Alma Lopez, named American School Counselor of the Year, shares the power of building relationships in the education ecosystem. It's not always easy, and it's always important.
Transcript:
Advice From A School Counselor
"So one of the things that I always say to my teachers in the building or to other staffs that I speak to, um, is I talk about former President John F. Kennedy, and a quote that he had that said something along the lines of, one person can make a difference and everyone should try. And that's that second part, right, that really resonates with me as a human, is that we all can try, regardless of what our title is in a building or outside of the building, as a human being in the world, we can absolutely try to make a difference.
And it doesn't have to be this huge difference, right? It's just gonna take a moment. And for a young person that could be this huge difference, right? But for me, it might just cost me a few moments, a little bit of discomfort if I'm not necessarily comfortable leaning into kind of opening that space. Sharing a little bit about myself sometimes as, as educators, you know, we set these boundaries to protect ourselves. Um, and sometimes we can take that a little bit too far. But if I'm a student and I'm gonna be in your classroom for the next 180 days, we absolutely better have a healthy, positive relationship, right? The educators in the building matter, absolutely. To every young person that comes in. The kiddos come into the building for, you know, seven hours of the day. In some cases, that's even more than at home, right? And so I think that it is not only something that we should do, but it's actually our obligation, right? It is an obligation.
We're we're trying to help mold the kids, right? Help create, um, better humans, right? We're trying to make our world a better place for all. And one of the things that I know is that every little person is gonna become a big person, right? And so as an educator, we have an opportunity to really influence, um, and hopefully influence in a, in a positive way so that when these young people become big people, they're doing the same for the next generation, right? So that we can truly thrive in this great, beautiful country that we have."
-Alma Lopez