Accidental Counselor

As I was prepping an entry on one of my other blogs (Don’t Get Berndt), I examined the role serendipity has played in my life. My becoming Hancock High School’s guidance counselor fits perfectly into that pattern; needless to say, I didn’t follow the typical path to, well, anything, but especially not to manning a school guidance office. My my feeling for most of my career was that most guidance counselors had usually tried to escape the classroom at their first opportunity. Like all stereotypes, what truth lies at the base is potentially unfair to any individual.

Because I generally did not have a high opinion of the denizens of those offices (based primarily on my experience with those from Hancock in my early years, as well as anecdotes from teachers around the county), occupying a guidance chair was the least likely trail on my education career path I could imagine. All that changed in late October, 1990.

At the time, I had what some might have considered an ideal teaching schedule, five World History classes and one Advanced Credit (UMSL) class in political science, all taught in a corner room with a view of both Ripa and Clyde (Mr. Keel had just retired). Even though my buddy MaryAnn McGrane taught next door and we could keep each other amused, the truth was I was bored. A lesson that took me a full period to teach in the morning lasted barely half that long by the end of the day. 

I was about to head out for the day (it was right around Halloween) when Principal Jerry Schloss told me to make sure I watched the local news on TV, with a cryptic hint about a Hancock guidance counselor. My mind immediately leaped to a former occupant of that office who had recently moved up to Pattonville. With shock and disbelief I learned of the arrest of our own Junior High (Middle School having not yet been invented in Hancock) counselor, charged with, well, let’s just say a crime that made continuing in his role impossible. (I’ve heard that the boys who made that accusation recanted years later, only after a career was ruined.)

In any case, Jerry came to me the next morning, telling me that Curt Baker (junior high principal) needed a guidance counselor and there were two choices, of which I was one. I had earned my coaching chops under Curt and we were friends; I’m sure that played into the equation. 

I asked for the evening to think if over, knowing that if I declined there was a second option, but I’d have to pick up a couple French classes. So my schedule was going to change, no matter what. I had had a good student teacher (Dan Easton) the year before who was certified in both English and social studies (like me) and had not scored a job yet, so I was pretty sure he was immediately available. 

The stars aligned: bored with my schedule, the less than attractive option of returning to teach French, working with a(nother) principal I liked and respected, the district’s needs (you know, team player, which I sort of am, if I get to pick what team I’m on), the availability of a replacement I knew and liked, well, it didn’t take lots of margarita therapy at Hacienda with my wife for me to okay the change the next morning, with the proviso that I kept my college class (who had to trek over to the junior high – I think we met in the teacher’s lounge, I remember couches).

Thus began what I referred to as my “Year of Penance.” I think I did an okay job, even enjoyed parts of it, all things considered, to the point that when we began discussing the 91-92 year, I briefly considered going back to school and getting certified. Still, my assessment really was, “It’s a dumb job, but somebody’s got to do it, just not me.” Plus I had the opportunity to return to journalism at the high school and a more varied schedule (AmHist, Gifted 8^th Grade English (I had gotten to know and like that crew {Class of 96} during the year, even if not all of them had really unwrapped their presents yet), journalism (newspaper & yearbook), UMSL Intro to Politics; I can’t quite remember if Psychology was part of that picture yet, or came later, replacing the English class, plus softball, of course. #lowthreshholdforboredom 

“Wait,” you’re saying. You still ended up as a counselor? More serendipity.

Several years later I was out at the UMSL campus for a meeting about the political science class. Waiting for the meeting to start, I started reading a bulletin board (Readers gotta read). “UMSL in your own backyard,” it said, advertising classes at Lindbergh High School. One was a class in school counseling. Never mind that it had started a week earlier and required a pre-requisite that I didn’t have. I called the number, eventually talked to the professor who said she didn’t mind if I didn’t (adjunct faculty are not picky, just sayin’) and thus began my journey toward counseling certification.

Why? Well, I had been using the phrase, “I’m so old I teach history from memory.” Unfortunately, it was starting to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wasn’t there yet, but I could feel staleness starting to creep in and I wasn’t feeling inspired to invent new classes, at least not then. I could see the need to reinvent myself. (I also used to joke that I changed departments every five years or 5000 miles.) I also knew that Barb Klocke would be retiring, not imminently, but down the road and that there would be an opening.

With some twists and turns (other stories for other times) and a transfer to Lindenwood’s school counseling program, I eventually was close to being certified, needing only a course or two and a practicum (“Student Counseling”). The timing was perfect as Sherry Rischbeiter, the Middle School Counselor, was pregnant and ready for a maternity leave that would essentially end her school year. (Although she returned with a week or two left in the semester, Superintendent Bourisaw allowed me to finish the year, working side by side with her.) Mike Wersching had been my student teacher and was available to finish out my classes, giving him some experience to build his resumé. So I joined Paul Huff and the HMS. 

To be honest, I don’t know if it was the next year or the one after that that Barb retired and I became the only internal candidate-applicant for the HHS counseling job. (The superintendent let me know that I wasn’t his choice for the job; not that I wasn’t his first choice, just not his choice at all, but Jerry Schloss was the principal and I was his choice.)

Thus began my 6-year career as a high school guidance counselor, more by luck than by design. I brought some things to the party, thought I did a good job in general, if far differently than my predecessor. No one really knows what a guidance counselor does, so the job allows for creative definition of its roles, with the plusses and minuses that entails. I know Barb Klocke had strengths that I could never replicate, benefitting kids that I probably couldn’t have helped; what strengths I had were very different and the dynamic in the office changed, probably for better and worse. Just as no teacher is the best fit for every student, the same must be said of a guidance counselor. And in what was essentially a one-person shop, that can be problematical for some kids. But, as the saying goes (actually the following was not a saying then), “It [was] what it [was].”

There you go, your word of the day: “Serendipity!” 

From My Other Blog, re: 9/11

This is a leap ahead, but does relate to Hancock, albeit at the end of my career, not the beginning.

http://bobberndt.blogspot.com/2014/09/9-11-different-kind-of-throwback.html

Let's Get Physical

As I was discussing her need for a sports physical with a potential player this morning, my mind drifted (aimlessly, as it is wont to do these days) to the (ancient) requirement that teachers needed an annual physical before they could teach. I’m guessing this was probably a state rule, not a district requirement.

Hancock actually had a contract with a local physician for the first two or three years I was there; we could go get our physical at his office (on Telegraph, I think) at no charge. As near as any of us were able to tell, making it to the office and continuing to breathe was the essential component, although Jerry Schloss did apparently have it noted on his “permanent record” that he suffered from hearing loss because he asked the strongly-accented doctor to repeat a question he couldn’t understand. The requirement was in place for several years, but I quickly decided it was a rule I didn’t need to follow. I did get the TB tests, but having a doctor certify that I was alive seemed downright silly.

However, back in those days, teaching certificates were lifetime things, so perhaps it was important. Now, of course, teaching certificates are only good for 99 years, a change implemented so that politicians could claim they had eliminated lifetime certificates. Thus I’ll no longer be certified to teach English, French, or social studies after I’m dead. Apparently, though, I will be able to continue counseling students until 2102. Given my opinion of most school counselors, that sort of makes sense. I’ve never thought you really needed to be actually among the living to occupy that office.

Anyway, like clockwork, every October for those many years, Mrs. Bernice Warren would call me to tell me that I hadn’t yet turned in my physical and that my paycheck would be withheld were it not in by whatever date was required, usually within a week or so. She probably wrote it on her calendar when she got it: “Call Berndt for his physical.” I would scamper over to Little House on (Conn) the Prairie and get the requisite form. Miraculously I would be able to get an appointment and turn in the form with the undecipherable signature the next day. Bernice would always laugh and inquire how Dr. Carolyn was doing. “I like getting physicals,” I would tell her.

In her defense, Carolyn was never comfortable doing that, but I was incorrigible. She and Bernice were both relieved when the requirement disappeared.