Hallie Caroway: A Glimpse into My Future

In February of 2020 Covid-19 hit, and the world was flipped upside down. This national pandemic would go on to ruin my plans that I had dreamed of living out since I was accepted to the Honors College here at Lander University. While this was obviously not the worst part of the pandemic, it was a pretty bad part for myself – I know this sounds selfish. After meeting with my advisor one last time in the Spring semester of 2020 we decided that there was no way I would not be able to go to England because by the time the Fall semester rolled around, so I still had my plans. Quickly, I realized that this would not be the case.

I began looking for internships everywhere. I finally found an internship with the school counselor at the middle school that I attended as a child – this made me more excited, but it still did not feel like the extravagant internships others did. I went into this internship simply to mark it off my checklist as things to do before I could graduate with little to no hope of getting anything out of it. I was wrong. During this internship I was allowed to come into the building every day of the school week unlike the students who were only allowed to come into school two days out of the week if they were on the hybrid model and no days out of the week if they were on the completely virtual model. While completing this internship, I was able to see how student-teacher interactions were being limited, resources were lacking, and our school systems were struggling in unprecedented times.

I remember sitting in the office and a student logging onto zoom to receive extra help from a person at the school I was interning with. It was this day that made me realize that on top of everything, there is a lack of empathy in schools that needs to be addressed – especially in a pandemic.

This one student, who was rarely given extensions on homework and was a member of the football team, struck a nerve in my heart. His lack of schoolwork done prevented this student from being able to play in the football games a vast majority of the time. This student was on the hybrid model and therefore came to school 1-2 days a week if his family had the resources in the midst of the pandemic to get him there. He had requested for help from his teachers and/or administrators or counselors, basically from anyone who was willing to help. This help was met sometimes but with remarks about how they should not have to help him and that he simply did not do his work. I took on this attitude as well and felt as if they should not have to take time out of their day to help him when he should just pay attention in class. I think that it was easy for me to take on this attitude as I myself, a 20-year-old in college, had skipped some online classes when everything got moved virtual and classes got put on hybrid models with looser attendance policies. This specific day I was able to observe the entire virtual session with this student and an administrator and was able to see that he was having to watch his younger brother throughout the entire school day, and all you could hear when he hesitantly unmuted his microphone was screaming coming from another room. I immediately felt awful about the assumptions that I had made. I realized that I tried to relate to this student in a way that referred to my own experience when in reality his experience was something I had never faced. Even though this student was having to be an adult in his household at the age of 12 or 13, all the school seemed to be worried about was his homework being completed or else he could not play in any football games. I began to imagine how many other students are in this type of environment when they are not in the safe, calm school environment that they are used to being in 5 days out of the week. I learned that a lot of students were stripped from this safe environment that allows them time to complete assignments and thrown into whatever they have to deal with at home. I also had to remember that teachers and administrators were also dealing with more than they have ever had to at one time. Not only was everything outside of school flipped upside down, but the normalcies of a school day were also flipped upside down. Teachers were having to prepare lessons for virtual students and in-person students and teach two different groups of people at the same time while also trying to keep everyone focused. There were challenges on both ends, and empathy needed to be extended to both groups.

Experiences like this are the ones that will always affect the type of counselor I am in the future. It will help me to remember that you never know what someone is dealing with, and it is unfair to make assumptions or try to relate to someone without knowing their story, whether it be a student or a teacher. We have all been there and have all needed some extra grace in our lives at some point.

 Hallie Caroway is from Lancaster, SC and currently resides in Greenwood, SC. She is a full-time student and is looking forward to graduating from Lander in May 2021 and beginning graduate school at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to get her masters in School Counseling.