Binita Donohue

Ms. Binita Donohue is an Upper School counselor. She cares about helping young people understand the world. She is kind, caring, and passionate about her job, and helps young adults go through the ups and downs of high school. Along with helping students with their social and emotional difficulties, Ms. Donohue co-leads the high school SOCA (Students Of Color Association) club. From navigating social media to helping with friendship issues, Ms. Donohue has a really big impact on the high school students and their mental health and development.

Ms. Donohue has worked at Parker for six years. She worked at other schools for 20 years before coming to Parker, including 12 years in Chicago Public Schools, always with high school students. She trained as a social worker and also teaches grad school students who want to become social workers like herself. Earlier in her career, she found that some of the ways schools dealt with students' problems were less than ideal, so when she saw a high school counselor job open up, she took it. Ms. Donohue had a very interesting childhood. She was born in Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat, India, and moved to Cleveland, Ohio when she was four years old, where she lived before moving to Chicago in the 1980s. Outside of work, Ms. Donohue enjoys traveling and reading long novels. She also likes to cook, and she is not a big TV person.

“I wanted to work at Parker because I wanted to see different education.”

Being a high school counselor isn’t easy. Upper School students lead stressful lives, and they come to see Ms. Donohue with a variety of concerns, many of which involve social media. One particularly bad issue arose when there was an app where students could talk about others anonymously. She led a discussion with the entire high school about that. When problems come up, Ms. Donohue stays calm, takes a deep breath and works things out. This is a very admirable skill.

Our interview with Ms. Donohue made it clear that she really enjoys helping young people. They are the future, she says, and she enjoys helping to guide them through upsets and difficulties. She says that things that families have to face year-to-year vary. There are some issues that stay the same over the years, and there are some more specific concerns that arise with events going on in the world or individual situations. One thing Ms. Donohue has noticed is that, especially for students who have been at Parker for a long time, people sometimes develop stories about others when they’re little, and sometimes they can’t let those stories go in Upper School, which can make it hard for students to "let go" of their Middle School selves.

“[Students] are the future.”

Ms. Donohue counsels many stressed students. Chronic stress is something she sees often in students. She believes that certain amounts of stress can be beneficial to people in some ways, as a motivator. An example of that is in sports. Stress in sports can make you want to try harder, Ms. Donohue believes. She helps young people figure out how much stress is good for them and how much is bad for them. This can depend on the individual student, as some deal with stress differently than others.

“Kids are trying to make sense of the world.”

Social media, Ms. Donohue notes, can be a positive or a negative thing depending on how it is used. She says that it allows creativity and connections between people around the world. An example of this is when International Women’s Day was represented on Instagram. People posted inspirational quotes and images, and this really lifted her spirits. Social media can also be a bad thing because people can say mean things about others anonymously. Ms. Donohue says students have to make sense of social media and how it affects them and the world around them.

Ms. Donohue is a very interesting and kind person. She has made it her mission to help people deal with the stresses and the unknowns of growing up. We appreciate all the information she shared with us and that she took time to meet with us during her busy day. We are very grateful to have had this opportunity to speak with her.