Page 213 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Unit 19: Organizing Counseling Services at School Level

19.8.7 Social Development and Guidance Notes
The purpose of education is to help young people acquire the knowledge, develop the habits and
skills, and attain the attitudes and ideals that are essential for adjustment to modern life and for its
progressive improvement. Although individual instruction may be more effective than group work
in the acquisition of knowledge and in the development of useful habits and skills, providing such
instruction is quite impossible.
Moreover, there are some distinct advantages in class or group organisation in learning to live and
work together, to accept restrictions essential to effective learning, to respect the rights of others,
and to cooperate with others in enterprises that are planned by the group and have, value for all.
Group work utilizes the social instinct of human beings.
Guidance has a major responsibility in assisting youth to organise or choose groups that have useful
objectives and that are suited to the desires, needs, and abilities of the individuals of the group.
Assistance to youth in social adjustments is a function of the entire school.
The administrator, librarian, teacher, and counselor all have a definite responsibility for giving such
help. Every pupil should feel that he is accepted by his teacher and by every other member of the
school staff who has contact with him. The entire atmosphere of the school should be permeated
wth this spirit even though corrections, restrictions, and punishments may be necessary.
Pupils should always feel free to come to any member of the school staff for help. The desire to be
accepted by someone is universal. We all want to have a feeling of belonging, to be needed and
wanted. Nonacceptance or open rejection often results in reprisals and in destructive activities.
Counseling can also help in assisting in the organisation of such activities as student clubs in the
secondary shcool. Very often the organisation of clubs that are constructive and useful prevents the
formation of clandestine groups that have undesirable objectives.
In many schools certain clubs are purely traditional and, although once useful, do not now meet
real needs. Such clubs should be eliminated or their purposes changed. A pupil who wishes to be
chosen for a certain club should be helped to realise the necessity for developing the qualifications
required by the club he hopes to join and of being the kind of person who will be accepted by the
members of the group.
The members of clubs should also be helped to realise their responsibility for the selection of new
members. A member should not be chosen or rejected merely for personal reasons or because he
lives on a certain side of the railroad track, nor even entirely for the contribution he can make to the
club. The help that the prospective member can get by membership in the group should also be a
factor in a decision about his selection.
It has been suggested that the choice of a new member of any club be based on his mental ability as
compared with that of the members of the group, that is, that a club made up largely of pupils of
high mental ability should choose only those students who have high mental ability.
In some cases where the activities of the club demand high ability, this might be desirable; but in
most cases this is not the case. Studies seem to indicate that the selection of a new member is more
often based on personality traits than on mental ability.
Student organisations should be helped to realise that they are very important elements in the
overall school programme and should be so organised and administered that they will be of maximum
value to the entire student body and not merely self-perpetuating clubs for certain types of students.
The problems occasioned by organisations and other elements in the school programme designed to
increase social adjustment call for guidance services. The finest programme of clubs, classes, and
activities will not help the student who has not been guided in making best use of his available
opportunities.

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