By staff writers Miles Eller and Giuseppe Palmer
After only working with small groups of kids, Mr. Freeman’s move to a counselor at Galileo is a big leap from his previous 15-20 kids to the current 280 students now. While working with a bigger group of students is something Mr. Freeman is still getting used to, he finds the challenge beneficial as he gets to connect with a broader group of students.
Getting into education because his mother was an elementary and middle school librarian, Mr. Freeman started his career in education in San Francisco at the Early Childhood Special Education program working with kids with disabilities under 5 years old. When the program was canceled, he started applying to internships where he met people from different professions, including counselors from across the country.
“I found what they did interesting,” he says when asked about what made him choose counseling. “I thought high school counseling would be an interesting change.”
He then went to San Francisco State to get his counseling training at a 2 year program to become a counselor. Mr. Freeman participated in an internship at The Academy where he was only assigned to a handful of the 250 students at the school.
A year later, he took up the open counseling position at Galileo and was introduced to a massive change in size in students to those he’d previously worked with. The jump from 250 students total at his past school, to 280 students designated to just him has been an incredible leap, but not one Mr. Freeman has been unable to deal with. “I like counseling at Galileo, it’s definitely a diverse population and I like the challenges of working with a variety of different students,” said Mr. Freeman.
While Mr. Freeman has enjoyed the student population at Galileo, he says the biggest challenge for him is the familiarity he has with the school and having to answer questions about where things at Galileo are or what events are coming up- things that he is still familiarizing himself with.
When asked about his goals for his future at Galileo, Mr. Freeman says he hopes to “become familiar with the school and continue to build relationships with the students.”
