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Unit 19: Organizing Counseling Services at School Level

would feel reassured if their problems were recognized and accepted as legitimate. Most students, Notes
therefore, want to find sympathetic listeners in their teachers. Often, not meeting with this
requirement, they are compelled to turn to their peers, who are no more experienced or knowledgeable
than they are themselves. Naturally they receive little or no help and their problems may increase
in intensity and this may be manifested in several ways, the most frequent being their incapacity to
study. It is, therefore, necessary for students with marked emotional problems to be given the kind
of assistance that would assuage their conflicts. Failure to recognize this would result in students
suffering from problems of role definition and differentiation. Non-resolution of these would develop
feelings of insecurity which could become upsetting and traumatic. In a situation like this he could
resort to day-dreaming as a substitute for effort which could lead to undesirable consequences.
Adolescence has yet another dimension which is very stressful and may lead the young people to
several problems. One serious problem concerns interest in sex which could become more compelling
and urgent in its quest for avenues of expression and eventual gratification. This could become a
very painful experience if knowledge about sex is inadequate and sketchy. Such knowledge may
lead to behaviour which could be detrimental to their adjustment and well-being. Most people tend
to be unsympathetic towards this aspect of adolescents’ stressful experience. It should be recognized
that counseling young people during this stage of their lives is as necessary as it is important.
Educational counseling has emerged as a discipline to provide help to students on campuses of
schools, colleges and universities, such that they are not tormented by their internal conflicts, do not
become cynical and do not resort to self-destructive strategies. Counseling has become increasingly
accepted as a positive programme in educational institutions. In recent times education has come to
have a wider meaning, namely, counseling, for it has increasingly been realized that learning in the
ultimate analysis is individual or self-learning. The external agencies—teachers, books, libraries,
etc.—can only help the individual learner to pursue and realize his goal in accordance with his
desires and wishes.
The school has an important pervasive counseling function. It is here that the future citizen is
encouraged to become a free and autonomous individual. Counseling in school has the ultimate
goal of making every individual pupil a responsible individual. At school, children are given a
curriculum, that is, they are provided appropriate learning experiences. The curriculum has nothing
in it to help an individual choose his line of action and thinking and be responsible for his actions
and choices. He has to realize his self through the exercise of his freedom and through his experience
of a feeling of responsibility for his choices and actions.
The purpose of education is to make persons competent. Mere learning of the prescribed course is
not enough. It does not equip people to live efficiently and happily. Most teachers are absorbed with
teaching and are concerned only with imparting intellectual skills and knowledge. Perhaps the
more important concerns of shaping and making pupils competent individuals remain neglected.
Learning is one thing, but knowing how to learn is another. Becoming sensitive to one’s environment
and responding to it (the social and the non-social parts) in a manner that would be self-satisfying
is another aspect of learning. Counselors are concerned with the latter aspects of learning. Teachers
are concerned with teaching and counselors with learning. This brings a very significant fact to the
surface. Teaching could be a group or mass activity while learning is almost entirely an individual
and personal matter. It is very essential that the self-defeating behaviour of several students on our
campuses should receive most careful attention. The self-defeating behaviour resorted to by them
often appears to be self-perpetuating.

What is team approach?

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