( SCHOOL REPLACES THE HOME

Enlightened Humanistic Counselors, Not Parents

The italics and parenthetic words are by Larry Rice. The original text from ERIC is all here. I did take the liberty to put some of their words on bold print so you would notice, and I also spaced out some of the phrases.

This article can be found in its unaltered form thru the ERIC Digest through the U.S. Department of Education. The number of the article is ED328829 31 Jan 91 Guidance--The Heart of Education: Three Exemplary Approaches. ERIC Digest.
Author: Ellis, Thomas I.)

ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Personnel Services, Ann Arbor, Mich.

THIS DIGEST WAS CREATED BY ERIC, THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ERIC, CONTACT ACCESS ERIC 1-800-LET-ERIC

INTRODUCTION

During the 1980s, when "A Nation At Risk" (1983) set the tone for public discourse on education and when politicians throughout the country were clamoring for educational reform, school districts came under great pressure to raise academic standards, lengthen the school day, implement state-mandated basic curricula, and otherwise become more accountable to taxpayers. But by and large, the advocates of "educational excellence" at that time paid virtually no attention to addressing the urgent personal or emotional needs of our students.

Fortunately, a new school of thought is emerging among educators and counselors. Unlike the reform movement of the past decade, this new movement takes full account of students' personal needs in formulating educational goals. Proponents of this school of thought recognize the close relationship between students' academic development and their personal growth; accordingly, they are

seeking to place guidance at the heart of the educational process.

The three exemplary guidance programs presented here represent three different, but compatible approaches to this goal.

Norm Gysbers' Comprehensive Guidance Program Model, and

Robert Myrick's Teacher Advisor Program

are both based on the idea that

guidance is an integral part of a school's educational mission

rather than an "ancillary" service peripheral to the curriculum.

This idea in turn presupposes an

enlightened humanistic conception of education,

which

• recognizes
• and validates

THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDANCE PROGRAM MODEL

Since 1971, Norman C. Gysbers and his associates at the University of Missouri-Columbia have been developing, field-testing, refining, and implementing the Comprehensive Guidance Program Model, an innovative, program-based organizational plan that has been adopted by school districts throughout the nation. The foundation for the Model--the theoretical basis for identifying the guidance, knowledge, skills, and attitudes (competencies) that students need is called Life Career Development, defined as self-development over a person's life span through the integration of roles, settings, and events in a person's life. Accordingly, this Model emphasizes three domains of human growth and development:

*Self-knowledge and interpersonal skills.

Helping students to develop

awareness and

acceptance

of themselves and others,

and to develop personal standards

and a sense of purpose in life.

create your own, start from scratch, inside you, free from any absolutes

*Life roles, settings, and events. Emphasizing knowledge and understanding of the interrelatedness of various life roles.

*Life career planning. Appraising personal values as they relate to prospective life career plans and decisions.

The Comprehensive Guidance Program Model consists of three structural foundations and four interactive program components. The structural foundations--definition, rationale, and assumptions-- emphasize the centrality of guidance to the total education program, and define the relationship between guidance and other aspects of the curriculum. The four program components delineate the major activities, and the roles and responsibilities of personnel involved in the guidance program:

*Guidance curriculum, or structured classroom activities, organized around the three domains of student competencies;

*Individual planning, including activities designed to assist students in monitoring and understanding their own growth and development;

(of course Bible can't be used for this plan of assistance.) *Responsive services, such as information seeking, crisis counseling, and teacher/parent/specialist consultation; and

Want to predict how strong the specialist consultation will be!?

*System support, activities geared toward program management and operations.

One principal rationale behind the Comprehensive Guidance Program Model is to enable counselors to regain control of their time on the job by allocating 100 percent of their time to the four program components discussed above--guidance curriculum, individual planning, responsive services, and system support. The Comprehensive Guidance Program Model is oriented above all toward student development; it is a programmatic framework which allows

counselors to devote their primary attention to

guidance activities

and structured group experiences

for all students.

THE TEACHER ADVISOR PROGRAM

The assumption behind Robert D. Myrick's Teacher Advisor Program (TAP) is that each student needs a friendly adult in the school who knows and cares about him or her in a personal way. The advisors help their advisees deal with the problems of growing up and getting the most out of school. A teacher-advisor is usually responsible for an advisee's cumulative folder, work folders, teacher-student conferences, parent conferences, group guidance experiences and follow-up on academic progress reports. Advisors also consult with other teachers, school counselors, and support personnel about their advisees.

TAP is designed to provide an opportunity for all the students in a school to participate in a small and cohesive group of 15 to 25 peers led by a sensitive and caring teacher who promotes and monitors individual students' educational and developmental experiences as they progress through school. Teacher-advisors meet with their advisees on a regular basis through a "homeroom" or "homebase" group. This becomes, in effect,

the students' home within the school,

where they have a supportive teacher

and group of peers

with whom they can explore personal interests, goals, and concerns.

The guidance curriculum varies from one school to another, but it generally addresses personal, social, and academic concerns. Some of the personal and social skills addressed include getting acquainted, self-esteem, and time management. Academic topics might include policies and procedures from the school handbook and computing grade point averages. Career and educational planning topics include career exploration and choices, employability skills and the job market.

Since many high school teachers have never had a guidance course and many are unsure of how to lead a group discussion with adolescents, teachers may need special preparation in how to work with their students and how to build guidance units for their groups.

Counselors can therefore assist teachers (notice the ommission of parents) in developing guidance units, or they can work together as a team in developing and delivering a guidance curriculum, with counselors taking over homebase groups on occasion. Guidance counselors taking over home...groups... It is important, therefore, to establish a cooperative and supportive relationship between teachers and counselors so that they can define their respective roles and differentiate responsibilities.

To enlist the support of a school's faculty for TAP and developmental guidance, it is essential that all teachers understand the philosophy of TAP and commit adequate time to it. Counselors should therefore provide a developmental guidance curriculum guide to establish guidance objectives and provide activities, but allow teachers to choose or discard suggested activities according to their needs. Since most teachers need more training

in how to help students solve

personal problems

or get them working cooperatively in small groups,

counselors also may need to assist teachers in developing guidance and interpersonal skills. Administrative support and periodic evaluation are also essential.

The Invitational Learning concept, developed by William W. Purkey, offers a blueprint of what counselors, teachers, principals, supervisors, superintendents, and others can do to enrich the

physical and

psychological

environments of institutions and encourage the development of the people who live and work there.

Invitational Learning is based on four value-based assumptions regarding the

nature of people

and their potential and

the nature of

professional helping:

notice the 'professional' is used while the spiritual or minister or even plain old fashioned family is omitted as being outmoded and no longer functional

*Respect: People are able, valuable, and responsible and should be treated accordingly;

*Trust: Education should be a collaborative, cooperative activity where process is as important as product;

(I go further to say process determines product. It does in chemistry, physics, and math. The process of public school conditions children to omit God and to accept the idea as demonstrated by actions in school that the only time for God is during that one hour a week in church. The rest of the time, especially at school, the children are learning that He is irrelevant! This is not good!) *Optimism: People possess untapped potential in all areas of human endeavor; and

*Intentionality: Human potential can best be realized by places, policies, programs, and processes that are specifically designed to invite development, and by people who are intentionally inviting with themselves and others, personally and professionally.

In a school or any other organization, everything is connected to everything else. And so, in applying Invitational Learning, everything counts in creating an environment that invites individuals to reach their potential:

*Places. Creating an attractive and inviting physical setting is the easiest way to begin the process of incorporating the Invitational Learning concept into a school or other organization.

*Policies. Professional counselors can assist schools in developing policies that encourage student responsibility and participation rather than those that create pervasive anxiety, mistrust, and mindless conformity.

(When a humanist uses words like mindless conformity he refers often to conforming to Biblical standards. The application of the mind is taught as 'higer critical thinking' whereby students are shown the outdated uselessness of religious faith.) *Programs. Programs that incorporate the assumptions of Invitational Learning include incentive programs such as peer counseling for dropout prevention, faculty mentoring, and other collaborative programs where students, teachers, and counselors all gain by helping and encouraging one another.

( Question is do they encourage with philosophies of men or do they encourage with the truth of God? The previous paragraph on Programs can sound good. You must consider the source of wisdom for such things as 'peer counseling' faculty mentoring etc.)

*Processes. How we teach or counsel and how we act while doing these things are far more important in the long run than what students or clients learn. Educators and counselors in successful schools establish behavioral norms of collegiality, professional development, mutual assistance, and ongoing discussion of instruction and curricular improvements among themselves, and they cultivate attitudes of respect for all students and attention to their needs in all of their interactions.

(Hello! Look at how they recognize the kernel of the seed! When will Christian parents wake up to this same foundational truth?! What things are far more important than the data children learn? Answer is the way of life they learn, the way of living, the way of communicating that data. Notice the humanists have managed to have children in a forty hour environment void of reference to God or the Bible.

*People. The daily interaction between teachers and students, counselors and clients, and professionals amongst themselves, ultimately determines the success or failure of Invitational Learning. Counselors and teachers who wish to employ Invitational Learning therefore need a sound knowledge of human development.

(Early American educators said teachers needed a sound knowledge of scripture and faith toward God but now we only ask for a degree in philosophies of men called psychology.)

The goal of Invitational Learning is thus to provide an optimally inviting total environment, both for professional helpers themselves and for those with whom they work. In this respect, it is fully compatible with both the Comprehensive Guidance Program Model and the Teacher Advisor Program.

All three approaches

affirm the centrality of developmental guidance

to the educational process, and all are predicated on mutual respect and human dignity--for counselors, teachers, and students alike.

(Notice the omission of parents from that formula. Parents are a root to the past. But new age taught counselors leading children in peer group discussions can lead young children into new areas .)

REFERENCES

Gysbers, N. C. (1990). Comprehensive guidance programs that work. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan, ERIC Counseling and Personnel Services Clearinghouse.

Myrick, R. D. (1990). The teacher advisor program: An innovative approach to school guidance. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan, ERIC Counseling and Personnel Services Clearinghouse.

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A Nation at Risk. Washington, DC: Author.

Purkey, W. W., & Schmidt, J. J. (1990). Invitational learning for counseling and development. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan, ERIC Counseling and Personnel Services Clearinghouse.

-----

Thomas I. Ellis, Ph.D., is Special Projects Coordinator at ERIC/CAPS.

This publication was prepared with funding from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education under contract number RI88062011. The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of OERI or the Department of Education.