From my first day as a kindergartner I hated school. My first experience as a student is a vivid memory that is marked by the negative emotions of that day. My dad promised to stay with me, however, he left as soon as I was distracted for a few moments. I cried the whole first day, and although I am sure this is a common occurrence for children on their first day of school, I see this as the first truly impactful and negative experience in my development as a student and perhaps a sign of my insecure attachment with my parents (Belsky, 2016). While contemplating how this may have influenced my attitude thereafter, I realized that even once I became accustomed to going to school, I always enjoyed the days off, I only had to attend kindergarten three times per week. Another vivid memory I have is feeling a sense of glee and relief when my older brother had to go to school, and I was able to stay home. I always enjoyed staying home from school and could not comprehend my schoolmates who said they hated staying home sick, this was truly perplexing to me.
As a child, your world makes sense to you. I did not know any other world, so our socioeconomic situation was out of context for me, I did not realize that we were poor and malnourished. For instance, my typical breakfast had bologna as the main source of nutrition. I came home to an empty house and ate junk food rather than a home-cooked meal. This is not bad parenting, this is simply what we could afford. This was an obstacle for me and my brother as children because we were both often tired or hungry at school. It is safe to say that a child with bologna in his system will be at a disadvantage when trying to concentrate and focus on schoolwork relative to his fellow classmates.
Adolescence
Home instability is another aspect of my childhood that was not fully processed at the time but is now in retrospect something that I believe had a major impact on my growth and development. At the age of 13, our house burned down which completely turned our world upside down. For over a year while our house was being repaired, we had inconsistent locations we called home. We stayed in hotels, with family, and in our family car when necessary. This is an issue that was only temporary for me, but it was difficult and extremely impactful on my ability to concentrate on homework or anything school related.
The good that came from my negative experiences in adolescence was that the rare great teachers that came my way were so evident when I was fortunate enough to have them. This handful of great teachers implemented classroom management styles that were different and extremely effective, they personalized their approach to fit my and their other student’s unique strengths. In fourth grade, my teacher tapped into my artistic interests by teaching us a piano, through scaffolding and modeling, I excelled at it. My eighth-grade teacher was like a saint, at this point, I can see now in retrospect that I was having clear issues with emotion regulation. I had externalizing tendencies, acting out by impulse, and being very disruptive in class (Belsky, 2016). Luckily my teacher was very effective and persisted with me, constantly telling me how smart and capable I was and pushing me to my limits. I can see in hindsight that these two teachers used Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, always pushing and challenging me to acquire new skills (Belsky, 2016). My eighth-grade teacher connected with me on a personal level, she took the time to get to know her students. I see these two outlier teachers as major contributors to my progress and development. I gained confidence in my creativity and ability to write and articulate ideas because of them, and although this confidence laid dormant inside me for many years after, the seeds were planted and I owe them for what I went on to accomplish later in life.
One milestone in my life came during my eighth-grade year, despite the now evident risk factors in my life. I grew up in the very gang-infested and dangerous community of east Salinas. My schools were the ones where all these gangs were present and prominent. The risks for me were obvious, I was surrounded by students who fell into that lifestyle, however, I failed to see that. I was young, and these were simply my friends, not dangerous gangsters in my mind. The potential for me to fall in with that crowd was high, however, I was very fortunate to have great protective assets at this stage in my life. My older brother and older cousins were very influential in my life. I became infatuated with playing sports and making that my focus, in large part because of their influence. They were also the ones steering me away from the risk factors in my life, for which I am extremely grateful. I feel fortunate because looking back, I know I would have followed in their footsteps no matter what they did. Had they gotten involved with gangs, I would have followed suit. Luckily my protective assets were strong and deterred me away from that path.
Emerging Adulthood
Later in life came another milestone, I found myself trapped in a job I hated, that lacked respect for its hardworking employees and customers. This job was at a bank, I constantly met people from all walks of life and talked to them for extended periods of time about their education and financial status. Many of them were college educated and had great careers as a result. After a cumulation of these conversations, I realized how much better their careers and lives were compared to mine. I also realized through speaking with them, that often they were no more articulate than me or particularly impressive intellectually, this removed the misconception I had about myself as somehow less than, or incapable of competent work at the college level. This very big obstacle was overcome once I realized that going to college and being ambitious was not a mystical intangible thing that I could never do. I quit my job and realized there was more I can do with my life, have more autonomy, and do something that would contribute to society rather than deplete it as my bank job did.
I always suspected a different treatment and attitude from certain teachers and counselors along the way. Unfortunately, the history of career counseling does not reflect a strong commitment to being sensitive to diversity in clients (Niles, 2014). I was treated as a lost cause due to my inability to concentrate on subjects that did not interest me. I was not a bad kid who misbehaved, I mostly stayed quiet and drew pictures rather than do my assigned work. However negative stereotyping took place, especially as a high school student and junior college student. My high school counselor did not take an interest in me or provided me with help when I was falling behind. Instead, I was sent to an alternative school. During my first time in community college, a college professor told me I should drop out. A college counselor met with me and displayed a very indifferent attitude and pressured me to tell him what I wanted to major in, which made me feel embarrassed for not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I was so embarrassed and confused by this meeting that I just left the meeting and decided school was not for me.
Adulthood
When I went back many years later and signed up for community college I was determined, but also completely insecure. Due to this insecurity, I vowed to overwork on every assignment to make sure that if I did fail, it would not be out of a lack of effort. I gave myself a week, if I performed well then I would stay, if I did terribly then I would be completely at peace with the knowledge that I was indeed incapable of performing at the college level and drop out. I worked harder than I ever had that first week because I wanted an official diagnosis of my academic capability. The fortunate thing for me is that through this hard work I found a genuine interest in academia for the first time in my life. I loved every subject I was learning about, sociology in particular. I received great feedback that first week and from that point forward, my confidence was beyond what it had ever been and my commitment to changing my life through academia was set in stone.
I was fortunate to have great counselors and professors who helped me discover my inventories of interests, needs, values, and how my personality type would fit with certain academic majors (Niles, 2014). Majoring in sociology and going to a great university like UC Davis were two of my milestones. Once there I fell in love with the environment and was inspired by the professors and counselors who would go out of their way to assist and guide me. They inspired me, and I decided I would want to be around this kind of atmosphere for the rest of my life. Thus, choosing a career in counseling was the obvious path for me, one that would contrast sharply with previous jobs that did not inspire me or treat me with much respect.
Conclusion
One key thing I learned about my development in this class is that my development was interrupted more than I realized prior to entering this class and being forced to contemplate it. As I mentioned previously, all along the way things were just normal to me. Coming home to an empty house as an elementary-aged student and making myself junk food with almost no nutritional value was normal to me. Also being friends with gang-involved kids, and having my parents warn me about going to their homes, these things did not fully register for me at the time, they were just good kids and friends to me. The normalcy of my interruptions is what stands out. Poverty, not looking at strangers in the eye because I was taught to fear for my life, these things were just normal. The disruption of this “normalcy” did not fully hit home until emerging adulthood when I realized that others close to me were getting great jobs and going to college. Once I saw this, I was able to normalize the process and tangibility of going to college and getting a better job for myself.
References
Amundson, N. E., Harris-Bowlsbey, J., & Niles, S. G. (2014). Essential elements of career counseling: Processes and techniques. Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Belsky, J. (2016). Experiencing the lifespan (4rd ed.). New York: Worth Publishers. ISBN-13: 978-1464175947
DiPrete, Thomas and Jennifer Jennings. 2012.” Social and Behavioral Skills and the Gender Gap in Early Educational Achievement” Social Science Research.