June Counselor Spotlight: Anna Black - Allen Bowden Public Schools
Our featured school counselor for month is Anna Black, a K-8th grade school counselor at Allen Bowden Public School. Anna has been a school counselor for 3+ years. Thank you, Anna, for being so dedicated to the students and families in Oklahoma and for the positive impact you have made.
What is your favorite part of being a school counselor or the most rewarding aspect of your position?
I love spending time in classrooms delivering the comprehensive counseling program. Getting to interact with my students, learning all of their names, and exploring the exciting world of social emotional learning with them is my jam. I used to be a high school teacher, but since I started working in an elementary school as a school counselor I have realized elementary is in my heart. I end every Friday in Kindergarten. Nothing makes me smile more than pulling out a puppet and getting cheers. It makes me feel like a million bucks even though I'm terrible with puppets and frequently forget to use the right voice for the puppets. I also love to see my students understand a concept. When they "get it" I get goosebumps. When you work in an elementary school you have so many opportunities to be silly and still teach. Getting to play or create and learn at the same time is definitely one of my favorite parts of the job.
Why is creating a comprehensive school counseling program important to you?
A comprehensive school counseling program is a preventive program. So many "behavior problems" can be stopped before they ever begin by addressing the issues that students face. When I examine the data I get from teacher referrals, from discipline incidents, from behavior logs, and from parent interactions it's easy to see where our students need additional support. Instead of waiting for problems to occur, we head them off at the pass with whole class, small groups, or short term individual counseling. For example, last year our girls basketball was drama day in, day out. This year I convinced our coaches to let me have the 5th and 6th grade girls once a week for twenty minutes to work on team building when the same issues were beginning to happen. After the first lesson the coaches let me know they had their best practice ever. By the 3rd lesson, I had stopped hearing reports of drama and bickering from the players. By the 4th lesson one of the frequent instigators of dramas was now stepping up as a leader and an encourager of her team mates. To put it simply, comprehensive counseling programs have the ability to change a school climate by encouraging the students to be their best selves.
What quote inspires you?
“If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.” – Eleanor Roosevelt We all know how unpredictable the average school day can be. Most educators could run off and join the circus as contortionists because we have to be flexible to make this whole school thing work. Between fire drills, assemblies, broken copy machines, students in melt down mode, angry parents, drama drama drama, or any other number of things that can happen I remind myself of this quote. Part of the reason I adore my job is because no two days are the same. Each day I get to go to work and conquer new challenges and that's super duper awesome because when we overcome things we grow as people.
What do you do when you need inspiration to tackle another day working on behalf of students?
I have a hype up playlist that pump up when I'm having a rough morning or on my way home after a hard day. Music frees the soul. Right now my favorite song is Vacation by Dirty Heads.
What do you do to decompress and refuel for the next day?
I am working on getting a patent for the ASEN (After School Exhaustion Nap). I usually crash for about 30 minutes when I get home and take a nap with my cat. After that I always make sure to do at least one thing I love- read a book, work on an art project, play video games with my friends, etc.
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