Free Period
Some doors are always open, even when the rooms inside are still. We chose Ms. Chen because here’s the door students keep walking through - long after the last bell has rung.
“During the exams, people actually relax a little,” Ms. Chen told us, “because all you have to do is take the exams.”
We had asked our school counsellor whether more students came to the office around exam time. Ms. Chen explained that students experience anxiety prior to and after the exams: there was stress leading up to the tests, and further pressure once results arrived, as these results comprise part of predicted grades and affect university applications.
Having witnessed this pattern year after year, Ms. Chen had grown familiar with the cycle of student concerns. Knowing when particular worries tended to surface helped the SEC team to arrange its work. Early IB results brought their own sort of alarm.
“How am I going to get a seven? I’ve only got a five,” the counsellor said, giving an example. A disappointing mark could make a student fear their university application would be at stake. Long before an application was sent, it was possible to feel that the answer would already be a rejection.
The sofa we were sitting on had acquired a reputation. At the beginning of the interview, Ms. Chen had told us that last year’s Year 12 students had named it “the most comfortable sofa in school” in their yearbook. Younger visitors seemed to endorse the choice: according to the counsellor, they would sit down and let out a long breath.
Being in the room, it's hard not to notice the several puzzles stacked in the corner; Ms. Chen had personally assembled half of them. She enjoys the moment when the right piece finally turns up. Puzzles could help people relax,” the counsellor said.
A specific puzzle had occupied a group of Year 12s for a year. Two thousand pieces, assembled during free periods. Those students had since graduated; last year’s students, we learnt, hadn’t been so keen.
Ms. Chen hoped to bring back a shared puzzle corner, if there was enough room once more seats had been added. There were also students who might want ten or fifteen minutes somewhere quiet, away from a crowd and the need to keep socializing.
“Often, people just need a space. They don’t necessarily need to talk about anything.”
Tutor groups were coming to see the new counselling rooms and meet the team.
“We don’t want people to meet us for the first time only when something has happened.”
Our seats were angled rather than directly facing Ms. Chen, who explained that the arrangement made it easier to look away. “You don’t have to look at me the whole time.”
We asked how the counselor gets a reluctant student to speak. Most of the students who came, we were told, had chosen to be there. For the students who still had worries about expressing their concerns, Ms Chen chose to wait.
“Silence isn’t a bad thing,” the counsellor said. “You can think of it as a contest: whoever feels awkward first breaks the silence.” The pause gave the student time to work out where to begin. If they were still stuck, Ms. Chen might ask, “What’s the first word that comes to mind?” The conversation could follow from there, wherever the student took it.
We had worked through the questions on our list by the time we mentioned the team’s quick replies to emails, and how reassuring they had been. Ms. Chen spoke about the student waiting at the other end, wondering how the message would be received.
“For many people, writing to us is already a difficult step.”
During working hours, the team tried to reply to emails the same day. “We can’t reply at night, because we have our own lives, families to look after.”
At the end of a working day, Ms. Chen would check the emails and the calendar for anything still unfinished. Someone might have dropped in wanting to talk halfway through a task; there would be work to return to afterwards. A look at the next day’s schedule helped the counsellor decide whether to get to bed earlier that night.
For Ms. Chen, the day of work never truly ended when the last student left, and the final email was answered. What remained was the stillness and patience of listening - waiting for whoever might walk through the door the next morning.
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