Month: June 2021

Miseducation Reversal

Hello, my name is Khadijah and I’m miseducated.

Now, didn’t that feel great? So you’ve admitted you have a problem. Now what?

I tell my students all the time: once you’re done with this school thing, make sure you go get yourself an education.

Here are 10 ways you can go from miseducation to re-education on your own time:

1. YouTube: Yes, the YouNiversity of choice—the holy grail of modern learning needs no introduction or explanation. Eat your heart out.

2. Short courses: Many are free online but there’s no harm in paying for a good course, whether online or in your area, that will contribute to your personal or professional development. It’s an investment. Just make sure the course and the offerer of the course are high-quality and legitimate.

Here in Jamaica, you can find short courses that can lead you to a career at the Real Estate Training Institute, the Face Place, Heart Trust NTA and the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority, just to name a few.

Other institutions include the UWI Open Campus, UTech, Edna Manley College, UCC, MIND and the Media Training Institute. Udemy, Google Digital Garage and FutureLearn are some reputable online sites. iTunesU is pretty limited but you can still find have meaningful learning experiences with one of their recorded courses where you can learn at your own pace from some of the best lecturers in the world.

3. Online talks, lectures, conferences and webinars: Recordings from TED, Talks at Google, SouthBySouthWest (SXSW) and any other conferences or webinars available live or recorded in your area are great learning opportunities. Clubhouse talks are my latest go-to for dynamic live online learning. I tried MasterClass recently too and it’s been life-changing.

4. Networking opportunities: People are a great source of education. Some of the greatest gems I have collected in life have been from having fun chats, business meetings and even soul-searching conversations with people in my personal network.

So put yourself out there and expand your circle. Listen twice as much as you speak. And really really listen.

Anything that comes out of your mouth is something you already know. Anything that goes into your ears is an opportunity to grow.

5. Get a mentor / become an intern or apprentice: It’s easier said than done. Not everyone is willing to offer their time and expertise freely. But maybe it doesn’t have to be free. You could offer yourself as an intern or apprentice so that your mentor feels that they are benefitting as well and you learn even more that way.

You could even find a mentor online whom you may not even know personally. Just by watching, reading and listening to their content, you could learn a lot. Be sure to get mentors for different aspects of your life. For more on this, read my article on the value of interning and apprenticeships here.

6. Volunteering: Meaningful volunteering opportunities that truly promote growth and development are not always easy to find. While serving food to the poor, volunteering at a children’s home or helping out at an infirmary are valuable opportunities to build empathy and learn useful life lessons, they are not readily available options in a world that has shifted online.

Moreover, sometimes, we want volunteer opportunities that will help move us in the direction of our career goals, expand our networks or teach us new skills.

For that, one site I have discovered recently is Catchafire. It’s a global virtual service that matches volunteers with people and companies who need their services. Why not give it a try?

While you’re at it, enter “Volunteer Opportunities Online” in a search bar to see what other options are available in your area. Almost any business you could think of would accept your voluntary services so locate one you’re interested in and then just ask.

7. Travelling: Yes, it sounds luxurious and maybe out of your reach but you’d be surprised to find that it’s not. You might be able to travel on a scholarship or win trips by entering competitions. If you’re working, you can save towards it.

You can have memorable travel experiences even in your own country. The benefits of travel for personal mental and emotional growth are underrated. For information on how to have great travel experiences on a budget, check out Goody on a Budget and Adventures from Elle.

8. Journalling: You’d be surprised at how much you can learn from your own mind. I journalled every day of my life on my phone for a year and a half and it both changed and saved my life. Sometimes, by just seeing your thoughts concretely in front of you, you find insights you would not have been able to grasp when the thoughts were just swirling around in your head.

9. Seeing a therapist: I think everyone should see a trained therapist at least once in their life. We can never truly see the world as it is; we only see the world as we are. The more we raise our levels of intra-personal intelligence is the more we increase the clarity with which we can see the outside world.

It might be a little costly but if you’re doing it just once, plan for it and view it as an investment in yourself.

There may also be opportunities for free therapy in your area, especially if you’re in college or high school. Ask around.

10. Reading: Well, this isn’t new. Books are a traditional but still effective way to learn more about the world and even about yourself.

My advice: don’t let anyone tell you when, what or how to read. Set your own reading goals. Read what you like, whether it’s business books, children’s books, poetry, self-help, travel books, anything you enjoy.

And by the way, never let a book hold you hostage. If you’re not liking it, you have no obligation to finish it.

Of course, you don’t have to explore all these options and certainly, you won’t explore them all at once but dip your big toe in the pool of true education.

In many ways, our education system has failed us but the world is still ours for the taking. Gary Matalon once said very simply at a high school careers rap, “There’s learnings to get from everywhere.” Go get it.

The Importance of Guidance Counsellors

Reading not your thing? Listen to the article here: https://youtu.be/PYUzc3sLHCw

Anna, a 15-year-old girl is raped by someone in her home. However, she spends countless hours of her school day running away from the one person who would be most qualified to help her, the guidance counsellor. 

“I don’t want to see her, Miss,” she says to me, almost in tears. “I don’t want her to find me. Hide me, please!”

Why this frantic desperate plea?

Anna is not her real name but this story is absolute truth. Anna spent an entire year in hiding. She had revealed her situation to the guidance counsellor who, as duty demanded, immediately reported the incident. However, after baring her truth to the counsellor, Anna found her to be no comfort and felt more vulnerable than before. Furthermore, Anna did not wish to testify against her rapist in court and the counsellor hounded her day by day trying to convince her to appear for the trial, threatening that if she didn’t, the police would come and take her to trial bodily.

This case broke my heart. While I decided not to fume until I got the other side of the story, especially because the counsellor in question was my colleague whom I knew and respected, I could not help feeling a small tinge of visceral rage at the injustice of this student whom I cherished dearly firstly having the right to her body stripped away by wicked hands, secondly, being forced to relive and rehash this trauma in front of a room of strangers and thirdly, feeling caged and hunted in her own school, a place that should have felt like a haven, a home away from home.

I am sure the guidance counsellor was doing what she was duty-bound to do and what she thought was best but I questioned her methods. I mourned at the idea that a student would reject the help she so desperately needed to get a handle on her emotional turmoil because she did not find her helper, her counsellor to be genuine and approachable. And a new thought struck me. I had never noticed that students at my school, students whom I knew to have serious issues, rarely ever brought their burdens to the school counsellors. For whatever reason, I never even thought to recommend my students to the guidance counsellors.

“No one can be the perfect therapist for everyone but anyone can be the perfect therapist for someone.“

Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.

While I never went to see a school guidance counsellor in my time, I did see a psychologist when I was in high school. I had a teacher who put me on to a therapist when I was 18 and I desperately needed one, even though I didn’t know it. I hit it off immediately with my therapist. Even now, she is so beloved to me and I to her. However, I know that there are people who have to endure a lot of searching, a lot of trial and error before they find that perfect fit. One of my students, whom we will call Naila, had to be hospitalised as a result of a physical and mental breakdown caused by a prolonged battle with an eating disorder. While in hospital, her attending physician insisted that she had to see a therapist who specialises in eating disorders, the only eating disorder specialist in the country, in fact. Though this woman came highly recommended and was no doubt very qualified, Naila HATED her and thought of endless malicious things to do to her. She did not find her genuine nor did she believe her method of counselling was doing her any good. Every session was like having her teeth pulled one by one. However, her doctor forced her to see this specialist and ordered her not to see the therapist she had been seeing before, one with whom she had a very warm productive relationship. As a result, Naila had to endure these pointless painful sessions where she was not getting the help she needed.

Maya Angelou said, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” So there are psychologists out there who know their stuff and are extremely qualified but a client can’t really engage with them unless they make them feel cared for in the way that they need to be cared for at the time. It’s the age-old Jamaican concept of “mi spirit jos tek yu.”  

Dr. Emily Nagoski, trained psychologist, author of the book Burnout and one of my personal favourite speakers, says that one of the first things she and her cohort learned when training to become counselling psychologists was this simple rule: No one can be the perfect therapist for everyone but anyone can be the perfect therapist for someone. She says she learned that most clients seeking therapy have to “shop around” visiting several therapists before they find the best fit and she says it was drilled into them very early on as psychology students not to be offended or dismayed if a client comes to you for one session and never comes back. It’s nothing personal. It doesn’t mean you’re not good at what you do. It’s all a part of the process.

That being said, think about this: in a population of roughly 1,500 students, all with different backgrounds and personalities, is it likely that all or even half of them will find that their spirit aligns with (“tek tu”) the one or two guidance counsellors there are in the entire school? And no matter how much they are going through, in the face of rape, domestic abuse, not having enough to eat or to travel to and from school, struggles with insecurity and bullying, stress, learning disorders, eating disorders and the host of other issues the modern teenager faces, they will not bare their fragile souls to someone with whom they do not have a connection, no matter how highly qualified the counsellor may be. Are we willing to have our young people carry the weight of all these woes by themselves simply because, as a people, we are afraid to take mental health seriously and to invest the resources that demonstrate that we take it seriously?

Good guidance counsellors are becoming more important than Deans of Discipline

The palpable shortage of approachable and highly qualified guidance counsellors is one of the reasons why the burden of counselling our nation’s young falls so squarely on the shoulders of our teachers. Teachers interact with students every day. They get to know them personally. And somewhere along the line, students often find a teacher who their spirit will just align with or “tek tu.” Some students have a first form teacher whom they still visit and share their problems with even in sixth form or college. They just have a connection. I have ended up being “that teacher” for many of my students. In fact, I have even ended up being “that teacher” for students I don’t even teach who just see me on campus and think that they would like to open themselves up to me. While I am extremely honoured and grateful that little people trust me so much with their hearts, sometimes I feel that I am not the best fit. I provide them with a listening ear, empathetic probing, a laugh and a warm hug (pre-COVID) and for some, that is all they need. For others though, I feel that I am only stopping a gap as these students need more time, resources and professional expertise than I am able to provide in dealing with their deep and torturous emotional pain.

So what’s the solution? As with the other myriad of problems that face our Jamaican education system, I don’t have all the answers. What I do know is this: in this age of insecurity and turmoil, of school shootings and terrorism, of children being kidnapped on the daily, of overexposure, of social media, of bullying and cyberbullying and revenge porn and all the chaos that faces our young people, good guidance counsellors are becoming more important than Deans of discipline or vice principals. We need to treat them as if they are the first line of defence in saving our children’s lives and so they have to be top-quality and it starts from the hiring process.

Here are the principles at the core of the issue:

  1. Hire a variety of guidance counsellors: Guidance counsellors need to be emotionally accessible to students; they need to be “kid-friendly.” Furthermore, there needs to be a variety of counsellors, not just 2 or 3, but counsellors of different sizes, shapes, genders, colours, personalities and backgrounds. This initiative may look different in different places. For example, in an American school where there are Latinos and Blacks, all the guidance counsellors can’t be upper-middle class White people. Students will be less likely to confide in a counsellor who does not look like them, talk like them or appear to understand their story. Similarly, in Jamaica, counsellors need to come from different backgrounds, have different personalities, dress differently, act differently, talk differently from each other so as to create a variegated pool from which students can choose a best fit.
  2. Two counsellors per school is simply insufficient: This might be ambitious in an age where schools don’t even have enough adequately qualified teachers but my suggestion is that there should be at least two guidance counsellors assigned to each grade level. This will minimize the counsellor to student ratio and will make it more likely that every student will find at least one counsellor whom they feel comfortable approaching with their issues.
  3. Free up counsellors to counsel: One counsellor colleague of mine explained to me that school counsellors are often so swamped with Ministry-mandated paperwork and classes to teach that they often have little time or energy to actually help students in the way that they would like.
  4. Ensure counsellors themselves receive adequate ongoing counselling: To see and hear devastating stories every day and bear the emotional burden of little people, to hold their secrets, to sometimes be powerless to do all that you want to do for them and to know that your own life is often in danger (at some schools) is a lot for one human — no matter how trained or qualified — to bear. Counsellors need counsellors too.

This initiative needs to be a joint effort between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. It would take a lot of work, time and resources but it would drastically improve our students’ functioning and overall well-being in school and in their future lives. School is a place where students should feel safe and loved and the way the school treats students’ mental health is an important ingredient in that process. While the value of mental health care is not yet fully appreciated in Jamaica, we’re getting there and we need to. Mental healthcare in schools is crucial in bringing up little people who will become fully functioning happy, healthy adults. Guidance counsellors are key partners in the big picture, in making a future for all of us that feels safe and whole and bright.

Photo credit: Counselor helping student draw her future. NPR. (https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/01/06/492874846/9-questions-for-the-nations-top-school-counselor)