A psychologist looks at education

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33527, 7 May 1974, Page 15

A psychologist looks at education

The life of the average New Zealander is less happy, less worth while, and less fulfilling than it could be.

In my work as a psychologist I repeatedly encounter — in both my private and professional life — people who fall far below their actual potential. I am not referring here just to the drug addict, the delinquent, the alcoholic, and the host of others whose plight is pathetic enough to warrant some degree of public attention and concern, but also to that vast silent majority whose suffering is less public, whose protest is less dramatic, but whose situation is no less tragic. I refer here to those people who are imprisoned in marriages which are sustained by mutual antagonism and distaste where conflict and hostility erupt from time to time, those people who spend their entire working lives in unrewarding employment, and the friendless, lonely housewife whose life has long lost any real meaning. The list could go on interminably. The point I am making here is that suffering, distress, and a host of problems in living are endemic in our community. The unfavourable situations which I have mentioned, and the large number of others which readily spring to mind, are not just facts of modern life resulting from a technologically advanced society. Rather they are a product of the way people feel and react in different situations, a result of their “hang-ups”, to use the modern idiom. Family situation Although such a state of affairs has its origin within the family situation, particularly in the way in which the parents behave towards the child in the first five years of life, the schools in this country are doing very little in an attempt to rectify this situation. It is true that the Education Department has appointed school counsellors, but they are comparatively few in number when the enormity of their task is considered. The result is that the majority of their time is spent in attempting to paper over the cracks in those cases where a child’s

The remedial approach would involve the therapeutic intervention of the teacher. He must be both capable of recognising the child in need of assistance and also be competent to offer such help.

In short, I envisage the teacher involving himself progressively more into the counselling situation, extending his work beyond the child and into the family situation where such difficulties originally began. Such an approach goes far beyond the present liaison between teacher and parent — the occasional formal meeting at P.T.A. sessions. For living

The educative approach would involve the incorporation into the syllabus material designed as education for living. This would be designed towards helping persons gain insight into their own motivations and

behaviour has been so grossly disturbed as to warrant attention. Very little of a real remedial or therapeutic nature is achieved. Perhaps even worse, the vast majority of children whose behaviour is a little less disturbed, receive virtually no attention at all. This situation is equally bad at the primary level where practitioners possessing the requisite therapeutic skills for dealing with emotional disturbances among young children are almost non-existent. What, then, can we reasonably expect our educational system to do in a response to the problems in living which are manifest in our society? There are at least two major approaches which are needed, one remedial, the other educative. As the recruitment of trained professionals in sufficient numbers would be impractical for a number of obvious reasons, a large proportion of the burden would have to fall on the teachers themselves. Teachers would, however, have to redefine their roles, and also undertake in-service training in order to equip themselves for such a task.

problems, teaching them what they can reasonably expect from their lives, and in what areas their abilities are being eroded by their personality difficulties. This would also include comprehensive material dealing with relationships, and in particular the parent-child relationship. The teaching, in this context, of what is involved in rearing emotionally healthy children could only be beneficial in its effect. What I have briefly described here may seem both time-consuming and expensive. When the possible benefits are thrown into relief against the costs of the human distress which is our present condition, however, such considerations disappear.