For Ellen Dittmar no two days look the same, and that is one of the things she loves most about her job as an ELC counselor. Whether it’s helping new students settle in, meeting with parents, or greeting people at the start of the day, she finds appreciation in every interaction no matter how small.
What follows is Ellen’s story, in her own words:
I’ve lived [in Bucharest] for four years. And the first year I was here, I was doing student council and substituting, things like that. And then the second year I was here, I was teaching Psychology. And then last year and this year, I’ve moved to a counselling role.
I think most days are not typical. That’s probably the thing about my job. I really enjoy that I barely do the same thing every day. Each day there’s definitely going to be a few meetings. Sometimes it’s meeting with a teacher to figure out a plan for a student or maybe I’m meeting with parents. I do workshops for parents as well. I will go into an EC2 classroom and I’ll play with the sand and we colour and we draw. I’ll pull some kids [from the classroom] for maybe doing a new student group. So that could all happen in a day. It changes all the time. It’s never really the same thing twice, which is awesome. Keeps you on your toes.
Being really present in the moment with anyone that you’re working with is incredibly important in this role. If you’re feeling stressed in a particular moment, you’re working with a child, it’s not going to be very effective. So really just trying to be present in that moment is really helpful. And then doing work outside of school, like playing tennis, being with my family, watching movies, those kinds of things help me to relax, to put things in perspective.
I think I learn this lesson almost every day. So I learn and relearn it. But the idea that people—students—are stronger than they think they are, right? And that they can do things and stretch themselves further than they think they can. So sometimes our biggest limit is our own minds, our own thoughts. That is what I think I learned consistently across the board that we’re capable of much more than we probably give ourselves credit for.
I think people think that being a counsellor, you’re just gathering tea. And it’s not like that at all. It’s really just about finding space to connect with people to develop a relationship with them so that they feel safe. And that’s most of what I do all day long in lots of different ways.
I almost don’t love giving advice because I really believe that the person that knows best deep down about what to do or where to go or how to be is really you. So maybe that would be my advice: to trust yourself and to develop a relationship with yourself that is so strong that you don’t really need to seek outside advice. You probably already have all the answers you need.