This is the full version of a shorter article published originally in the Dec, 2010 issue of the International Educator Magazine. Eddie Levisman is a current colleague at Yokohama International School. From the fall of 2011 he will be serving as school counselor at the Pan American School of Porte Alegre in Brazil.

Personal reflections on possible emerging trends and practices

By
Eddie Levisman
College Counselor/Academic Advisor
Yokohama International School
A parent recently posed an interesting question that gave me a pause for reflection. She asked – in a non-challenging way at all – what was expected of a college counselor. It reminded me of the fish that was not quite able to define water; being surrounded by it all the time and knowing nothing else, the concept of water escaped him. Periodic reflection about where we are and where we are going is important.

This past weekend my school, Yokohama International School, had a professional development event centered on the theme of 21st Century Learning. The event further led me to muse on the state of college counseling in international schools going into the next century. I doubt anything in my thoughts is new or groundbreaking, but I find it worthwhile to ponder every so often on possible emerging trends and practices that we see on the ground. I have been an international counselor for nearly a quarter of a century and, like the fish, I may need a reminder of what is the essence I am swimming in. What follows are some free-flowing ideas. Subjective and personal in nature, they are an invitation for dialogue and connectivity.

Technology seems to be the buzzword these days, so let’s start with that because it permeates everything else. Back in the days we wrote recommendation letters on old typewriters, looked up college information on (sometimes not quite updated) paper catalogs, corresponded with admissions officers via snail mail and the phone was used to call them only for emergencies. Even as recently as five years ago some of my (old timer) teachers still submitted hand-written recommendations! Application tracking forms and acceptance data were kept in long hand-written lists and it was virtually impossible to draw any useful conclusions from it. Homemade primitive computer programs later made it easier to manage this information. Excel, of course, was considered the mother of all inventions! Students too, wrote their applications by hand, consulted view books and dared not contact the universities by phone. They were more concerned about requesting the paper application and obtaining it in time to meet the deadline. In many remote parts of the world, this was a true challenge. An important task for us those days was to provide the students with a “model” letter to approach the university with a request for a paper application packet. Worrying about whether or not the application was actually received, say from Africa or South America, was cause for sleepless nights (one almost chuckles at the thought now).

This scene has drastically changed in the past ten years or so. Today’s college admissions activity in international schools is Internet based and rapidly moving into a virtual realm. Today’s college counselor must live his life in the Web. From communications with colleges, to research tools and application procedures – the counselor must be very technologically proficient: emails, websites, e-lists, wikis, e-newsletters, webinars and what not – all will be expected in his arsenal of skills. What’s more, our students are forever more proficient in this zone than we are! And they expect us to slide into it with the same ease we use a calculator. Paper newsletters are no longer effective; bulletin boards are ignored and become part of the decor. Even emails are becoming passé as our students talk to each other via text messages, twitter, Facebook and the like. We, as counselors, must find ways to enter their world and compete for attention with many other sources. We must, constantly and persistently, fight for our right to be present in their virtual habitat.

It is a somewhat scary thought, but our students today have access to more information than their parents and counselors combined. They are savvy users of the Internet, they can find content much faster, they can navigate complex websites with more ease. They have friends all over the world and are networked at the speed of light. In my own practice I have become accustomed to few students every year who enlighten me with new information that was not known to me. At times it seems that they are able to keep up with changes in college policies, programs or admissions requirements much better than us, as their skills in scanning the cyber catalogs by far exceeds ours. Although I felt threatened by it at first, I soon accepted it as an advantage and quickly realized that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift: the college counselor is no longer the exclusive keeper of the information that flows to the student. On the contrary, the counselor may be only one of many sources. Our students now have instant access to all information on the planet, in real time. The catalog shelves in my office are quickly transforming into a nice museum piece or a decorative feature at best. This we must embrace with grace and gratefulness. It enhances the outcome of our efforts. It brings us closer to our goal.

“What, then, is your job?” the mother may rightfully ask. Oh, beware of this question for in it lays the essence of the transformation of our profession as counselors. We no longer hold the sole key to information and, in fact, our clients have become wiser than us in getting it.
But, whereas in the previous century disseminating information was the main role of all educators, today this is no longer the case. And for college counselors this is an essential shift in role. Today’s counselor will be successful only if she is able to help students use technology and make sense of the information he is able to extract through it.

Many international schools now use college counseling Internet-based software such as Naviance. These are state-of-the art tools that help students and parents to research careers and universities, communicate with the school, explore interests and aptitudes and even apply to college, all at the touch of a button. These systems also contain a variety of counselor driven tools that aid in record keeping, analysis and communication. Counselors now must become experts with these systems, not only for their own tasks, but also so that they are able to teach their clients, be it students, parents or teachers, how to use them effectively. Many colleges now accept electronic transmission of transcripts and recommendations – it is our job to assure that all users of these crucial tools know how to access it and use it. The UK has been using for quite sometime now an application system that is exclusively online. The US common application is persistently updating, upgrading and adding institutions. National systems in Australia, Canada and other countries implement sophisticated online application centers. Many US states have common online applications, some of which, like in the case of the University of California, do not require any input from the counselor. We must make sure that students and parents are able to navigate these systems with ease and without error. Applications are rapidly becoming a paperless affair. These procedures are constantly in a state of change and progress – we must learn to change with it.

In a nutshell, our role has shifted – mainly due to technology – from being exclusive providers of information to becoming experts in meta-information. Our students are able to access the content anywhere and anytime, but they still require guidance in interpreting, applying and making sense of what they find. It is incumbent upon us, if we are to have success in the 21st century, to shift our focus from information management to need and skill management. There’s no longer a need for a college counselor to memorize which particular college offers this or that best course, nor make lists for deadlines or entry requirements. We do not need to remember, for example, which college requires what TOEFL score – we need to teach our student where to find the answers. These are readily available to the student in real time from his laptop.

What our task calls for now is not to merely provide answers, but rather to teach our young students what questions to ask. What should I study in high school if I want to be a physician? How do I evaluate the quality of a school? Where can I find reliable information about my internship plans? What is the structure of education in the Netherlands? What are the pre-requisites for my career aspirations? Do I need IBDP to study in Israel? What are the skills required for success in the business world? What sort of requirements should I look for when I research entry to this or that country?

We must focus on teaching our student research skills and research mindset. My motto for many years has been “Take charge, do the research, meet the deadlines.” This is now more relevant than ever. We must teach students how to differentiate reliable information from less reliable one, how to review more than one source and suggest that they find trusted people who can give them sound advice. Some information in the Internet is good and some is not. Knowing the difference is the skill I’d like my students to have. Decision-making skills must be taught at young age, much sooner than high school. How does one decide anything? What can counselors do to implement these types of decision-making skills in the curriculum?

In an age of information explosion there’s also an explosion of misinformation, rumors and urban legends. Peer reviews for universities are now available for all to see – should you trust it? Should you make your life decisions based on random comments made by disenchanted students at a particular university? Ranking of colleges, likewise, are running out of control. What’s behind the ranking? How are they performed? Who gains and who manipulates them? Now, more then ever, counselors must look beyond ranking and promote the good school/student match model. Educating our communities about this issue alone is a monumental task for the 21st century. The use and misuse of social networking must be a part of our conversation as counselors, as is the fact that there’s a “hostile takeover” of education by profit-seeking forces in the market place.

The second shift we see in international school counseling has to do with the emerging nature of our typical students in a global world. Our kids were always global. They traveled, they became Third Culture Kids and they were attractive to colleges. But unlike twenty years ago, mobility has increased tenfold and our families appear to be different. Our kids are now native TCKs, rather than mobile ones. We observe a tremendous increase in students who are third culture kids by birth, rather than by travel. In other words, many students in our schools are now a product of mixed marriages and they are as global as anyone can be. They grow up in a multi-cultural home, they are fluent in at least two native languages and, as in the past, they also relocate extensively and acquire additional languages and experiences. This fact alone poses tremendous challenges to college counselors. We now have students who apply to colleges in four different countries in three continents! The world is a village for these young people. Their options are endless, their choices limited only by their desires. They are global citizens per excellence and they can study and relocate anywhere. This fact requires that international counselors become familiar with educational systems outside the United States. On any given year we will be challenged to help a student make the transition to higher education in the least expected location on the planet. Our students are more sophisticated, more informed and more demanding.

A third shift involves the evolving nature of international schools. Our schools have always been on the forefront of education and our leaders constantly search for new ideas and models to put to practice. The explosion of global economics has generated some significant changes in the number of international schools in the world, their style and their missions. Competition in that market is fierce and niches must be found. Clearly, the parent clientele we serve today is much more diverse than the one we served twenty years ago. It is also savvier and more familiar with higher education options. In many instances we are now serving second and third generation TCKs and their values and expectations are unique. It is not unusual, for example, to see a US family send their child to college in the UK, or vice versa. These parents have been around the block and they do their homework. School missions in the past decade have begun to strongly include values such as community service, internationalism, life-long learning and so on. Many of our students today may seek a pre-college experience; we need to be ready to serve the interest and need to take a gap year or engage in an internship before enrolling in college. Interestingly enough, I have already begun to see UK students applying to a foundation year to allow themselves more time and opportunity before committing to a course. Furthermore, some of our parents – a new breed indeed – have begun to produce a “counterrevolution” against the college frenzy generated world wide in past decades. These parents now advocate for a high school filled with positive exploration, fun learning and values – as opposed to high schools that are a mere leverage to “get into college”.

The IB program as the flag of international schools has become so common everywhere that its uniqueness – the very feature that made it a value for our students when they competed for limited spaces in higher education – is fading. As counselors we might want to have input into the development of alternatives that will make our students stand out. Some schools, mine included, are already thinking in that direction by adding and promoting among universities, for instance, internationalism as a graduation component. I find that our students in the international circuit may be disadvantaged with lack of opportunity to differentiate themselves from the pack, sort of speak, in areas such as outside research, internships, national competitions, major summer overseas projects, exchange programs and so on. Our Global Citizen Diploma will be designed to address exactly that.

The increased diversity of our students is also seen on the other end of the spectrum; namely, we may see more students who are not necessarily college-bound. These students may, for example, wish to join the work force directly, enroll in non-traditional programs in the arts, or take up non-university pursuits in tertiary institutions. For these students we need both suitable programs and counseling support. As it turns out, the world is evolving so fast that as counselors we find ourselves talking about careers that will no longer exist when our students graduate from college. And we know that they will face options that do not yet exist now. Thus, our emphasis should be not on careers but on skills. For in the world of tomorrow, that is exactly how these students will be evaluated. How can counselors help to incorporate to the curriculum skills such as time management, teamwork, initiative, and organization, multi-tasking and so forth?

Another area to mention is the financial one. It is the least predictable but also the one that underlies most decisions of transition to higher education. Policies regarding financial aid for international students in the United States may be shifting due to the financial crisis and stress on resources; UK schools may be less flexible with offering returning EU citizens a home fee status; Canada’s and Australia’s fees for international students has been on the rise, especially against a weak US dollar. Many question marks remain regarding this issue. The one question to pose here may be: will we see a trend of international students returning to enroll in college in their home country, where they have a financial advantage?

Student overload is another issue I want to mention. Our kids in international schools are overly engaged. They are busy people beyond comprehension. IB demands, community service, sports, college expectations – these kids do not have sufficient down time. As counselors, as chief advocates for students, we need to raise awareness about this issue and advocate for reasonable load, balanced life and…yes, some fun too!

Last, but not least, online education. It is inevitable that education will continue to move in that direction. As counselors, we must be at the forefront of this new frontier in international schools. In my present school we are already scheduling IBDP online options and we are diligently developing a policy to manage this new unfamiliar territory. Who will pay for it? Who are the students able to undertake such challenge? How to supervise it? Is it the best option for this or that student – these are all issues we need to address.

These are exciting times indeed. Like our little fish, I am still not sure what water is, but every so often I must try to grasp it. – EL
(Click to find Eddie Levisman on Twitter)