Erin Phoenix, Middle School Counselor

Q: Why did you choose to work at GCAA?

A: So I taught 7th grade English for 8 years before, then I got my master’s in school counseling.  I wanted to work at a school that was diverse, and that was small and had interesting things about it and I felt that Grand Center was a school of performing arts, so it sparked my interest, so then I interviews and got hired.

Q: Why did you want to be a school counselor?

A: I’ve been a teacher before, and I had felt like, since I was teaching English, that I didn’t get to know the kids very well since I was so busy teaching English, and then I decided that I wanted to know kids better and I felt like a good way to do that was to be student counselor, because you spend your days talking to and getting to know kids.

Q: Why did you want to know the kids you were working with?

A: I think that the whole of the kid is important, so it’s not just important if they know how to write a sentence or not, I think it’s important that they also are mentally healthy and happy.  I also think it’s important that they have good coping strategies for dealing with stress and anxiety and depression, and those sorts of things that middle schoolers and high schoolers typically deal with, so I like to be a part of helping teach those things.

Q: What is your greatest accomplishment?

A: I have two little boys.  I have a two year old and a six month old so I enjoy them, and I feel like right now, being a mom is one of my greatest accomplishments…because it’s hard work and I feel like I’m doing a good job raising my kids and it’s gratifying to do hard work that pays off.

Q: Do you often reflect on where you’re headed?

A: I am currently getting my license so I can be a licensed therapist so that later and life I can hold my own practice or do family therapy, so that’s kind of my ultimate goal.  I think I might be in schools for a while because I really enjoy it, I feel like I’m learning a lot beng in schools, but I think later on I’ll take it more on myself.

Q: What appeals to you about family therapy?

A: I like that families are a unit, and that units can kind of go dysfunctional sometimes, and everybody has their different feelings and roles in families and I like helping be a part and help create healthy balances in the family, and healthy coping strategies when dealing with each other.  

Q: Has your life dramatically changed because of any random occurrence?

A: My life dramatically changed when I had kids, because I no longer do just whatever I want to when I want to do it.  I would also say that my life has changed pretty dramatically switching to this job.  I’m used to teaching, and I’m used to the school that I was teaching in, so it’s been kind of a transition for me…it’s a little uneasy, getting used to everybody.  You know, new co-workers, new kids, new rules and policies.  I think I’ll get used to it in no time, but the transition’s not usually fun.

Q: Do you miss being an English teacher?

A: I miss the structure of a teacher’s day, I miss my co-workers at my other job, but I’m enjoying being a counsellor.  

Q: What do you like about the structure of being a teacher?

A: I’m a very structured and organized person, so I like that I know exactly what time and where I should be and that the kids will be coming to me and I can prepare for it and plan for it, whereas as a counsellor I’m kind of here and the kids come to me and it’s unexpected and I don’t know what I’m going to be dealing with in the next ten minutes, so it’s kind of like a fly by the seat of your pants job.

Q: In what ways are you trying to apply structure to your counselling job?

A: I make a list.  I got myself this nice little notebook and everyday I put down the date and I list out what I need to do and as I do it I make check marks so that I know what I’m accomplishing and what I still need to get done the next day…I feel like because when I’m in my office and running around the building like a mad woman that people say ‘hey, you need to do this’ or ‘can you call this kid’ or ‘can you talk to them’, and so I think this helps me remember everything I need to do so I don’t look like a mad woman, running around, which caused my black eye.  I ran into the elevator here.

Q: Is there anything you want to do but haven’t gotten around to?

A: Travelling is really important to me.  My husband and I travelled before kids, but there are many places I still want to go.  Now that I have kids it’s a little bit more complicated and harder to travel, it’s more expensive, so that’s kind of been put on hold, but I hope that later I can.  

Q: What places would you like to travel to?

A: Ireland is on the top of my list.  My husband and I want to take a trip to Africa, that’s on our list.  We’ve talked about living abroad in Australia.

Q: What places have you been to?

A: I’ve studied abroad in Italy, so I taught English in Italy for a semester.  I went to Peru with my husband and we went to Machu Picchu.  I’ve been to a lot of places in the United States, I’ve been to Cancun a couple times, I’ve been to Puerto Rico, I’ve been to Saint Kitt’s, which is a small Island.

Q: What is your favorite place you’ve been to so far?

A: Peru is pretty cool.  I mean, it was a different culture, a lot different from what I’m used to.  It’s just a totally different lifestyle than what we have around here.  It’s a lot slower, people can kind of enjoy things more.  They don’t work as much as we do.  I like the food there a lot, I like that they have different colors of gowns that they wear.  The music is really neat, just the whole culture in general is cool.

Q: What is Peruvian food like?

A: They have really good meats, they have a lot of rice in their dishes, which is flavored rice so it’s rice with everything but it tastes different with each meal, so I like that a lot.  They have really good sandwiches there.  My husband and I love sandwiches, so when we were there we tested out all of their’s and they were really good.

Q: Of all the places you want to go, which do you want to visit the most?

A: I think Africa is the top of my list.  I just really think it would be interesting to see their culture, in South Africa.  I think it would be neat to see a safari and safari animals.  I think it would be different from our life and I’d be interested to learn about it.

Q: Are there any things you had never thought of now but may look into now that you have kids?

A: My husband and I talk a lot about living abroad with our kids, and I want them to experience traveling and other cultures and people from different backgrounds, so I think that it’s important to us that we perhaps live in another country for a little while so they can go to school and get to know people from different backgrounds…we probably won’t do it until they’re in elementary school, because I want them to be able to go to school there, so that will be a big thing for us…I just think that it’s important that kids learn the world is bigger than our house and just our family culture, and there are more people who live in this world who are not like us, and I want them to experience that and learn about that.  I want them to find joy in learning about people who are different than them.

Q: Do you think that this idea can be applied to the kids at this school?

A: Yeah, that’s the reason I wanted to work with a diverse population.  It’s because I enjoy learning about people who are different than me.  I think that it makes you a more well rounded person.  The other school I came from was very white, middle-upper class, so there wasn’t very much diversity at all, which is fine, but I felt like I wanted to work with people with different backgrounds, and I wanted to learn and teach with people of different backgrounds as well.