Craving A Mask Essay

What the Professional School Counselor in the case “Craving a Mask” went through where he was confronted with a student from a culture that is different from his own is a common problem that counselors face. The likelihood that every student and/or faculty we would meet with throughout our career will have the same background as us is not high. There are several challenges I would have faced if I was in the counselor’s shoes. One issue we could face is understanding the nuance of the culture. For instance, consider The Myron example from the Vernon text (2009). Myron, who was an Alaskan Native, was used to everyone in the village assisting each other without having to ask, like the saying “it takes a village …” The counselor in this case, had

One is research the cultures that are prominent in my area. For instances, the community college where I work at has a couple of students who are Muslim. Therefore, I know I need to read up on the Muslim and Middle Eastern cultures to be better able to help them. Also, learning some words from their native language, like Arabic, could help build a bond between us. Another step is to have a list of resources nearby to provide support for the student. A club or community center could help the student better assimilate and cope with the change differently than I can better they could better understand the student’s feelings. Also, an important step is to have an open mind and self-awareness. No one is perfect and mistakes are likely to happen; therefore, both parties needs to have an open mind and understand that I could take time to find the “happy medium” of the cultures. Also, understanding the bias and racial issues that could exist in the school is important because it helps put the student’s cultural issues with context (Arrendonado, 2001). For instance, the group of Arab students where I work is pretty big in which they have a built in support system; if the group was smaller, then they could feel more