Counseling with Heart: Journal of a High School Counselor
Lynne Fukuda
Instructor of Anthropology
Central Texas College
E-mail: lfukuda@hawaii.edu
I made a promise to God. It came as a tearful promise four years after the war in Iraq started. “Dear God,” I said, wiping away my tears, “I will walk through the gardens of Hell to become the best counselor there is so that when the military folks come home I will be there to greet them as they enroll in college with their G.I. Bill. I will be there to hold their hand and guide them when they need me, because I understand how they feel.”
Every waking hour I pray and remember them, the soldiers, marines, sailors, Air Force men and women, and the National Guard men and women who have sacrificed so much to keep us safe at home. I marched for peace; I joined a peace action group, and I prayed for peace, but it was never enough. Falling into a deep melancholia, I began to feel my heart freeze over. I had trouble learning and recalling people’s names. I had trouble sleeping at night; I no longer felt joy, anger, or sadness. Like the protective walls of a fortress, I felt my heart surrounded by the cold stones covered with ice. I no longer felt human.
I needed intense counseling; I went to four different therapists, but none could pinpoint my trouble. Many thought that I was fine and functional. In the process of receiving counseling, though, I learned first hand the techniques of counseling. The very last counselor I met with reassured me that I would do well as a counselor when I asked, “Because I am so troubled and am a basket case, could I possibly help others?”
“Certainly, Lynne,” my counselor replied kindly, giving me a smile. “You are a very good person with a kind, giving heart. You understand others and are sensitive. You also know what it’s like to receive counseling. Many like you have become counselors themselves.”
I wondered if this was like the blind leading the blind, and yet, I knew that my promise to God and to my former students who were in the military and to many future students would lead me through the gardens of Hell to reach my ultimate goal of helping those who needed me most.
Thus, I accepted my new assignment as a school counselor in a small, private school in Hawaii. It was a rustic environment at the foothills of the West Mountains, shrouded by mist. It was populated by traditional folk who never left their land, who loved the island most of all. I did not know that I was to enter an environment that was not always friendly and trusting. I learned in months to come that the population was small, closed to outsiders and ridden with gossip.
Like the servicemen and women who serve in Iraq and who are looked upon with suspicion by the local Iraqi civilians, I too, although a native of Hawaii, was looked upon as an outsider. I heard people speaking about me within hearing distance. “Who is she? What is she here for?” one of the old women said in an unkind tone.
“Why does she live all alone in a house?” another said.
At the school, I saw people glance at me furtively. Some doubted my ability as a counselor. Some parents gossiped that I did not help their children.
“How can she truly help students when she hardly knows them?” one remarked loudly within my presence.
I was not at fault; I was new. I had made every effort to understand them. I joined in heartily in volunteer opportunities; I taught communion to third graders at the local church, and I attended church regularly and met people in the community. I was, however, like one of the wives of King Henry VIII, destined to be doomed; I was the fourth counselor in four years.
At first, everything looked placid and friendly in the honeymoon phase. “Why did all the counselors leave after only a year?” I wondered.
Soon I began to find out little by little why they had left. The school environment was the opposite of my former school environments, where team-work, respect, and caring were important components. Instead, insiders were valued and loved while outsiders were excluded and became topics of malicious gossip.
I did my best, though, knowing that I would keep my promise to God. I thought of the people serving in Iraq and in Afghanistan who also faced animosity by those whom they helped. I knew that I could not weaken. I was also at the school to help those who needed my help most of all—my students.
Students of all shapes and sizes materialized, from ages 12 to 18. At first, like penguins, the students resembled one another wearing the same uniforms. Being from a small population, and often having siblings at the same school, the students looked like clusters of clones. I had a terrible time learning their names. Unlike teachers, the counselor saw students individually only a few times and did not have extended periods of time with any one group of students. I still needed to study this population, in the way I had studied the monkeys of Cayo, Santiago, more than a decade before. I began to learn their names and faces, their personalities and their quirks. I quickly became acquainted with the troubled students who often came to visit my office. My hours in study hall after school also made me familiar with those who needed help academically and some with learning problems. I also made friends with the friendlier students.
Like the adults of their population, the students too were weary of the stranger in their school. Like a succession of nannies who left their children, I was just another counselor who could possibly leave them. Some decided to tease me or to trouble me to test my limits, while others tested me to see if I were sincere in my work and in my dedication to students. At first, it felt as if I was in the midst of movies like Animal House, Friday the Thirteenth, or The Ring, but after the dust settled in this very dusty little town, I began to see that my students, unlike their parents and other adults, were honest in their feelings.
I would be frustrated in the months to come, often crying alone at home or in my office. I would feel anger at particularly difficulty students who were rude and disrespectful. And at times, I would giggle endlessly, recalling their naughtiness. I did not know that in a very strange way becoming a counselor to young children was, in itself, a type of therapy. My heart, frozen and protected by the walls of a fortress, had come down. I was human once again. I believe in fate, and it was fate once again at work leading me to another island that was familiar and yet so foreign to my home island of Oahu, to a group of people who were also familiar, and yet, distinctly different.
I learned from studying their history that during the war years the island had been occupied by the Americans, for it was not part of the United States at that time, and unlike Oahu, which had been part of America, even before statehood, this island had lived its traditional life, ranching with cowboys, farming in the uplands, and having vast sugar fields in the lowlands. All of a sudden, with the closing of farms, sugar mills, fields, ranches, and dairy farms, many of the workers who were considered unskilled labor lost their roles and their jobs. This island was plunged into an economic depression. It had a horrible effect on the people’s culture, lifestyle, and pride as well. Suddenly, people of this island felt inferior to others, and living in poverty, where food was no longer abundant, there was less sharing of food and aloha. Suspicion of outsiders grew, as they seemed to always be richer, coming in to take over their land by developing it and buying it off. Outsiders with high-paying jobs that no locals could ever qualify for began to take over.
Resentment and avoidance of such people was a form of self-defense. Thus the locals began to keep to themselves. Their loved ones, especially the young, began to leave in droves, going off to the mainland for college and remaining there to find jobs, build homes, and start their own families.
I had come to an island that was disadvantaged. It was not just the people and the students; it was the whole island. There were no open fields to grow food to nourish its people, no fresh water from once abundant streams that flowed and gave rise to the richest and most coveted horticultural lands in ancient Hawaii where battles were fought over and over, and there was no future, no dreams for the people who mostly lived in a small and crowded section of the island, having no opportunities at all.
I began to understand why children came to school hungry. They were not supposed to be poor, since their parents paid a lot of tuition for their schooling, but unlike low-income children who qualified for free lunches and food stamps, the working poor of the middle-class, who barely made ends meet in the inflated cost-of-living place they called home and paradise, were not eligible for such assistance. This ineligibility was wearing away at their ability to nourish their children. Not only did the children come to school hungry for food, they came hungry for affection, for while each of their parents worked at one or two low-paying jobs to make ends meet, there was no leisure time to spend with their children.
Thus, my daily life with the children, who were somewhat deprived of opportunities, dreams, food, and family, was to become something of a temporary family, an ohana. Like in the tradition of old, where Hawaiians often shared all food with friends, family, and visitors, I began to keep a stash of food and goodies that young preteens and teenagers would like. Packages of candies bought at a discount, biscuits, cold cuts and bread, and microwave popcorn became my tools for teaching and nurturing my new students.
As a counselor, I took a vow not to discipline children, since the counselors often advise students and take care of their emotional needs. I enjoyed my easy-going job, where students came to relax on sofas and chairs and took their snacks in my office, often speaking of their friends and family, classes and teachers, and their troubles. I began to learn much about my new students, although, at first, they resisted my presence. Because I was an outsider, they assumed that I would leave as many teachers had, leaving promptly after a short year or term due to problems with finances and such.
I tried my best to become a great counselor, doing my research, going out to workshops and being with my new students. As a friend and a shoulder to cry on, as a listening ear and a participant in their school, I formed a relationship with my students. But I knew that ultimately, being unable to make ends meet, much like my three or four predecessors, I too would leave at the end of the school term.
I lacked confidence as a school counselor, having very little training and experience in my role, but my students taught me what they valued in a counselor. It was simple, really: to care, to sit down and listen, and to know them as a friend. I did not wish to leave but not feeling valued as a counselor in the school and not being able to cope with complaints from parents (a very common problem for all counselors) I made my decision to “graduate” with my seniors.
“Miss, will you be coming to our graduation?” one student asked.
“I will. I will graduate with you,” I replied. It was true. Like the students, in the short period of a school year, I too had matured, learned my role and was ready to go on. My seniors, who were undecided, unmotivated students, began to become students with direction. Many experiences would carry them through their adult years, but I do hope that the morsels of advice I gave to them would make life better. I too would be more able to be a confident counselor. My life, with its various jobs, made me feel like the main character, Frank Abgnale, of the movie Catch Me If You Can. Unlike a public school, I did not have to be credentialed to become a school counselor, and thus, to my delight, I could be trained on the job. And yet, it was an uphill battle. But in a matter of a school year, I knew the tricks of my trade and was ready to face yet another challenge as an advisor or counselor for a college.
I would be waiting this time, at my desk, as an advisor/counselor all spiffed up like Frank Abgnale, fresh and eager for my next job, and my heart soaring as the war veterans return in droves to enroll in the college, asking for advice, asking for a listening ear and a friendly smile. I had walked through the gardens of Hell, where self-doubt, lack of friends, suspicious locals, animosity, and melancholy haunted my daily life. But like the soldiers and other military personnel, we would be ready to battle the obstacles.
When my students graduate this time, and in the future, I too will hold a certificate in hand, standing straight and proud, having become what I wanted most of all and being educated not only in academia but in life experience. I dream of days when I will speak with my military students again. I envision a future where I can plan and advise them on their degrees and second careers. I see a bright day when school can help to heal their various wounds, disabilities, and unseen injuries created by trauma.
It is when students and humans learn that they forget the physical pains of living. Going to school, then, in itself, will be a therapy. Advisors, staff, faculty, and administrators who all support the efforts of our returning veterans can aid in this process of healing. It is when we shower them with affirmations, when we take a few minutes to allow them speak of their experiences and give them a warm welcome that we are able to let them heal. It is when we are able to give them the pride in learning and to see how much can be accomplished in a different field that we give them a new future away from the killing fields, away from the visions of death and suffering.
Learning in school has always been a positive thing for students, where minds open up to new worlds and visions of beautiful places in the world, of rich and interesting cultures, of ways to challenge minds and to express oneself in many ways. I am certain that any military person will appreciate his or her reward for the ultimate sacrifice he or she has made for all of us. I would love to see their eyes light up again when they understand a concept, accomplish a task, or are able to express themselves in writing, art, or in any other form.
I pray to God each day, hoping that these military personnel will survive the rigors of academia just as they survived the gardens of Hell in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I wonder if I will see any of my former students in the college where I now work. I know that my daily life, no matter how challenging personally and professionally, will be bright once again when the troops come home.
I thank you students big and small for teaching me how to counsel. I thank my school for giving me the training I badly needed. And I thank God for fate that brought me to a little town on another island, to learn about the valuable lessons of true counseling—counseling with heart.
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