by-year tips for their students about what activities and milestones they might want to be thinking about when they are freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

My hope is that this inspires you as a professional to think of new ways to get the word out about all that you do.  You don't have to produce your own music video, but let your creativity run wild.  Take a look:

The "Middle" Child

Believe it or not, fellow counseling geeks, this is not going to be a post relating to Adlerian counseling theory and birth order.  Rather, today's topic is gender.

A few months ago I wrote about transgender children in schools.  We have seen a lot of representations of the struggles of transgender adults through the mass media over the years, but now we are also seeing how children who have been identified as transgender grow-up within their schools, their families, and their communities.  They face difficult decisions about hormones, dress, religion, surgeries, socialization, and family relationships.  We, as school counselors, will often be looked to within our buildings and school districts to help pave the way for these students, coordinating with teachers, parents, and administration in order to develop environments that are supportive and conducive to learning.  This is important because, as I have written about in the past, there is significant bullying in elementary schools that extends to all children who act outside of what are seen as "traditional" gender norms, regardless of whether or not they currently or in the future will identify as gay or straight, male or female.

Sexual orientation is a construct that tends to become more fully-focused around puberty, although many gay and lesbian adolescents and adults will, upon reflection, realize they have always known, or have at least understood from an early age that there was something different about them.  Gender, however, is something that tends to be solidified at a much earlier age--or is it?  Fading are the days where we thought of gender as black and white--male or female.  Rather, gender, like sexual orientation, is now being viewed more as also being along a continuum, with people feeling male and/or female to varying degrees.

This is being reflected in our elementary schools.  Last weekend an article ran in the New York Times entitled What's So Bad About A Boy Who Wants To Wear A Dress?  The article discusses the changing tide of allowing kids to express their gender preferences more openly in their lives, such as boys who wear dresses to school.  The children discussed in this article, though, are reflective of children in the "middle" of gender--they identify as boys, as males, but yet like to wear dresses and pink sparkles.  They fit neither into the "traditional" male camp, but nor are they "transgender":

"Many parents and clinicians now reject corrective therapy, making this the first generation to allow boys to openly play and dress (to varying degrees) in ways previously restricted to girls—to exist in what one psychologist called 'that middle space' between traditional boyhood and traditional girlhood. These parents have drawn courage from a burgeoning Internet community of like-minded folk whose sons identify as boys but wear tiaras and tote unicorn backpacks. Even transgender people preserve the traditional binary gender division: born in one and belonging in the other. But the parents of boys in that middle space argue that gender is a spectrum rather than two opposing categories, neither of which any real man or woman precisely fits." (source: www.nytimes.com)

In the past, as the article states, it was often recommended that the parents of children who exhibited characteristics outside of their traditional gender remove all non-traditional gender materials (clothes, toys, even friends) from their child's life, thus "encouraging" them to conform to the traditional gender model.  However, as we are now seeing, families are finding that trying to push their children into a gender box is not for them, and they are working with other parents and with schools and communities to create safe and supportive spaces for their children to express themselves and their many facets of gender.  In general, we like to be able to "label" people, to categorize them.  Oftentimes people want to know if children who do not fit into a specific mold with regards to gender are gay?  Transgender?  Does he want to be a girl?  While studies and statistics are limited, it appears at this time that some of these "middle" children will eventually identify as gay, a few as transgender, and many will eventually consider themselves heterosexual males. (source: www.nytimes.com) We have to become more at ease living within the gray areas and allowing kids to explore and express the many complex facets of themselves--this includes gender.

About a year-and-a-half ago I heard an interview with the mother of a son who enjoys wearing pink, dresses, and sparkles.  She speaks very candidly about her journey through this process as a mother, and in fact has written a children's picture book entitled My Princess Boy which discusses acceptance of a 4-year old boy who just happens to enjoy dressing up in traditionally girls' clothing and playing "princess."  Her son fits into this "middle" category in that he very clearly states that he is a boy, but he simply enjoys and is passionate about the color pink, tutus, and dresses.  Both her website and her Facebook page  detail the journey that the whole family has taken with her son.  As she often shares, it is often her "princess boy" who teaches them about tolerance and acceptance.  His entire family--his mother, his father, and his older brother--support him.  This was a Facebook status a few months ago:

"My Princess Boy's brother is a true champion. At soccer practice, a couple of players were pointing and laughing at my princess boy because he was in a tutu. My older son (the champion) said, 'its not cool to laugh at my brother.' One kid replied, 'but he's in a dress dude'. Dkobe said, 'So what. If you ever saw him pick out a dress or a pink top, you would see how happy it makes him'. On the way home, my Princess Boy thanked his champion and said, 'I'm giving you a secret  key to the fun world. It's full of pink and purple butterflies.'" (source: www.facebook.com/MyPrincessBoy)

It is not all roses and flowers for these middle children, however.  There can often be struggles with peers and even adults. As the New York Times article discusses, one boy lost his friend when the other boy came over for a play date and saw there were dolls all over the floor.  This boy has not had a play date since. (source: www.nytimes.com)  The boy from My Princess Boy faces comments like the one quoted above, but also from the general public, such as the time he wanted to buy a toy that one might identify as traditionally a "girl's" but was told by another child that he couldn't buy it as he was a boy.  It should be noted his brother stepped in here, as well. (source: www.facebook.com/MyPrincessBoy)

As school counselors, we will deal directly with these situations when they come into the classroom.  Teachers, students, and parents will look to us for guidance and reassurance.  For instance, at the blog He Sparkles, a mother is struggling with her son starting traditional school on a full-time basis next year (he was previously split between home school and traditional school).  He prefers wearing pink and sparkles, and was able to do this with khaki pants on the two days each week he attended a traditional school last year.  Next year, he is attending a school full-time with a uniform policy that says he was to wear a blue or white polo shirt--no pink.  This rule is consistent for both boys and girls.  However, he has chosen a khaki romper with a skirt to wear on the bottom versus the khaki pants listed under the "boys" choices for the school uniform.  His mother is optimistic about how the school will react, but is also trying to anticipate what will happen if there are problems. (source: hesparkles.wordpress.com)

Something similar happened with one of the children discussed in the New York Times article.  One of the boys, "Alex," enjoyed wearing dresses, but as he began kindergarten he wore pants and shirts, as his parents were concerned about bullying from other children with regards to the dresses.  Colors, sparkles, jewelry, etc., they left up to him as a way to express himself.  He wore hot-pink socks to school one day and was teased by one of the other students.  His teacher chose to respond in this way:

"During circle time, she mentioned male friends who wore nail polish and earrings. Mrs. C. told them that when she was younger, she liked wearing boys’ sneakers. Did that make her a boy? Did the children think she shouldn’t have been allowed to wear them? Did they think it would have been O.K. to laugh at her? They shook their heads no. Then she told them that long ago, girls weren’t allowed to wear pants, and a couple of the children went wide-eyed. “I said: ‘Can you imagine not being able to wear pants when you wanted to? If you really wanted to wear them and someone told you that you couldn’t do that just because you were a girl? That would be awful!’ ” After that, the comments in the classroom about Alex’s appearance pretty much stopped." (source: www.nytimes.com)

How would you react to these situations if this was your school?  What could you do to help lay a smooth transition for these students, their teachers, administration, and classmates?  

• I would highly recommend looking at the Ready, Set, Respect! curriculum over at GLSEN, as well as the Welcoming Schools curriculum from the Human Rights Campaign for guidance lessons on tolerance and acceptance for elementary school students.  
• Additionally, the book, My Princess Boy, could be a great biblio-lesson for young students about accepting all students who may exhibit non-traditional gender characteristics, both male and female.  
• Further, always go back to your best practices of developing relationships with families and teachers so that you can better help to facilitate understanding when the need arises.  

Our mission is to remove barriers to academic success--by helping your school community develop tolerance and acceptance, you are enabling young children to focus on what's most important--their learning.

Poetry and Grief

Hello there, blogosphere.  I hope this post finds all of you counselors well, and for school counselors that you are getting some much needed rest and rejuvenation over the summer break.

I am currently attending a Grief and Loss Summer Institute at the George Washington University and we just finished with day one.  It was filled with excellent information, time for reflection, and some wonderful tools for all of us to take back to our work with our populations.

One of our presenters today was Mary Azoy, a therapist in the DC metro area with a lot of experience not only in crisis counseling but in life transitions.  Further, she is a Certified Poetry Therapist, using poetry and writing as a means of helping people to find and express their feelings and thoughts as well as work through the situations and challenges that bring them to her office.  One of the activities that she walked us through today was to give us a poem to read by Denise Levertov entitled:

Writing in the Dark

It's not difficult
Anyway, it's necessary.

Wait till morning, and you'll forget.
And who knows if morning will come.

Fumble for the light,
and you'll be
stark awake, but the vision
will be fading, slipping
out of reach.

You must have paper at hand.
A felt-tip pen, ballpoints don't always flow,
pencil points tend to break. There's nothing
shameful in that much prudence: those are our tools.

Never mind about crossing your t's, dotting your i's-
but take care not to cover
one word with the next.  Practice will reveal
how one hand instinctively comes to the aid of the other
to keep each line
clear of the next.

Keep writing in the dark:
a record of the night, or
words that pulled you from the depths of unknowing,
words that flew through your mind, strange birds
crying their urgency with human voices,

or opened
as flowers of a tree that blooms
only once in a lifetime:

words that may have the power
to make the sun rise again.

(source: www.allthingshealing.com)

Then, she asked us to pick one line that spoke to each of us, one line that we felt was most applicable to ourselves, and then use that as the first line in our own writing, whether that be poetry or prose.  We had five minutes--this short amount of time can help motivate people to move quickly, overcome any writer's block they may have, and can help to insure that what hits the page is what has entered the mind first, avoiding a lot of over-thinking.  In our larger group of today, you had people choosing all sorts of different lines from the original poem, and even those of us that may have chosen the same line had different reasons for our choice, and wrote entirely different pieces based on those variations.  For our students who may sometimes have a challenging time being able to verbalize and access their feelings of loss or the many emotions that come with any major life transition, this exercise could be one way to help them access and express those affectations.  You could even give students choices, allowing them to either write, develop a rap, or draw a picture about the line in a poem that particularly spoke to them.  This may be an activity to try with your next group you run on grief and loss, or it could be applied to any group of students you are bringing together to work through a major life transition--middle school to high-school, high-school to post-secondary, moving, changing families, etc.  Further, this activity and variations could work with elementary students through high-school age.  There are a variety of poems and prose available on this topic everything from Shel Silverstein to books in your personal or school library.  Additionally, Mary recommended The Sun Magazine, an ad-free publication that is available by subscription but also has some  materials available online for free that are searchable by topic.

Here was my writing based on the line I chose from the poem above, "Wait till morning, and you'll forget":

Wait till morning, and you'll forget.

You'll forget the vivid dreams that contain real conversations with those you've lost.
You'll forget the new things that you will do together.
You'll forget the words of wisdom they still have to impart to you.
You'll forget the laughter that you both will share over the most bizarre of situations or the most trivial of details.

Wait till morning, and you'll forget.
The feeling, though, of their presence will still linger.

Summer Break and Self-Care

The blog will be taking a break over the next week or so for a bit of a summer break. I hope everyone out there is also taking care of themselves over the summer and finding time to reflect, recharge, and reinvigorate.