Hello All!
Obviously, I haven’t been too active with my posts lately. This is due to my recent career change from counseling to college teaching.
In September 2008, I became a full-time, tenure-track Instructor in the Social Sciences department at Erie Community College (ECC) in Buffalo, NY. It has been quite an adjustment for me, hence my absence from the blog.
Something that I have found quite interesting, tho, is how well community colleges (in New York, anyway) train future human service workers. In my opinion, they do a better job than my graduate program did.
ECC offers Associate Degree programs in Registered Nursing (RN), Human Services, Occupational Therapy, and Addiction Counseling Assistant (which prepares students for the CASAC-T credential for NY state.) I teach one of the required courses for these degrees called “Human Interaction.”
Altho I have the freedom to teach the course how I wish, I was given a textbook to use for my first semester called Reaching Out: Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self-Actualization by David Johnson. This book teaches students to become “self-actualized” human beings – in other words, to develop themselves in a way where they are living full, enriching, and satisfying lives.
One of my favorite sayings has always been: “You can’t have a good relationship with others until you have a good relationship with yourself.“ This book supports this philosophy in the sense that if we learn to give ourselves unconditional love and support, our relationships will be much better because we won’t expect others to fulfill our needs.
Throughout each lesson, students are encouraged to examine their attitudes and judgements as they learn how to approach each of the following things in ALL of their relationships – not just the ones with their future clients:
- Appropriate self-disclosure
- Being trusting AND trustworthy
- Expressing thoughts, feelings, and ideas both verbally and non-verbally
- Listening to others
- Responding to other people’s demands, problems, and opinions
- Valuing differences and forming healthy relationships with diverse individuals
- Managing anger and stress both personally and in relationships
Recently, one of my students asked: “Why didn’t we learn this stuff in kindergarten?”
I paused, reflecting, then said “I’d like to know why I didn’t learn this stuff in my graduate program.”
It then occurred to me…ECC was preparing future “helpers” in a much better way than my 6 years of formal education had. In fact, I believe that if I learned some of the things this course teaches, I wouldn’t have experienced the horrific burnout and compassion fatigue brought on by being a counselor.
Instead, I had to learn all these things the hard way – in “survival mode.” And, of course, I am still learning…which is the best thing about being a teacher – you’re also a student!
