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January 6, 2025 22 mins

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In this episode of the School for School Counselors podcast, host Steph Johnson addresses the growing trend of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in school counseling. Steph shares her concerns about the premature adoption of AI tools and their potential to undermine the core values and techniques of effective counseling. She emphasizes the importance of human connection, evidence-based techniques, and professional fluency over quick AI-generated solutions. This episode delves into the ethical implications, the dangers of AI biases, and the need for critical thinking before relying on AI-generated resources, encouraging school counselors to remain cautious and informed as they navigate this evolving technology.

00:00 Introduction to AI in School Counseling

01:31 The AI Hype and School Counseling

02:59 Concerns About AI in Counseling

04:51 Ethical Considerations and Professional Fluency

07:44 Personal Use and Limitations of AI

15:45 AI's Hallucinations and Biases

20:10 Next Steps


**********************************


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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It seems like everywhere you look, people are
talking about AI, about theadvancements in artificial
intelligence and about howeveryone can use AI for
everything, everywhere At least,that's what it feels like right
, and our field of schoolcounseling is no different.

(00:21):
It seems like every day, I'mseeing more and more posts of
people asking for AI resourcesor claiming to have some sort of
magic key into an AI wonderlandfor school counselors.
I have some big thoughts onthis subject, so I thought I
would share them with you thisweek on the podcast and welcome

(00:46):
back to the School for SchoolCounselors podcast.
I'm Steph Johnson, your host.
I'm a full-time schoolcounselor, just like you, on a
mission to make schoolcounseling more sustainable and
more enjoyable, because youdeserve real support, not just
lip service.

(01:06):
You deserve the true supportsthat help make your work not
only manageable, but somethingthat you look forward to walking
through the doors and goinginto each and every day.
My goal is to help you feelcompetent day.
My goal is to help you feelcompetent, connected and
inspired to make a difference,even if you're working in a

(01:35):
challenging situation, and so Ithink you're going to find this
week's conversation about AIreally interesting, whether you
end up agreeing with my pointsof view, or whether you walk
away saying, ah that Steph lady,she's full of baloney.
It does not matter to me eitherway.
What I want to do really isjust get the conversation going.

(01:57):
I want to expand your thinkingon this topic just a little bit
and get you thinking criticallyabout some of the things that
you're seeing and hearing in theschool counseling world, and
I'm going to take you through alot of territory.
In this episode.
We'll talk about AI platformsusing artificial intelligence

(02:20):
for generating school counselingmaterials one big, dangerous
and pretty scary thing that I'mseeing on the horizon in our
industry and some of the thingsthat we need to make sure we're
not selling short as we'reendeavoring to meet and shake
hands with the future.
All right, so let's get into it.

(02:43):
Let's talk about AI in schoolcounseling.
I think this is a bigconversation that's going to be
going on for quite some time andit's super trendy, right.
A lot of people are ready tojump on this bandwagon, but I'll
show my cards right now andtell you I'm pretty worried and

(03:04):
I don't think that now isnecessarily the time to be
jumping in AI with both feet,even when we know that's the way
the world is headed, like it ornot, this is what is going to
happen.
But you know I'm a little bitof a purist when it comes to
counseling.

(03:25):
I believe completely in thepower of connection, the power
of relationship, the power ofchild centered conversation and
about evidence based techniques.
We talk about these all thetime on the podcast, and that's
never going to change, becausewe can't assume that just

(03:47):
because we think something iscool or we think something is
very intelligent, that it can bea satisfactory substitute for
those kinds of connection, andso instead, I think we need to
maybe be looking at how can weleverage AI intelligently

(04:08):
without jumping the gun tooquickly, if that makes sense.
Let me kind of tell you what Imean.
I have seen in the past fewmonths certainly the past six
months an explosion of peopletalking and asking about AI
platforms for school counseling,about AI-generated school

(04:31):
counseling activities, thingslike that, and while I get that
our jobs are complicated,they're busy, they're messy, we
feel like we're running amillion miles an hour.
We're running a million milesan hour, we've also got to keep
in mind that the easiest way maynot necessarily be the best way
, and I do think we have anethical obligation to be looking

(04:55):
at what's best for our studentsversus what's best for us.
Now, as I say that, I'm notimplying that people who are
interested in utilizing AI orpeople that are already using it
in school counseling don't careabout their kids or they don't
want to do their best job.
That's not what I'm saying atall.

(05:15):
But I do think that in oureagerness to adopt these tools,
sometimes we overlook thefundamentals, and I would go
even further and say sometimes alot of these early adopters
have a little bit of tunnelvision about what they're doing.
You know a lot of people thatyou see talking about AI and

(05:38):
school counseling right now arecontent creators that are
worried about the future ofteachers, pay teachers, and
rightfully so, because you aregoing to start to see that
platform get flooded, absolutelyinundated with a million tons
of pure crap.
It's going to be generatedthrough AI, and it won't be

(06:03):
terrible because AI has done aterrible job although in my
opinion, it's still not great attasks like that but because the
people who are turning that outdon't know how to work with it.
They don't know how to promptit.
They want to put in some basicinstructions and have AI turn
something out for them andblindly accept that and then

(06:25):
move on.
It's a lot of the way a lot ofschool counselors use TPT
resources already.
Right, they look up I need ananger management group and they
scroll and they find one thatlooks the cutest and they
download it and they run with itand they don't look at the
underlying mechanisms.
They don't consult any of thetreatment planners.

(06:45):
They take it at face value andrun with it and then, when it
doesn't work, they sit andwonder why.
Ai is going to be like that fora long time.
It is going to flood theself-created curriculum market
unlike anything you have everseen, and a lot of the people

(07:07):
that are at the forefront ofthat industry right now who are
your big names in contentcreation a lot of them are
looking toward AI.
They want to be the first tomarket.
They want to begin creatingprompts and tools for AI to
guide school counselors ingenerating even more of that

(07:29):
crap, because it's going to beeasy to slap on a website, tell
school counselors you can copyand paste these prompts, use
them and you'll getextraordinary results.
But it doesn't work that way.
Here's how I see AI currently.
I do use AI sparingly for otherpurposes.

(07:53):
I do not use it for schoolcounseling, but sometimes I do
use it for school, for schoolcounselors purposes.
Now, to be clear, I do not useAI to create my content.
I don't use it in the way mostpeople do because I think it's
very disingenuous.

(08:13):
As a matter of fact, on themajority of my emails that I
send out, there is a disclaimerat the bottom that says no AI.
This email was generated by ahuman being and it was me.
And if you don't see thatfooter on an email, it's not
because the email was generatedby a human being and it was me.
And if you don't see thatfooter on an email, it's not
because the email was generatedby AI, it's probably just

(08:34):
because I got busy and forgot toput it on there.
I don't like to use AI tocommunicate because I think it
takes the human element out ofthe connection.
And again, that's what I'm allabout.
Right, that is the corefoundation upon which we've
built School for SchoolCounselors, and I don't ever,

(08:56):
ever want to lose that.
We need to be mindful ofconnection, we need to be
mindful of human interaction andcollaboration, and so, for that
reason, I will never use AI togenerate the emails that I send
to you daily.
I will never use AI to createpodcast episode scripts or to

(09:18):
create articles or anything likethat.
In the past, I've used itsparingly for some social media
posts, but I'm going to behonest with you.
I dabbled in it a little bitand I hated it because it wasn't
truly interactive.
And the more experienced we allbecome with AI, the more we're
going to be able to spot thesekinds of things at 30 paces.

(09:40):
You can probably already do itnow.
Right?
You've probably started to pickup on the words that instantly
signal that AI has writtensomething.
Things like let's dive into, orthis is a game changer.
Ai has taken the kinds ofthings we've always used in a
normal conversation anddecimated the nuance out of it

(10:04):
and just recycles it over andover and over again.
Anyway, I digress.
You are going to start to seepeople who are blindly using
these AI tools and prompts togenerate a bunch of baloney.
They're going to take it intheir schools, they're going to
use it and they're going towonder why they're not getting
the results they're wanting.

(10:24):
And further, they're going tostart wondering why they're not
gaining the professionalreputation that they want on
campus, why they're not beingdeferred to in serious matters
of social and emotional health.
And a lot of that comes back tohow you talk about your work.
How fluent are you in thethings that you're using?

(10:49):
How quickly can you talk aboutthem at the drop of a hat?
How informed and capable areyou in guiding your staff in
accessing some of the rightsolutions?
Ai cannot do that for you, notyet it can't intervene on your
behalf when you're standingoutside your principal's office

(11:12):
and they're saying I just don'tknow what to do with this kid.
They've been in in-schoolsuspension four times this week.
They keep turning overfurniture and chairs and we just
don't know what to do next.
The worst thing that you coulddo in that situation is say, hey
, wait, give me a minute, let mego consult my AI and I'll get

(11:32):
back to you.
That is an opportunity 1,000%lost when, in contrast, you
could stand there and say, well,best practice says that
approaches A, b and C are theway we need to be looking.
Have we implemented those withfidelity?
What are some ways I cansupport that implementation?

(11:55):
How truly trauma-informed arewe on this campus?
Let's talk about the nuance ofthat.
Let's talk about how I can workwith that teacher to really
understand the impact of thestudent's past on their current
behavior.
I would love to work with themand do X and Y and Z, because we

(12:18):
know when we do that we expectthese certain outcomes, these
kinds of conversations.
Here let me pull the researchand show you that's professional
fluency.
That's what we should all bedeveloping as school counselors
and really it's the bedrock ontop of which we created our

(12:39):
School for School Counselorsmastermind.
We hold support andconsultation chats every single
week and really those aremisnamed.
We do provide support, we doprovide case consultation, but
really what we're doing is we'rebuilding professional fluency

(13:00):
and we're doing it in a coupleof ways.
First, we're providing a forumwhere we can all discuss,
collaborate, share ideas, shareoutcomes, what we're doing to
address issues, and soeveryone's getting exposure to
that.
The second way that we'readdressing professional fluency

(13:20):
is that when you show up tothese chats and you become
comfortable enough that you feelempowered to speak and you
offer ideas or you offer to talkthrough things, you're
essentially putting yourself inthe hot seat right.
You're testing your ability tobe able to speak to an issue in
real time, on the fly.

(13:40):
And that's where the beauty ofsupport and consultation comes
from, because the more that youdo that, the more you're willing
to put yourself out there inaddition to just absorbing
conversation.
You then begin to become anexpert practitioner, and I think
this is just personal opinion.

(14:02):
I think we have stagnated inthat category.
In school counseling, we seefewer and fewer people who
aspire to be masters at theircraft in the way they can be
when they're content experts,where they know approaches like
the back of their hand, wherethey have certain zones of

(14:24):
expertise and they can dive intoit 1,000%.
Those people aren't readilyavailable on our campuses and
part of this is and again I'llcome back to it the belief that
you can just go download aprintable curriculum, see my air
quotes there and be able todeliver it and just instantly be
successful with it.

(14:44):
Sometimes it works, but a lotof times it doesn't.
And again it comes back to yourfluency.
Do you understand themechanisms that are happening?
Do you understand why certainactivities were selected?
Does the creator understand whythey put them in there?

(15:04):
And if they do, why the heckhaven't they provided an
explanation?
These are not trade secrets.
We have treatment plannerseverywhere.
But again, I'm getting off topic, thinking out loud, right, but
anyway, the first issue withusing AI in school counseling is
that even if AI is churning outa bunch of information to you,

(15:28):
you're going to need to be anexpert at your craft.
The second thing, somethingthat you may know or maybe
you've heard, but just don'tunderstand the true implications
of it because you haven't hadthe opportunity to work with it
a lot.
Ai makes up a lot of stuff.
It has a tendency tohallucinate information when it

(15:53):
doesn't know the answers,information when it doesn't know
the answers, and it will rarelytell you that it doesn't know,
unless you specifically instructit to do so.
And even then it will sometimesfly off the rails, and so a lot
of times it will just makethings up that it thinks will be
plausible, but it doesn't havea human's depth and breadth of

(16:16):
experience to really understandif that information is actually
plausible at all.
Here's a confession I triedusing AI to help me find
research.
I wanted to find academicpapers on certain topics, and
even though you would think thatfinding resources like that in

(16:37):
published journals would bepretty easy and straightforward,
I'm here to tell you right nowit was not, and as I was looking
for those resources, I would goback because I wasn't willing
to take the information at facevalue.
Just knowing what I know aboutAI, I would go find those papers

(16:58):
through the different databasesthat I'm a member of, through
Google, through things like that.
I wanted to identify the paperand read it with my own two eyes
.
I wanted to download it,archive it.
I wanted to have tangible proofof its existence and probably
50 to 60% of the time that Iasked chat GPT for resources, it

(17:24):
just flat made stuff up.
It would make up article titles, authors' names, even journal
names.
Sometimes it would go so far asto create fraudulent abstracts.
It was crazy and it was scarythe amount of information that
it could falsify in half asecond, even when instructed not

(17:48):
to do so.
So I thought maybe I just needto train it up a little bit, and
so I consulted some people inthat field and tried training it
up, and that's been going onprobably almost a year and I'm
no longer using it for podcastresearch purposes.
I just kind of dabble in ithere and there when I'm

(18:09):
interested in something, but ithas, hands down, not been a
reliable resource.
So do you have the fluency to beable to discern whether or not
AI is hallucinating?
Because, I'm going to be honest, sometimes it is very
convincing.
It can sound really good but be100% false.

(18:32):
And so we are not yet to apoint in our world where I think
this is ready for prime time inschool counseling, not in a
world where we have peopleblindly just downloading
resources and using them withoutquestioning them at all.
And I'm not trying to take awayfrom your expertise and the
level of commitment to yourcraft, but you know and I know

(18:55):
this is going on, and do wereally want to turn everybody
loose with AI?
With that kind of mindset?
That starts to feel really,really scary.
You probably also need to knowthat AI is famous for its biases
Lots and lots of biases builtinto those different kinds of

(19:20):
software, lots of things thatare almost impossible to unteach
it.
And so when we're working withthings as sensitive as emotional
health, mental health,interpersonal skills,
identifying cultural nuance ofbehaviors and beliefs, we can't
rely on a biased model.

(19:41):
It's ridiculous, and yet wehave people out there trying to
convince you that this is thegreatest thing since sliced
bread.
Now I will say I do sometimesfeel like I have the curse of
looking too far into things, butI'm here to tell you, just
based on the bias aspect alone,I would not trust AI in my

(20:06):
school counseling program atthis point in time.
All right, well, that was a lotof thoughts and a lot of
feelings.
I'm going to pause it there,but I have more thoughts for you
and I'm going to come back nextweek with the rest of what I'm
thinking about Things like howthe online resource world for

(20:27):
school counselors is going tochange, what some of the things
are that we need to be lookingtoward as we see those changes
start, and the way that we maybe undermining our own efforts
to advocate, to elevate ourposition on campus with the
resources that we're opting touse.

(20:49):
So, if you've been doing thethings that everybody else is
doing, if you've been followingthe crowd and just downloading
things or trying to generatethings because you think that's
what everybody's doing, I wantyou to make sure that you join
me again next week.
And again, I'm not trying toconvince you to change the way
you're doing things, but I dowant to expand your knowledge

(21:12):
base.
I want you to be able to thinkthrough the things you're doing
critically so that we can makesure that we are using these
resources ethically while stillretaining our integrity.
All right, so it's getting deep, friends.
It's getting deep, but it'swell worth thinking about.
We got to get ahead of thispower curve and just considering

(21:34):
all of the angles right.
We don't want to blindly justjump on the bandwagon because
everybody else is doing it.
All right.
Well, I'll be back next weekwith part two of the AI and
school counseling conversationand until then, I hope you have
the best week.
I know many of you are headedback to work this week.

(21:55):
May the force be with you, andI know the kids are going to be
so excited to see you, and Ican't wait to see my students
when they return this Wednesday.
It's going to be a great day,for sure.
So have the best week and wewill talk again soon.
Take care.
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