SPEAKER_01: Don't let anyone ever diminish your light.
SPEAKER_01: And even if it doesn't seem like many people are watching, there are people that are watching, and you are making a major impact amongst your student body.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Queering Education, where we challenge what school is and build what it should be.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Teaching While Queer podcast about inclusive teaching, queer pedagogy, and showing up authentically in every classroom.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's do the work.
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Queering Education, a Teaching While Queer podcast.
SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_00: My pronouns are they, them.
SPEAKER_00: Today I am at the New Jersey Education Association's Carol Watchler LGBTQIA plus advocacy conference.
SPEAKER_00: Um it is a mouthful every time I say that, and so I apologize to the folks who are listening who have heard me stumble over it a couple of times.
SPEAKER_00: Um I am excited to be sitting down with Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: Hi Daniel, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: Hello, hi everyone.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Daniel Dandan Clark, um, and I'm a proud school counselor, um, and I'm happy to have this opportunity to be on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_01: How do you identify within the community?
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say I definitely identify as queer.
SPEAKER_01: Um I've been a proud, out and proud gay man for the past, I think we're going on 13 years.
SPEAKER_00: We like double digits.
SPEAKER_00: Um so tell me a little bit what got you into school counseling.
SPEAKER_00: Was that a route that you always thought you would do, or is it something that kind of appeared later on?
SPEAKER_01: So it's definitely not what I always imagined.
SPEAKER_01: So originally when I was in school and everyone would ask, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up?
SPEAKER_01: I always thought mental health.
SPEAKER_01: I thought I definitely want to be a therapist.
SPEAKER_01: Um I really enjoyed the movie Freaky Friday, um, where the mother who is played by Jamie Lee Curtis um is a psychotherapist.
SPEAKER_01: And I really, you know, from what I saw from that Disney Channel movie, I really thought like that sounds really great.
SPEAKER_01: Um, getting to talk to people, getting to sit with them.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I really thought that would be my calling.
SPEAKER_01: But my very first job when I was 16, about to be 17, I worked for a daycare.
SPEAKER_01: And I loved working with the kids.
SPEAKER_01: However, I still thought becoming a therapist would be um what I would end up doing in life.
SPEAKER_01: I went to school, I went to Johnson and Wales for counsel for counseling psychology.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I got my bachelor's in that, and then it was my internship that I realized as much as I loved helping people, this wasn't the way I wanted to help people.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I took a break from school after I got my first degree.
SPEAKER_01: I went back to working in daycares, missed working with the kids, really enjoyed that age range.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then someone I was working with was pursuing their master's in school counseling.
SPEAKER_01: And I had always thought you had to be like a public school teacher before becoming a school counselor, um, but that is not the case.
SPEAKER_01: So if anyone's interested in becoming a school counselor, you don't have to start in uh public education necessarily.
SPEAKER_01: So I pursued my master's degree at Brider University and became a school counselor, and I'm now in my fourth year of being a school counselor, and I absolutely love my job wanting to change the thing.
SPEAKER_01: What age group do you work with?
SPEAKER_01: I currently work with high school, so grades nine through twelve, age range is typically 14 to 19.
SPEAKER_00: Do you find that you have the space within the programs that you do at your school for like it?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it leaning more towards psychotherapy?
SPEAKER_00: Um, I know we have social workers at my middle school, and they are constantly in therapy sessions with students, and they're constantly providing true mental health support, but built into the day uh while the kids are at school, which I love because as a parent, I get frustrated when I'm like, the only therapist appointment you have available is at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday, and my child is in school, and you're telling me I have to pull her out to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so do you find that your work leans more towards session work with students, or do you find that there's a large mix of other activities that you weren't expecting when you first considered it?
SPEAKER_01: So, school counselors are really like jacks of all trades.
SPEAKER_01: So we're looking not only in mental health support, but we're also looking at academic support, we're looking at career readiness support.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so unfortunately, we definitely can't go into depth with the psychotherapy just because um our meetings with students and like our sessions, unfortunately, we just don't have the time in the day to like have a full session.
SPEAKER_01: So when students do need those supports, a lot of schools um do offer that.
SPEAKER_01: Like my school, I'm very lucky.
SPEAKER_01: We do work with um different providers, different community resources.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so students definitely do talk to me about their mental health and I definitely assist, but I would still always recommend an outside therapist and remind parents, you know, what I do isn't the traditional therapy model.
SPEAKER_01: Um, our goals are more so like academic based, some mental health-based, but you know, I'm not diagnosing anyone um with anything.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not able to prescribe any type of medication.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but the great thing with being a school counselor is we typically, as long as we have parental consent, we're able to work in conjunction with the therapist.
SPEAKER_01: So we're able to learn um some of the triggers, some of the boundaries that really can help that child be successful during the school time.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think you're right.
SPEAKER_00: I I am a theater teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Theater teachers wear a crap ton of hats on a school campus, but uh guidance counselors, uh school counselors wear even more uh at times.
SPEAKER_00: I have counsel I've known counselors who are doing house visits and whatnot.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this a lot of responsibility, and I love that um you could you set your boundaries, but also are able to provide resources for for the students to then get what they need if you're not able to provide it.
SPEAKER_00: Um how do you think that queerness shows up in your work with with students and in in uh in your counseling work?
SPEAKER_01: So just one thing I do want to add.
SPEAKER_01: So guidance counselor is actually no longer the term.
SPEAKER_00: You are right.
SPEAKER_01: So we spit out a 90s term.
SPEAKER_01: We have moved to school counselor.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the reason for that is school counselors, our degree and certifications have really grown.
SPEAKER_01: So, like back before like 70s, 80s, 90s, it was really, you know, looking at public education teachers and they just get a certificate.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's like a full-fledged master's degree, like, and we do have that mental health background, which is very helpful.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but to answer your question as far as queerness, where does it show?
SPEAKER_01: My office, um, and it was really funny.
SPEAKER_01: I actually did like the Chat GPT like AI like picture, um, and it perfectly illustrated my office.
SPEAKER_01: My office, I'm very fortunate in my school district, and no one's ever had anything negative to say.
SPEAKER_01: My office is completely decked out and all different pride flags.
SPEAKER_01: Um, some of the traditional pride flags, some pride flags that are more specific, so like non-binary, asexual, queer flags.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there was one flag that has like the green radiance, um, that that's now kind of being adopted as like the traditional um gay male flag.
SPEAKER_01: Um and I try and have every type of flag um put on display in my office because I want not only students but staff as well.
SPEAKER_01: Like I want everyone to be able to come into my office and like truly feel it's a safe space.
SPEAKER_01: Like I don't want to just have something that says it's a safe space.
SPEAKER_01: I want to truly create that mantra and really create that environment where people, no matter what their position is, whether they're a staff member, an administrator, a student, a parent, anyone could come in my office and just kind of like have that full body reaction, let their shoulders relax and just know that like this is okay, they can share whatever they feel.
SPEAKER_01: So that I would say is how the queerness is definitely um put on display, and I don't hide anything.
SPEAKER_00: I love that so much.
SPEAKER_00: I love I'm I said this previously on episodes that I am rainbows and glitter and also subtlety.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, I I believe in yes and because I'm a theater person, and so I love going into spaces when I see rainbows and I'm like, oh, this is nice, and then going into spaces and just seeing pronouns on someone's email address and being like, oh, this is nice, like all of the above.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's funny.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for Pride Month, my the DEI club on campus came and decorated um the music floor, and my room, right outside of my room, is just a wall of rainbow hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Y'all don't know subtlety, but I love it so much.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm I love this.
SPEAKER_00: It's my room, and then the counselor's rooms have all these rainbows around them.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay.
SPEAKER_00: One of my students was like, Did you put this up?
SPEAKER_00: I was like, nope, but the students know me well.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's good though.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think students should always know who they can come to, like, whether it's the counselor or not, someone who they know, and that's why I think it's so drastically important, because like the district I'm in now is very positive, but I've definitely worked in different, you know, aspects throughout education where I did have people that would try and kind of like silent it, like especially when I worked um in daycare, you know, working with pre-K students, you know, they would look at like the nails, for example.
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm always proudly um dis putting my nails on display.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I would get pushback from parents, and like there would be parents who like would openly tell my boss, or sometimes even openly tell me, like, my child is not to be in your class because they thought it would negatively influence them.
SPEAKER_01: Um but the thing is like small children are not are not inherently going to be like that's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's all taught.
SPEAKER_01: Like I've had so many children that at no point are they thinking of my sexuality, they just see, ooh, look at those nails, they're pretty.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's really as simple as that.
SPEAKER_01: And I wish more people would have the mindset of a small child, and sometimes things are just nice to look at.
SPEAKER_00: One of the uh prizes in my prize box for my classroom where students get their dojo points or whatever, one of the prizes is to change my nail color.
SPEAKER_00: And I have so many students who are like, I'm gonna find the most gross color combination, and then I get something fabulous with that color combination.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, Why do you always ruin this for me, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Stanton?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, no, I'm always gonna be fabulous.
SPEAKER_00: I just need you to know you can try to find the worst color, it's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't want to take up too much of your time today at the conference.
SPEAKER_00: I would love to know what message you'd like to send out to queer counselors, educators, um, future queer educators and counselors.
SPEAKER_00: What would you love to say to them right now?
SPEAKER_01: I would love to say to them as scary as our current political climate is, do not give up.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there is still so much growth and so much love in education, and there are so many communities within education.
SPEAKER_01: Like for me personally, it was through NJEA, it's through different um county unions.
SPEAKER_01: We even have um an LGBT group, the Rainbow Connection, through the Somerset County Education Association.
SPEAKER_01: Um, even though we're constantly flooded with so much uh negativity and hate in the media, um, don't let that discourage you.
SPEAKER_01: There still are a lot of great things to come.
SPEAKER_01: Um Rome was not built in a day.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to keep fighting.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I would just encourage all current and future educators um to keep fighting and don't let anyone ever diminish your light.
SPEAKER_01: And even if it doesn't seem like many people are watching, there are people that are watching, and you are making a major impact amongst your student body, even if you're the only one.
SPEAKER_01: Start a reaction.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being a part of Queering Education.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Teaching Well Queer podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Take what you need from this conversation and bring it back into your classroom and your students.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep showing up!