By Christine Wu, staff writer
After 16 years of being a counselor at Galileo, counselor Mr. Barbour will be retiring. He first became a counselor because he found psychology fascinating and wanted to work with teenagers to be part of their educational journey.
As a counselor, one of Mr. Barbour’s goal was to get every student a diploma, but more importantly to help them figure out what they want to do with their life, going into adulthood. Additionally, he wanted to see students grow and find themselves, and it was always important to him to give back and help others by connecting with people and helping people help themselves.
During his 16 years at Galileo, Mr. Barbour feels like there have been many changes on how things are run and what counselors have to do. When he first started, it was much more one on one time with students compared to now, where there’s a big push for counselors to go into classrooms to deliver curriculum. He really misses how it used to be as he valued time to talk to students one on one.
Mr. Barbour’s path to eventually becoming a counselor started when he went to city college and studied photojournalism, but because of a few rough patches he ended up leaving. Later on, he went back to college, and at SF State University received a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and then earned his masters degree in both marriage family and child counseling as well as school counseling. His undergraduate and graduate studies took a total of 8 years!
After graduating from SF State with his masters degree, Mr. Barbour moved to the city of Palm Springs and worked as a therapist and a substitute teacher for a year. He then came back to San Francisco and started off as an intern at Galileo before eventually becoming a counselor.
Mr. Barbour’s plans for retirement include moving to Palm Springs with his husband, where they already have a house. Mr. Barbour also plans on spending more time having fun with photography. Since he has a great interest in arts, he wants to expand and explore other arts as well. And he also wants to work with social workers and help out homeless people or disabled adults.
He’s really going to miss working with students and his colleagues, but it’s time for him to go. He’s excited to see who the next Barry Barbour will be and to see what’s out there for him!
