FRANCESCA DOLOR, M.S.
Counseling + Teaching Portfolio
LAKAS
Tagalog: strong, powerful, loud.
teaching + counseling philosophy
L.ove | A.wareness + A.ction | K.a | A.ctualization | (inner) S.trength
Growing up as a daughter of immigrants and first in my family to embark on many journeys that no one in my family had ever pursued, I was always told that I needed to be strong in the face of adversity.
What I’ve found is that “strength” is not just brushing yourself off after challenges and moving forward. To be lakas is to love against all odds by engaging in authentic, meaningful relationships with ourselves and our communities, to fully transform into the self that we want to be, and to use our unique strengths to be of service to our communities.
As a college counselor and educator, I strive to promote lakas in all students who enter my classroom and office through the following pillars:
LOVE
“When we love, we can let our hearts speak.” - bell hooks
To root my work in love means to ensure that all students feel genuinely seen, heard, and cared for. This means truly taking the time to get to know the whole student and always giving them space to share their lived experiences with me.
However, love cannot exist without trust, so I use genuine listening and empathy to build the trusting relationships that allow love to flourish so that students can embrace vulnerability and let the heart speak.
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ACTION
In working with college students, I understand that many students pursue a degree so that they can have economic and social mobility and financial freedom. However, I strive to encourage them to take it a step further and think about the ways their college degrees can give them the tools, knowledge, and skills to take ACTION and create changes in their communities. Through a trusting counseling relationship, my students and I collaborate to identify what they care about and how this can translate into a major that will allow them to take ACTION against problems and inequalities they see in their communities.
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Action as a value also means that I encourage students to take actions outside of academics to promote college success. It’s a well-known fact that simply earning a college degree does not promise you a job. I wish someone emphasized this more to me as a first-gen student. In both teaching and counseling, I try to be a cultural navigator, or someone that shows students the tools they need to be successful through and beyond college. This means connecting them to internships, volunteer opportunities, folks in the community for informational interviews, and developing their leadership capacity and skills for life long learning.
KA
KA is a symbol from pre-colonial Philippine script. KA means connection. To some, KA represents two rivers joined by a center line. To others, it represents two spirits joined by a center line.
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KA highlights the importance of human connection in creating a meaningful life. We are relational beings, and we cannot thrive in isolation.
I strive to create classroom spaces that promote authentic relationship building by embracing radical vulnerability, listening, and empathy.
This means prioritizing learning through community dialogue, empowering each other to share our stories and listening with the intent to understand not refute, and healing from relational harm through transformative justice practices.
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As a counselor, this also means becoming fully involved in my students educational journeys by teaching or being present in their classes, coordinating great programs that meet their needs, facilitating workshops for them, and more. I believe that when students see me actively involved in their community, they are more likely to show up for counseling as their authentic selves.
ACTUALIZATION
Commonly defined by Abraham Maslow, self-actualization refers to the “realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities.”
While Maslow places self-actualization at the top of our needs as human beings, there is a level that goes beyond this that has been recognized by Indigenous communities for ages: community actualization.
I strive to promote both self- and community-actualization by building trusting relationships that grant students permission to dig deeper into understanding who they are - their strengths, areas of growth, passions, and influences - and how they can use their gifts to contribute to the longevity of their communities, cultures, and society as a whole.
(inner)
STRENGTH
I reject the deficit-model thinking that underlies our educational system and defines our students by what they lack and instead shift my focus toward building students’ innate strengths.
Staying grounded in students’ strengths means highlighting the sources of capital students bring to education from their communities and lived experiences.
While I acknowledge students’ past struggles and work with them to gain insight on the root of their presenting problems, I remain focused on how to use their internal resources to forge the path toward healing.
